Sunday 25th – Fundamentals
Sit-up and Superman
- Take a hooks in position while the other person kneels
- Sit up, underhook their arms on either side grabbing the lats or the shoulders and scoot your hips in close
- Lie back keeping their upper body close, lift them with your hooks and raise their arms out to the side by flaring your elbows
- Your partner stops the momentum with their hands (if they’re averse to face-planting) and you sit back up again
NB: Scooting the hips right in close helps destabilise your opponent, takes them off their base and therefore makes sweeping them a lot easier
Progressive Pass or Sweep with Hooks
In each case, one partner is using their hooks to prevent the other from passing. Obviously then, the other person is trying to get past their hooks and toward side-control.
1. No hands – each person has to use only their legs to either defend or pass the guard. Additionally, the person trying to pass has to stay on their knees.
2. One hand – each person can now use one hand to pass or defend; the person passing only has to keep one knee on the ground.
3. Unobstructed – both partners can now defend and pass without restriction (except the usual prohibitions on eye-gouging, fish-hooking etc)
Open guard drill
I
- one partner stands
Partner playing guard:
- feet on their hips
- grip their sleeves just enough to stop them getting free
Work on moving from hooks, to hips to elbow control
So:
- start feet in hips
then
- left foot in their right elbow
- right foot in their left elbow
Back to the hips
- left foot hooks behind their right knee
- right foot hooks behind their left knee
In other words – hooks guard
Repeat back and forth to get used to moving between the controls.
Key: Keep the pressure on, forcing them slightly off balance at all times e.g. pushing against the hips, pulling your hooks, pushing the elbows.
II
Partner provides basic resistance by moving about as you shift between the positions.
III
Partner steps forward.
- grab the ankle of the forward leg,
- put your leg in their hip on the same side
- hook their other leg behind the knee with your other foot
- push the hip to unbalance them
