Martial Arts Wellington 272 Taranaki St GSW BJJ NZ

Archive for January, 2008

Hump the leg, Mr Lawrence!

 Horny Chihuahua Sweep

One person takes half-guard, left knee in their opponent’s chest preventing them from pressing forward and controlling the upper body

Tracking your left arm on the inside of your blocking leg, you:

• shift your blocking leg out of the way, letting their weight topple forward
• as you move your knee out of the way, track your left arm on the inside to get the underhook
• dive deep to grab onto their near leg with both arms
• you should be deep enough that your ear is against their hip

From here:

• reach under their lower left shin with your right hand, palm up grip
• pull their shin toward your left hand
• swap hands, gripping their toes/upper foot with your left hand*
• move both your feet to the inside of their legs
• squeeze your knees together and stretch your legs to your left as you drive into them
• keep control of their foot as you walk around to the left to take side control

*for extra control on stronger opponents, you can use two hands – snake your right hand under the shin and grab the top of their knee

Horny Chihuahua Plan B

After doing all that hard work, some opponents will be rude enough to post out with their hand to stop the sweep.

In this case:

• plant your feet to the mat
• bridge and roll to the left
• keep hold of the foot as before and walk around to side control

Horny Chihuahua Back-Door Option (Plan C)

If they’re quick enough to anticipate Plan B and post again to the other side:

• get to your knees and start moving toward their back
• with one hook in already (your right leg) you’ve got a good headstart

At this point, they’ll probably try to roll in toward you if they have half a clue.

To prevent this, grab their right sleeve with your right hand and push it toward the mat. Your left underhook can also control their lat or far arm to stop them turning.

 Sneaky Knee Defense

If you have 1/2 guard but your opponent has you controlled, flat on your back:

• block their left hip with your right hand
• plant your left foot
• shift your hips out to the left to make space
• bring your left knee in to push agains their right hip

From here you can proceed to Horny Chihuahua:

• stretch your left arm across to the right and touch the mat*
• track your arm on the inside of your knee as you dive down as per the H.C.

*this creates space and turns your shoulder under your opponent’s chest, preventing their weight from driving you onto your back again

 Half-Hooks Sweep

Again, from 1/2 guard, flat on your back:

To sweep:

• control their right arm keeping it close to your ribs
• reach up behind your head with your right hand, trapping their left arm
• lift with your hook, turning onto your right side
• straighten your back away from your opponent
• come over to mount

Arc-sweep / Butt-cheek sweep/ I’m-making-these-names-up sweep

Your opponent has the underhook and is attempting to control your head with their right arm:

• reach across and grab their left sleeve with your left hand
• grab their left leg using the gi pants with your right hand
• keeping your arm extended circle your arm around your head and down to your left butt-cheek/hip
• roll over your left shoulder
• keep your leg bent – this allows their falling weight to drag you over with them to 1/2 guard top

Once you’re on top, use the pants grip to push their legs apart so you can escape your right leg. Take side control.

Good to see some new faces show up 

We covered off 3 sweeps today (References below) Basic sweep from Guard,Basic Hook sweep, and Half Guard sweep that Geoff has been covering in previous sessions

The idea was to practice all 3 sweeps, then to go through rounds of pass or sweep using 1 of the 3, which we did.

The whole Idea of doing this today was trying to get people to be adaptable and think about the dynamics of things, eg.   the size of their partner etc. For example if you have short legs, why would you use the guard sweep if you can hardly get your legs around your partner and be at a disadvantage from the word go. In order to be adaptable why not use one of the other sweeps (half or Hooks) which gives you a better shot at sweeping your partner.

