July 29, 2009

Starting with the most recent

Last night, we worked the handstand sweep. It took me a couple tries at first but I started to really get it down.

1. When opp stands up while in your guard, post with right hand (like a handstand DOH!) and wrap around their ankle with left hand
2. Push opp with your legs to the left while pulling their ankle towards you
3. Come up with them as they go down, taking the mount

A little extra pop with the 'handstand' hand is helpful. After drilling, we worked a counter.

1. Drive right knee into opp, while grabbing their belt
2. Reach under their leg and grab their right side lapel
3. Drive all your weight down and gain side control

I was able to work this sweep once while rolling with Brian. I've been working my half guard really well and I can tell that I have been frustrating bigger guys. I'm putting up a hell of a fight to pass my guard now! :)

Monday night was very constructive during open mat. We relearned the triangle choke during class beforehand. It's nice to work the basics again. I find that every time we go over "obvious" moves that I see different aspects which I once missed.

I rolled with a few blue belts. The first one significantly out weighed me (at least 60 pounds) but he let me work a little bit. I was usually on the bottom but I worked my half guard game a lot. He also showed me a sweep from half guard that I hope to use sometime. The next blue belt I worked with still out weighed me but decided to flow with me even more than the last one. We flowed from position to position and he let me work the arm triangle from the mount. I remembered everything (even hopping off to the side) except I didn't put my head to the ground. He reminded me of that. All in all, pretty good rolls.

During MMA, we did a lot of ground work. We went over a position called the Pyramid. I believe it's an Eddie Bravo thing. All you have to do is control an arm (wrapping around the outside) and open the guard. Throw one leg over so that it is around the back of the opp head. Bring your other knee up so that your legs are touching. You can get a triangle from here, gogoplata,or an omaplata. We played with it for a little while and it was pretty enlightening. I wanted to try some rubber guard things due to my flexibility but held back because I was never formally taught anything. I hope to work it in a little more now.



It's a little different on the video but same concepts.

We also did a cool little variation of the triangle choke called the tipee. Bascially, you have both legs straight up and crossed. You sit up and grab behind the legs while squeezing your knees together. It's a VERY affective blood choke.

1 comment:

slideyfoot said...

I found my handstand sweep became much more effective after the instructor taught us to keep our guard closed and drive our hips directly against their knee.

Previously, I thought you were supposed to open your legs, and I hadn't thought enough about the hips against the knee: I was just kinda going towards that side, rather than anything specific.