Class 126...

Today was an open mat session, where a blue belt friend helped me out with a glut of really good guard-passing tips. These included a review of the Toreador pass. This went something like this:

i) Opponent is on his back with his guard up, and you are standing and grab control of the opponent at his knees with a firm grip.

ii) You then stack the opponent and use your chest to apply pressure to lock his knees in place before switching the grip, so the pint pot on the knees grip almost moves to a palm heel strike on the side of the knees.

iii) Fake moving the knees to one side, before you switch direction and throw them to the other side.

iv) Opposite leg then steps through to the opponent’s undefended hip area to prevent him bringing his leg back through and re-establishing guard, then drop down and use your weight to pressure through and establish side control.

v) Finally, the knee closes the opponent’s hip down on one side while the elbow locks the hip in place on the other side. The free hand secures the opponent’s head.

There was also plenty of good general advice, such as creating space if you’re defending a position and crushing space if you’re attacking. He also showed me a very nifty escape from full mount that involved getting your foot in the belt of your opponent and kicking him off, then following through to establish mount.

I also worked a few knee on belly escapes. The most basic one of these involved using both hands to push the knee away as you hip escape to the side. An alternative to this involved reaching under the ankle and grabbing the foot of the opponent to fix the knee in place, then hip escape and use the other hand to drive off/potentially sweep the opponent by pushing into his stomach.

Things to remember: Guard passing and applying pressure, mount escape using belt to kick opponent off, and knee on belly foot grab escape.