Not only that, it gave Newbies a chance to learn what was Guard, Hooks,and Half Guard 

Basic guard sweep

Partner is in our guard and has his left leg up,while controlling the right arm and their collar, uncross the feet and hip out to the right.slide your right leg across their stomach.pull the partner towards you while scissoring your legs causing them to fall to the left, follow them over to mount

Hooks Sweep

Partner is on their knees and we have hooks in.Grabbing the underhook in this case right hand, we place our head to the left of their head and pin there right arm to their body ,we then fall on our left shoulder, and as we do kick up our right leg, and follow then over to side control

Half Guard sweep or Horny Chihuahua

We have half guard on our partner, with out left knee in their hip, and out left hand on the side of our knee getting ready to shoot underneath as they bring there weight forward.Once we can feel their weight we shoot underneath going as deep down as we can to grab their left foot(preferably under the ankle) with our right hand and feed it to the left(making sure that out left had is underneath their butt not over the top)We can then grab the toes with the left and with the right hand grab the knee we then stretch ourselves out and sweep them to the back(not 90 degrees but about 135 degrees)

The class in a nutshell:

1) For each position you find yourself in when grappling e.g. guard, mount, side-control etc have an immediate action to improve your situation.

2) The best defense is not being there for the attack. The earlier you can sense events moving out of your favour, the greater the chances of escaping or improving the situation.

The wordy version:

When you’re grappling, chances are you’re going to be transitioning at least a few times between positions. The person that’s able to orient themselves first after these transitions gains a significant advantage. Once you realise where you are, if you sit there thinking about it, that advantage shifts to your opponent – unless they’re staring off into space too. This is where having an ‘immediate action’ is invaluable.

You want your immediate action to be a movement that- in however small a way – moves you closer to your goal. Ultimately, that’s a submission. Of course, there may be several steps to get there. If you’ve just transitioned underneath someone’s mount, that immediate action will have to be directed first to an escape. This is still one step closer.

We looked at applying this principle from several situations.

Escaping mount

It was pointed out that the best way to stop your opponent getting mount is to stay home and watch TV. If you really can’t stop coming to class though, the next best thing is to anticipate the movement, or at least to realise what’s happening before they really consolidate the position.

The key point is : the earlier you can work your escape, the greater your chance of getting out of there.

An immediate reaction in this case was to:

• turn onto your side
• block their hips
• drive your hips toward your head (yes, a hip escape)

From this immediate action, you can then move to the next action – getting a hook in, getting grips to sweep etc.

Side control

In this situation, your guard has been all but passed and your opponent just has to grab your collar to get a good side control. An immediate action in this case was to :

• defend your neck

Protecting yourself from this initial threat you can now continue your escape by:

• planting your feet
• hipping away from your opponent
• turning onto your stomach to face your opponent
• bringing your knees in

Guard

One of the best things you can do to improve your guard is to try to always stay on one hip, rather than flat on your back. Imagine having a tennis ball tied to the small of your back and every time you roll onto your back it digs in. This would be a great incentive to not being flat on your back. Rather than everyone coming to class with a tennis ball tied to their back though, just make a habit of turning your hips to one side whenever you find yourself in guard. By turning slightly to one side, you make it more difficult for your opponent to direct their weight down through your hips and shoulders, pinning you to the mat. It also puts you in a better position for working an escape or submission.

With this in mind our immediate action for closed guard was:

• grab their right sleeve with both hands
• drop your feet to the mat

As you shift your hips out to the left (turning onto your right hip)

• pull their arm in front of you
• grab their left lat with your left arm and keep close to them

As they attempt to posture up

• shift your hips under them
• drop your left leg
• arc your right leg to the left to roll them over to mount

Today we worked through arm-bars from:

• mount
• knee ride – near arm
• knee ride – far am
• guard

From Mount

In this scenario, we’re exploiting a natural reaction to having a hairy, smelly chest in close proximity to the face – pushing the weight off with both hands.

