Classes 288, 289 & 290...

Three classes and some good stuff in all three.

First up was a seminar with Sidney Silva, who taught a basic butterfly sweep that then transitioned into a bridge and roll escape for the swept man, which then ended in a foot lock.

In the second and third classes, we continued to work on sweeps from the bottom in half guard with a high frame. 

My favourite one of these involved the opponent collapsing the frame of the man on the bottom, then the bottom man attacking for an omoplata. Failing that the right arm and leg of the opponent becomes trapped and your right foot hooks on the inside thigh of the opponent's left leg, then you drop back and use the hook to lift him up and sweep him to the side he has no base.

I am starting to experiment with butterfly guard a lot, but I often get lazy and forget to keep the hooks active. I cannot afford to do this. 

I did OK in sparring but I went far too hard for too long and exhausted myself. I need to get better at retaining my frame to fend off the opponent and helping to conserve my energy. 

Things to remember: Keep butterfly hooks active; focus on frame retention.

Private Class No.18...

Today something new as I'm toying with the idea of adding a few no-gi classes into my BJJ studies next year. So we started with some basic positional stuff.

Pummelling: In an ideal world, you are looking for double underhooks on a standing opponent. But this rarely happens, so you generally want head control and bicep control with the opponent's head sandwiched between your head and arm. In terms of movement, this means you can drive the opponent to the side and expose a leg for the single leg takedown. You are also looking to deny the opponent inside space.

Attacks: collar chokes are out but armbars, triangles and omoplatas are good to use. Leg locks and wristlocks are also a decent option if you can catch them quickly enough.

Butterfly guard: is a good option for no-gi because it transfers quite easily from gi to no-gi. You can use most of the same attacks from butterfly and also use the overhook guard. You must keep hooks active, though.

Things to remember: Deny opponent inside space when pummelling; keep hooks active in butterfly guard.

Classes 285, 286 & 287...

Three morning classes in quick succession, which all focused on attacking from, escaping from and sweeping from half guard.

The half guard escape involved the man on the top grabbing collar and pant control at the bottom knee, then hopping to his feet and knee slicing.

The sweep involved the man on the bottom grabbing the knee control hand and sweeping the opponent onto the side he can't base. 

The takehomes from this were:
Retain a strong frame and stay on one hip if you are on the bottom defending the position. 
Break down the opponent frame and get him on his back if you are trying to break guard and pass.

Sparring was OK and I'm pretty much doing what I should be doing.

Private Class No.17...

We worked on the following:

i) Wrist lock from standing collar grab.

ii) Butterfly sweep with emphasis on driving off base leg and kicking hook foot. Variation when they defend by tapping the knee.

iii) Butterfly arm drag with emphasis on attacking back and pulling opponent into you.

Another excellent class. I am adding some more basics to my game.

Classes 282, 283 & 284...

I've had a few weeks on holiday, then another week away from the mats because of work and other commitments. But I finally got back to rolling last week and, even though my body feels ruined, the rest of me feels great.

The opening class was an open mat and I got stuck straight into sparring. I also did some work on bufferfly guard and setting up a wristlock from an armdrag. I did a bit of no-gi, too. I intend to persevere with this, as wel.

Class No.2 focused on retaining and escaping full guard, which basically meant the man in guard retaining posture and breaking, then passing, and the man on the bottom collapsing his opponent's posture and sweeping or submitting the man in his guard.

My ability to retain full guard and attack from it is getting better and my go-to attacks of sleeve choke and wristlocks are OK. The overhook control position on one arm also works well. My guard breaking and passing is also OK, with my posture and hip pressure on the opponent improving, and the leg hug pass working a treat. 

I genuinely felt like I was making progress. The third class, however, was a slightly different story. 

We worked on retaining and attacking from half guard from the bottom, and escaping half guard from the top. We worked on two nifty techniques for this.
Escaping half guard from top: Pin opponent's bottom leg and secure wrist control; hop onto foot trapped in guard, then hop onto other leg; ankle slice past controlling leg; once out, drive forward and secure top position. 
Sweeping from half guard on bottom: when opponent on top grabs your leg, secure wrist control on holding hand, then secure wrist control on the other wrist; when opponent comes forward, sweep him to the side he has no base.

Specific drilling was a bit ropey in this position at first because I totally forgot the techniques we'd been taught. I think it tiredness. But I hit a few good sweeps when I got going and thought things through a bit more.

And it got a bit better when we moved to normal sparring, even though I very badly fatigued at the end. 

Things to remember: the sweep from half guard.

Classes 280 & 281..

Two morning classes on attacking for the back. Class one featured a couple of step-over techniques for moving onto an opponent's back when he is in turtle, and the second class featured an open guard pass from standing, which moves you into side control, then you drive the opponent over and insert hooks to attack the back. 

We then did some specific drilling and specific positional sparring. I did OK at the latter and am more mobile than I expected to be when it comes to attacking the back. 

I did OK in normal sparring and I feel like I'm making slow progress with working in wrist locks. I'm not always nailing these but I am starting to recognise the position and the treat of them is sometimes giving me additional time to escape bad positions. 

I am also endeavouring with butterfly guard and I am experimenting with a new wrist lock that starts off with an armdrag from butterfly guard. 

Things to remember: Attacking the back and the butterfly arm drag into wristlock.

Classes 278 & 279...

Today was an open mat session where I got comprehensively ruined by any fellow blue belt I sparred with. I caused problems for some of them at times, but I was outgunned on all fronts by younger, stronger, bigger and, more importantly, just better fighters. The key thing that they were all better at was fighting for a stronger position, securing that position, then attacking from there.

The following morning class focused on guard passing using the double unders pass. I like this pass and I use this and the hug pass a lot. The takehome points went something like this:

i) You are in the open guard of the opponent and you put both your hands under his thighs and connect your hands in front of you; pull the opponent's hips up off the floor and stack him and apply pressure by driving in with active toes; try to secure the armpits of the opponent's gi as you stack him; drive a knee into the side of the opponent you want to pass and use the knee to pin his arm to the floor; compress the opponent and move into side control.

Sparring was much better at this class and I held my own against some decent people. I am also using wrist locks a lot more and starting to see the possibilities of setting them up. I am still a long way from having them as an effective weapon, though.

Things to remember: Double unders and hug pass; keep the integrity of frame and structure; continue to drill side control escapes.