Daily Submission

Went pretty light tonight at BJJ. I wanted to stay technical... and I am just tired. I haven't work this hard in years and the past couple of weeks have been rough. Adam taught the flower sweep and three methods of defending a guard pass tonight. One thing I have learned over the past little while is the Brazilian Jiu jitsu player love to name everything. We have rubber guard, z guard, x guard, de la riva guard, octopus, turtle and sea bass guard. Well I made the last one up (I think). The flower pass is not new. I learned it in Judo years ago but it wasn't a specific sweep. It was taught as a counter to someone defending an armbar from the guard. It went like this:
Control the wrist of the arm you are going to attack, hook the opposite side leg with your other arm (or grab the hem of the pants) and spin into an armbar. When the guy defends, throw the leg that is over his head to the side (away from the body) and lift the leg as you situp. Throw your leg back over is head and you are in the classic armbar position.
Adam also taught this as a setup to a triangle. I found that hard, which isn't surprising because I am not good with triangles. I tended to get to much space too easily transition to a triangle. I did however end up with a couple of omaplatas.

The guard pass defenses ranged from simple to slightly complex. The first one was in defense of the basic underhook pass. All you do is push under his arm pit as he circles around and use it to keep him out of side control as you sit up. The second was a little hard for me. It started in a shrimp position with your far knee on his chest, foot under the armpit. The idea was that you use the other leg to roll over and spin back into guard. I can't really explain it so I will try to find video and post that. The last one was pretty simple as well. It starts in the shrimp position again but this time the near knee is against his chest. All you simply do is take the far leg over his arm and place it on his opposite hip ( ie your left foot on his left hip). You push off to create space and shift your hips back to regain guard.

As I said earlier, I rolled pretty technical today. I really wanted to concentrate on technique rather than using my strength or scrambling a lot. Half guard is starting to come easier. I can normally get the underhook and whip up to my side pretty easily now. From there you can get up to your knees and just bull the other guy over or slip out and take his back, so that alone is a good milestone. However, the old school sweep needs some work. Tonight I couldn't quit get the foot so I let go and posted the knee. It worked and I will remember that for later but I need to get at that foot a little earlier. I still have some trouble going the other way. When I hook under his leg, I sometimes get stuck with him sitting on me. Normally, I just muscle him over and scoot out the back but today (at 50%) it wasn't working. I think I need to work rolling into him and sweeping him that way.
I managed a little rubber guard today. Still aways to go but I managed to get into mission control and new york a few times. Now I just need to go from there.
My scissor sweep is still one of my go to sweeps, I think I landed it twice tonight. I tried it a third time but that was one too many. And my guard passing is solid. I have been really focusing in on the basics: Control the biceps, staple hips to ground, posture, knee in butt, open guard, pass. It is working well. Thanks Cecil. My top positional game in general is come back nicely.

Things that are not going well? I am not finishing. Last class and tonight I let my partner out of too many subs. I missed like three armbars, two chokes, two knee bars and a heel hook tonight. Setup was nice on all of them but I just didn't finish. Granted I wasn't going full strength and I could have probably powered them in but that was not the goal tonight. I am bigger than my training partner and if that is the only reason I tap him then things are not going well. I am also giving my back up to much. That is the judoka in me. If I end up on bottom of side control, especially after a scramble, I tend to roll to my back and turtle. I get away with it most of the time but it is a bad habit to get into. I tapped once tonight because I gave my partner my back and he managed to neck crank me while attempting a rear naked choke.