One person takes mount

• lean forward and smother your opponent with your chest

• ease the smothering a bit to enable your opponent to push your weight off, extending their arms

• pick an arm you’d like to armbar

• bring your arm on the same side around the top of that arm

• bring your other arm between their arms

• press both of your palms to their chest, letting them take your weight

Keeping your weight applied to your opponent’s chest

• hop up to your feet – foot on the attacking side next to their ear, the other one close to the far hip

• step over their head with the attacking side foot

• claim their arm, either with both arms or one arm grabbing the arm, the other their near leg

• slide down their arm to sit on the floor

• squeeze your knees to trap their arm

• weld their little finger to your chest, ensuring their elbow is turned the correct way

• lie back – SLOWLY – to apply pressure to the elbow joint until they tap

Key points:

• hip penetration – get your hips as close to their shoulder as you can as you slide down the arm. This means that:

a) they have a lot more work to do to extricate their arm

b) your hips are in an optimal position to apply pressure to the elbow joint, rather than going hell for leather to try and break their forearm.

• if you don’t end up with your hips in close, keep the arm secure and just scoot your hips closer. Then lie back for the finish.

• squeeze the knees! You need to trap that arm and keep it on the correct angle to ensure the tap

• knees bent -Particularly with the knee closest to their head, you want that knee bent and the heel pulled in against their neck. This enables you to drive high with the hips if necessary to apply additional pressure to the elbow joint.

As you become more confident, you can dispense with the initial jump to the feet and just swing your legs straight round for the armbar.
NB: If you lose control and fall back prematurely, let your partner’s arm go!

From Guard

• grip your opponent’s sleeve with your hand on the same side e.g. left hand grabs their right sleeve

• reach across the front of their right arm with your right hand and grip their tricep – your arm forms a kind of s-shape.

• bring your left knee up in a straight line to rest on their hip – this helps prevent them from pulling their trapped arm back

Now – pushing off your left foot, you do three things simultaneously

• sit up

• raise your right leg and cut it toward your opponent in an arc

• turn your upper body off to the right so you’re at or close to 90 degrees to your opponent*

Then:

• bring your left leg in front of your opponent’s head

• pull both your heels toward your butt, toes curled back

• raise your hips slowly to put pressure on the elbow for the tap

*Keep your hips facing up throughout the movement, from the cut through to shifting off to 90 degrees. If you   turn your hips you’ll find it difficult to bring your leg over their head.

Near armbar from knee-ride

Start from side-control, controlling their far shoulder and blocking their near hip

• Switch hands, grabbing the gi on their near arm at the elbow, your other arm controlling their hip on the other side
• Pressing both fists to the mat, jump up to knee ride
• Pull their arm toward the ceiling, extending it away from their body
• On the knee-ride leg, push your hips forward so there is a straight line from your hip to your knee
• Step over their head with the leg closest to their head
• Sit in close, controlling the arm

The remaining steps observe the same principles as the mount arm-bar, with the exception that your knee-ride leg is on the near side of your opponent’s body

• Squeeze the knees
• Weld the little finger to the chest
• Lie back – SLOWLY – to apply pressure to the elbow joint until they tap
• Raise your hips to apply extra pressure if they’re particularly flexible

Also: If you have reasonably long legs, it can help to bring the knee-ride leg parallel with their body – knee pointing toward their feet – as you step over for the armbar. As you sit down you just raise your knee upright, trapping the arm and squeezing together with the other knee.

Far armbar from knee-ride

Take knee-ride

• Your opponent tries to push your knee off with their far hand, creating a space between their elbow and ribs
• Reach under their tricep with your arm closest to their legs
• Pull them toward you into your shins, creating space under their back
• Step around with the leg closest to their head, wedging your foot and shin into their lower back
• Spin to face the way you came from
• Make sure you’ve claimed the arm

As with the other armbars, the rest of the details are the same

• Make sure you have good hip penetration
• Squeeze the knees
• Weld the little finger to the chest
• Lie back SLOWLY
• Raise your hips if necessary to get the tap.

The focus for this class was to look at exploiting your opponent’s escape to get where you want to be. In this case, it was taking the back and finishing with the rear naked choke.

