Sorry for my long absence, dear readers!  Holidays, work schedule, the inevitable soft tissue injuries made for large gaps in the jits class attendance, which my coach and friend pointed out to me in his usual subtle manner!

Takedown class – new guy in class, so was pretty mellow.  Backfalls and sprawls started things out.  We then moved to snatch doubles, snatch singles, and a snapdown series.  We worked arm drags and duckunders to take the back.  For the technique drill, we stuck to the snatch double with the rear leg coming around for a trip.

Ground class – usual warmups, drilled snatch guard pass, pass to knee on belly, stuff one arm to diamond guard, then closed guard to arm bar.  As usual, drills went too fast to pick up fine points, but I did get some good stuff on the arm bar:  thread hand between arms to grab the sleeve of the arm you want to bar, other hand on opposite lapel.  Release guard and place foot on the same side of the soon-to-be-barred arm, push off and drag the seized arm across the chest, then swing that leg up and around the head.  Now release the lapel, and complete the arm bar.

Technique – Being in closed guard.  Move to Carlson 3 (crossgrip lapel, other hand on same-side sleeve pulling with elbow high, leg on same side that grips lapel has foot on same side thigh and knee in chest/throat, leg on the side that grips the sleeve is on the hip and pushing.  The push-pull generated drives the knee into the throat.  Opponent attempts to thread free arm under top leg and grips the bottom leg to smash the top leg down and pass.  Bottom blocks attempt by removing lapel grip and grabbing sleeve of threading arm.  Square up to top man, then release the other sleeve, swivel closer and grab a pant leg – reach under if possible, or grab the outside leg.  Swing former top knee toward the mat and lift with the pant-grabbing hand at the same time, forcing a sweep.  You can break posture/balance if necessary by kicking one leg then sweeping the opposite way.  Roll forward onto opponent and take side control, being careful of the incidental bicep slicer that occurs due to the threading arm being stuck under the top leg.  Here’s a good video featuring Kron Gracie showing some of the dynamics of this kind of cross grip guard – I see my coaches doing it to people, including me, fairly often.

Rolls – Rolled with a purple belt who snatched my lapels again.  The purple belt guys seem to love that worm guard!  I applied a cross face a couple of times but never really got past his guard.  Go figure, since he was larger, stronger, and a lot more skilled than I was!

Rested for 1 round, then rolled with a blue – got arm dragged to a rear naked choke right off the bat – I saw it coming but didn’t move fast enough to counter it.  Also got caught under the kesa getame/side control deal again and eventually tapped to a kimura.  I was able to recover guard several times, though, so that’s an improvement!

Here’s a list of resources that looked relevant to today’s Jits Notes:

Stephan Kesting – cross grip counters

Kron Gracie’s 3 pronged cross grip approach
Demian Maia – Defending the Guard Pass – since people are rolling right through mine…

Leandro Lo Guard breakdown by Espen Mathiesen

Another Leandro Guard breakdown, by BJJ scout.  This is typical of what I see one coach in particular doing at my gym.

Jimmy Pedro – Basic Grip Break – since I keep having issues with grips…
Jimmy Pedro – Takedowns against “tight” opponents – Just something for me to play with later.  It also fascinates me as I see this all over in the ba gua forms I learned and had no real idea of how to use it at the time.

Collar drag from sitting guard – I might be able to use this one!

Defenses against the Evil that is Worm Guard:

Stephan Kesting – Worm Guard Passing

BJJ immersion – 3 Worm Guard Counters

Stephan Kesting’s Open Guard vs. Standing Opponents Roadmap

Late for class – had to drop the better half of the Obsession Engine off to deliver a presentation.

Takedown class – Russian ties continues – this time beginning from a double grip with one hand on the wrist and the other clamping the upper arm near the shoulder instead of the hands figure 4-ing the arm like last time. Largely a review of Tuesday’s material – drop to knee, windshield wiper opponent’s near leg and press in to drop him, pin arm to mat and maneuver for side control and darce choke; fireman’s carry, drop to knee and opponent pushes trapped leg back, leaving opening for an ankle pick. I asked about the validity of a waki gatame takedown from the standing position but instructor didn’t think it was viable – if the opponent posts it leaves the back vulnerable. I see his point. Looks like it might be viable from kneeling positions, but there might be too much opportunity to weasel out from standing.

Ground class – After usual warmups, including me doing the technical standup the correct way and still not being able to do a reverse shrimp to save my life, we moved into Takedown-a-palooza – about 5 or maybe 10 minutes of “hit any takedown you want” as a partner drill. The fireman’s carry off a Russian tie, bodylock and dump, and osoto gari worked like a charm. I forgot to try uchi mata, brainfarted the lateral drop so didn’t attempt it, and couldn’t make the lapel drag throw work well. I think that throw is always going to be tricky unless if the opponent posts his far hand – if he collapses to his elbow he’ll be a beat behind.

Techniques – Omoplata from guard. Foot opposite the side your going to move to goes to the hip to help turn the body. Grab a pantleg and flatten out opponent to avoid counters and escapes. Roll up into a “cheerleader sit” position and grab opposite side, seatbelt the shoulder, or grab the head for leverage and rock forward to crank the shoulder. This video is pretty cool as it shows how important making space is to getting the lock on.

Omoplata from mount. Opponent reaches up – in this case we hugged the top man around the midsection. Pick an arm and overhook it, pulling it up and posting the same side leg. The opposite hand presses his face away while pulling. We worked a number of techniques from this series as well.

3 rolls…might go for 2, then skip one to rest, then 1 more next time just to start bumping my cardiac training up. It seems like 4 (5?) 5 minute rolls with a minute in between is the norm. I might as well stay and watch the rolls, too, instead of cutting out early. I might just learn something!

1st roll – a purple belt. Pretty cool guy that I partnered with through the technique portion. A comment was made that when I keep my elbows in when my opponent was going for spider guard that he couldn’t get some of the techniques he wanted off. I think the folks I know in law enforcement might call that a “clue”! Got guillotined when I attempted a single against a knee on belly…I think I used the wrong technique again. Let’s have a look at what I was trying to do again.

2nd roll with a white belt had a large portion devoted to me defending from a kimura attempt. The guy wasn’t strong, skillful, or large enough so I was able to brute force my way and stalemate most of his attempts. Not exactly a showcase of skill on my part, but it did make for a pretty good workout.

3rd roll – another purple belt. This guy pulled the “rope him up with his gi” stuff and probably hit an Americana on me about 73 times in 5 minutes. That seems to happen a lot more when I’m trying to pass an open guard player – I start to open up trying to pass the guard and get sucked right into a trap.

I’m still not having a lot of luck, so let’s review again:

Grip fighting – this one’s from White Belt BJJ and the instructor, Chewie, is putting out good info here.

Kesting, as usual – 4 tips to pass any guard

Some good gripfighting stuff from Kesting

Saulo Ribeiro – Guard Passing

Ryan Hall looks to have a LOT of good material.

Ryan Hall on Guard Passing.

Another basic guard passing vid with several techniques.

Mount escapes – this is similar to the escape I learned but looks like it can be applied when the mount is higher up – I’m having trouble hooking the leg at times. I think part of the problem is me not keeping one elbow down and the mounted opponent creeping too high up on my torso. This is almost the same escape I learned in class. We were told to keep one elbow on the mat to block the knee but at least one hand up to block collar access, though. I see that she mentions that the foot is “light” probably because of a hip buck. I often try this when someone’s sitting in good posture and it doesn’t work so well.

Here are some more mount escape basics. They haven’t worked well for me in the past but that’s at least partially because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.