Class 124 & 125...

First up was an open mat session. I helped a senior belt work on a leg drag, which was good as I now have a vague idea what this is. I also did some work on passing a tight guard from standing, which proved near impossible as the blue belt I was working with was very good and very fast. 

I rolled for a bit and got murdered, although I did manage to fend off submissions for at least some of the time with hip escapes and knee-to-elbow barriers. 

I also picked up some advice about not over-committing to a grip when the position has gone. 

Then it was another intermediate class, plus something of a surprise. We began by working on standing passes from the De La Riva guard. These went something like this:

i) Man on back on bottom has the De La Riva hooks in with his left leg hooking the outside of the opponent’s right leg and his right leg on the opponent’s left hip. He grabs the opponent’s right ankle with his left hand and grabs the opponent’s sleeve with his right hand. The standing man turns and drives his right leg to get rid of the hook, then grabs the opponent’s collar with his right hand and pulls the opponent up to crunch him. The left leg then swims out and acts as a base post while you squat down and bring the right leg into the opponent’s collapsed leg hooking leg.

ii) Man on back on bottom has the De La Riva hooks in with his left leg hooking the outside of the opponent’s right leg and his right leg on the opponent’s’ left hip. He grabs the opponent’s right ankle with his left hand and grabs the opponent’s sleeve with his right hand. The standing man turns and drives his right leg to get rid of the hook, he then squats down and then grabs the opponent’s left sleeve with his right hand and the opponent’s gi pants and sleeve at the right knee with his left hand. He then postures up to break the grips, swims his left leg out and crosses his hand to collapse the opponent’s knee and bring his hand over so he turns to his side.

There was plenty of information and various subtleties that I missed in this little lot. But then the surprise… multiple world champion Braulio Estima was at the gym and was taking a class. And this was information overload but also really brilliant.

I can’t recall the techniques in too much detail but the first one involved a sort of one-legged triangle that used the hamstring of the horizontal leg to choke the opponent with the attacking player pulling the head onto it.

We then worked on set-ups for inverted triangles from the bottom in side control. These essentially involved stuffing the opponent’s hand between your legs by bridging and throwing your hands to the side to force him to Superman and leave an arm exposed. This arm was then fished and figure-foured by the legs. Options here were to attack the arm itself or to stuff the head for the inverted triangle. 

Another option was to use it as a control position to reach under the non-trapped arm and set up either a kimura or a wrist lock.

It was fabulous stuff. Most of it was way over my head but sometimes it’s inspiring to learn those sort of techniques. Although, the inverted triangle set-ups are definitely something I’ll use and work on.

It was also interesting to hear him talk about his approach and having the freedom to experiment. A fab class.

Things to remember: The set-ups for the inverted triangle and other attacks from the bottom in side control.