We started off with one person defending themselves in the turtle position (all fours, elbows in close to the knees).

The person attacking (left-side) :

• drives their right knee between the turtled opponent’s knee and elbow
• posts out with their left leg
• takes an over-under grip around their opponent’s torso and neck

Over-under grip:

• reach under their neck on the near side with your left hand
• reach over their back with your right and bring it under their body, behind their right arm
• grip your right wrist with your left hand

A common reaction from a turtled opponent when they feel your arm come over the far side is to try for a reversal

For an opponent attacking from your left side this would involve:

• using your right elbow to clasp their arm to your ribs
• extending your right leg flat behind you, dropping your right hip to the mat
• rolling to the right to bring your opponent over your back

For the person attacking, this reversal usually prompts a re-think and a quick attempt to transition to side control.

We don’t need to give up our position this readily though. In fact, our opponent’s sweep can make it easier for us to get to where we ultimately want to go – to the back for the rear naked choke.

We built this up in a two-step drill:

Step 1:

• attacker gets their over-under grips
• defender sweeps
• attacker keeps their grips tight, effectively welding themselves to their opponent
• unable to shift their opponent, the defender rolls back
• attacker goes with the momentum to regain control from the turtle – where they started

Step 2:

As above, but this time in addition to going with the momentum, the attacker looks for an opportunity to hook one of their legs in front of the defender’s thighs, to begin looking for full back control.

 Taking the back from turtle

In this sequence, we pull our turtled opponent off balance and encourage them to escape in a way that gives us their back. We then finish with the RNC.

The Set-Up 

Attacking the turtle (left-side)

• get your grips – over/under, right hand grabbing your left wrist
• right knee is driving between their left arm and knee
• straighten your left leg, crossing in front of their face
• pull your left leg in collecting their left arm in the process
• sit back onto your right ‘cheek’, pulling your opponent onto their right side
• maintaining your grips, keep your opponent close and turn into them, knees squeezing to keep control of that arm

From here, if you’re maintaining your over/under control, it’s very difficult for them to turn left or right. One thing they can do is bridge their hips up and try and jump over your legs to the left. If they decide to do this:

• use your left foot to hook under their lower back, still trapping their left arm
• turning onto your back, prop their weight up with your right knee and then shuffle your hips under to bring it  out to the right
• hook your right foot over their right leg

The Choke

• You’re going to be choking them with your left arm
• Your right hand – gripping your left – acts as a decoy

As your opponent attacks your right hand to prevent the choke

• circle your right hand out  to control their wrist
• push your right hand toward your legs
• reach your left hand across their neck and reach for your own shoulder, forming a v round their neck with your arm
• bring the blade of your right hand up behind their neck
• squeeze your elbows together + drive your chest forward for the choke

Tonight we looked at arm-bars from the mount position with some options for when we don’t quite pull it off.

We started off with a 3 person arm-bar drill

Two people lie down on their backs with enough space in between them to accomodate someone lying back for the armbar.

The third person takes mount and:

• Smothers their partner with their chest*
• Allows their partner to push their weight off with both hands
• Arm-bars their partner’s inside arm (arm closest to the other person lying down)
• Releases the arm
• Lies parallel
• Rolls toward the other partner and mounts up
• Repeat, now arm-barring the other partner

*alternatively, you can just start with the person underneath already having their arm raised to simplify and speed up the drill

For more detail regarding the arm-bar from mount go here

Arm-bar – Fail – Post – Regather

If you attempt the arm-bar from mount and it fails, you can end up in a bad spot, or at least an equalising situation e.g. guard. With the following drill we learn how to regain mount if it all turns to custard.

One person takes mount, person underneath pushes up exposing their arms

• attack their right arm
• as you turn for the arm-bar, claim their arm with your right arm
• post behind you with your left arm – close enough to your hips so that your weight is still pushing into your partner

Now, your partner pushes off your top leg (left in this case) and pulls their arm back

• push off with your left arm to sit your weight back on them

At first your legs are going to be all wrong, but once you’ve centred your weight you can bring your knees back in to the proper mount position. Your first priority though is to make sure they’re pinned on their back with your weight.

