This week we came more prepared for our Monday session and after a vigorous warm up we went into some pre-thought out techniques.
We started off by doing a few sweeps from different types of guard. The first one was from an open guard against an opponent who has stood up with your legs riding up high on him (as if he stood in closed guard, then broke the legs apart). You secure one of his legs by underhooking it with your same side arm, then you roll backward to come up on your feet with his leg in your hand. I've kind of simplified the description, but to be honest, it is remarkably simple to pull off as long as you're agile enough to get the backward roll at a decent speed. For such a simple move it looks really disco too.
The next sweep we hit was from Spider Guard. From the standard Spider Guard position (both cuffs secured, both feet at elbow crooks), drop one of your feet from it's position and press it on the opponents opposite side hip so the top of your foot is against or just above his hip bone. Use this to swivel away from the opponent so your body is perpendicular to him. Then you simultaneously release the cuff of the arm that you've just removed the foot from and reach down and grab the near side leg (by gi or underhook), whilst pulling the still secured cuff with that hand and pushing away with the leg that's still securing that arm to stretch the opponents body out a bit. To finish the sweep you just need to pull/push down with the arm and leg on his secured arm while guiding/assisting his body over with your other leg and your other arm. The opponent flips neatly over on to his back and you come up in a position that lends itself to a knee on belly opportunity.
We then worked on a De La Riva sweep as shown in a video on YouTube by the man himself, Ricardo De La Riva. You need to have the De La Riva hook push far through to hook around the outside of the opponents far side hip. You then secure the gi at the knee with your hook side hand whilst gripping the near side collar lapel with your other hand. From there you just pull hard toward you with both hands while kicking out with your hook. Your opponent is deposited on his back with you just having to pop up into a top position. This is one of those scramble for advantage sweeps where if your quick you can jump to mount or side control, if the opponent is quick you could end up in just going into his guard.
Moving away from guard work for the next technique we drilled a Monoplata from Mount. Quite similar to a Marcelo Garcia sub we were drilling last week, you start off by forcing your way inside the opponents arms and crouching in close so he ends up in a position where he's hugging you. You then bring a leg up and trap the arm on that side deep behind you. Use the raised leg to push into the opponent so he raises up on his side facing away from you pushing his face down away from you, then whilst falling backward, move your raised leg up to press the top of the foot against his head (need to ensure everything is held in tight or the whole move falls apart). To finish the hold you press the trapping leg in against the shoulder, pushing down to increase the pressure and get the tap. It took us quite a while to get this move to work, more often it was feeling like an arm bar, until we worked out foot positioning and stuff. Nice move, doubt I'll ever hit it.
We moved on to polishing up on Gogoplata's. Starting from a failed omoplata attempt due to the opponent posturing up so you can't push him down to the floor, you thread the leg that's over his shoulder, under his chin and reach over the top of his head for the toes with the near side arm to clamp his head inside your leg and arm combination. To finish the hold you use your other hand to push against your heel and pull the foot toward you with your hand whilst pressing down with that arm to choke him for the tap. Me and Marcus absolutely loved this move and I hope that I can pull it off one day in sparring.
We also did a variation where, instead of reaching over the top of the head with your hand, you lean back and bring your other leg up and over the top of the head to press down putting an immense amount of pressure on. Another excellent move. Can't wait to try it Thursday.
That was as many of the techniques from Monday as I can remember. Marcus'll probably tell me what I forgot if he bothers to read this but we had a very healthy dose of sparring directly after and it kind of blew the mind out a bit.
As for Tuesday, we decided to do a bit of No-Gi work as it's a part of our game that's severely lacking. In fact I have only had 2 No-Gi lessons in my entire time training and they were both at seminars. So to say I need to work on my No-Gi may be a massive understatement but it is something I need to work on if I want to be a more complete Bjj disciple. At the end of the day if I was attacked at a bus stop by some nut case, I don't think he's going to be nice enough as to put on a Gi jacket first so I need to get experience sans uniform.
We started out with some takedowns including the double leg takedown, the single leg takedown and two other single leg takedowns with trips. We then worked on sprawling against the double leg, then against the single leg and then we did the single leg sprawl to super disco front roll to omoplata (a personal favourite of mine :o).
After that we were working on arm switching, where you're in the position for the arm bar but the opponent's got it blocked well by holding with his other arm. From there you maintain the hold on his arm with your head side arm (the arm closer to his head) and lean forward pushing your weight down on him, focus additional weight by straight arming with your other arm and pushing it against his far shoulder. Then, very quickly, swivel your body around so you turn toward away from his legs and carry on around to face the direction opposite that which you started in and secure the arm on that side with your arm that was previously pressing on his shoulder. Fall back as usual and extend hips to finish.
Another way of countering the arm bar block was to thread your leg side leg (your leg that is nearer his legs) through between his arms and up over his shoulder so it's near his head. Then reach under his head with your head-side arm to grab your leg the other side of his head. It's possible to finish the move from there by pulling on the leg, for a leg and arm triangle but the preferred (and tighter) way of finishing the sub is to use your hand to pull the leg around and wrap your other leg around the first to finish the triangle. Brilliant.
Once again, we ended the session with a healthy amount of rolling. I have to admit that the No-Gi rolling is a lot faster paced and controlling your opponent's position from top control is really hard. Especially against Marcus who is one slippery git to pin down. We've both agreed though, that we'll try and fit a No-Gi session in regularly. I let the gym buzzing and dying for more action. I can't wait until Ian's class Thursday \m/
No comments:
Post a Comment