 Arm-bar + Leg Grab - Sit-Up – Arm-bar

Once again, one person takes mount and goes for the arm-bar

• attack their right arm

As you turn for the arm-bar

• pivot on your left knee so that your left foot is now pointing behind you
•  straighten your right leg out across their body
• collect their right arm with your left arm
• hook behind their right leg with your right arm
• sit down into the space to your right – about 45 degrees toward their legs

Wait for them to sit up. As they do, they’ll freeze as your right leg will stop them sitting up past a certain point. As this happens:

• bring your left leg in front of their face
• drive your hips forward and lean back for the arm-bar

Arm-bar + Leg Grab – Opponent Escapes – Switch to Far Side Control

In this situation, you’ve gone for the previous arm-bar but before you can finish, your opponent has pulled their arm free

• sit up on your right elbow
• post your left hand between their legs
• kick your legs to the other side of your opponent, turning left onto your stomach
• take side control on their left

Figure-4 from Mount – Opponent defends – Arm-bar – Fail - Post – Regather

• attempt a figure-4 from mount on their right arm
• person underneath turns to their right, grabbing their wrist to defend it
• slide your right knee up behind their head, bring your left heel into their belly, facing to the left now (side-mount)
• grab their left arm with your left
• bring your right leg over their head
• sit back and post with your right arm

They suck their arm out, you regather the mount.

Figure-4 from mount – Opponent Defends – Arm-bar + Leg Grab

The set up is the same as the previous drill. This time as you take side mount

• straighten your left leg out in front
• pivot on your right knee, your right foot pointing behind you
• claim their left arm with your right
• hook under their left leg with your left arm
• let them sit up
• bring the right leg in front of their head for the arm-bar

Figure-4 from Mount – Opponent Defends – Arm-bar + Leg Grab – Opponent Escapes – Switch to Far Side Control

I think you can figure this one out for yourself, right?

Putting it together

Drill 1 

• Arm-bar – Fail – Post – Regather
• Arm-bar + Leg Grab - Sit-Up – Armbar
• Arm-bar + Leg Grab – Opponent Escapes – Switch to Far Side Control

Try both sides

Drill 2

As above, but perform the arm-bars from the figure 4 setup.

 Once again, mix up the sides once you’re confident with the techniques.

We’re running an informal grappling session for all GSW members on Sunday the 6th.
Starting at 6pm and going to 8pm just rolling and drilling to try and remove some of the Christmas rust.

Look forward to seeing you all there.

Geoff

Sorry all not a lot of time to post too much info but I just have to give a quick update. John’s seminar was fantastic, unfortunatly I’m still dealing with Kidney stones and was unable to get on the mat. John covered the following points in the seminar

4 Omopalata drills
Get the elbow
Keep the elbow
From mount via reverse side mount (with bonus sweep)
From sidecontrol also via reverse side mount but finishing on the other side

4 Arm triangle choke (or head arm choke) setups/drills
From crossface
From sidecontrol
From head to head
From underneath

Before the seminar got under way we took the opportunity to promote a few of the GSW crew.

Congrats to new Purple Belts Jonny Bares and Jason Murphy and new Blues Brendan Pfahlert and Cain Harland. Well done boys. At the end of the session John ambushed me and awarded me with my BJJ Black Belt.

I would like to thank everyone for their kind words, emails and comments over the last few days. I’ll have to admit that I’m still a bit dumbfounded and it hasn’t actually sunk in yet I think. Thursdays class was the same as always but any time I caught a glimpse of the Black Belt it surprised me all over again. I’m sure it will take some time to get used to.

Here are a few shots from the night as well as a video of John ambushing me using a chocolate cake as a prop. I’ve edited my speech from the footage because I waffled like a raving idiot.