Relearning the Basics

Worked on the standing closed guard pass today at the Dark Horse.  I know that it must be a bit disappointing to the professors to see us flailing on basic passes like this, I know they have such an awesome progressive curriculum in mind for the Dark Horse that this all must seem very remedial, but I think it's probably good to keep these 'advanced fundamentals' classes going from time to time.  You can't just assume that people know all the same basics. 

Honestly, I think, if anything, some of this work on basics in the advanced classes is making a good case for introducing a true "intermediate" class (rather than a combined "Intermediate/Advanced" class), where we can focus on refinement of the basics and introduce the more progressive stuff in the advanced classes.  I was attending the fundamentals classes for a while, because it was good to see the fundamentals, but I never really felt challenged especially because as usually the only purple belt in the room, it invariably fell to me to work with the very least experienced person in the class.  Not that I mind helping others, I'm just saying that it's hard to be challenged to refine your fundamentals when your partner doesn't know enough to really push you on any technique.

I really do like polishing up the basics with some real resistance and today was a great day.  We worked on two basic standing passes, one was the same one I worked on Saturday with Professor Jubera.

Pass 1: Basic Standing Pass
A couple of points here. 

• Kickstands aren't to be used to get up with, they are protection against being broken down when you're standing.  Standing should be the same as if those arms weren't even there. 
• Always stand with your kickstand-side leg first.  I didn't make this mistake often, but moreso when I was standing with my kickstand arm on the left, I would still stand on the right first.  Gotta keep that in mind.
• Get up!  Professor Jubera said Saturday that he wants to start standing in the first 5 seconds of being in someone's closed guard.

Pass 2: Jump up double arm pass (I don't know wtf this pass is called either)
Basically here you just push into both arm pits with straight arms (and you do use them to get up) and sort of jump both legs up at the same time. 
Couple of points:

• Professor Dude likes the reach behind push down on the bottom foot opening from here.  In fact, I'm betting he likes it better from the other pass too.  Need to integrate this into my game, it's a very powerful way to break open the guard.
• Keep the hips forward when you jump up, same as any standing pass.  No ape man postures.

After class, I rolled with Dave and Chris for a while.  Great fun!  I tried to focus on lapel attacks from mount, which is something I'm working on, but honestly, I have a long way to go before I can be really dangerous with these.  I'm about 50X more effective with Ezekiel chokes than I am with lapel chokes on guys at my level.  I -was- able to sink in a lapel grips from the mount, but I just have to keep doing it if I'm going to get good.  I'm going to spend some time actually studying open guard passes; I felt that Chris' open guard was really tough to get around and it was hard to find a good answer to it...and he was doing that annoying thing I do where I just play with the open guard but never seem to find a good opening to sweep. :) 

Wins: Couple of good de la Riva guard sweeps.  I got deep half and swept and passed with it. 
Losses: couldn't finish my arm triangle from the mount (twice).  I was just exhausted.  got to do work on making this more efficient (esp. switching from my arm to my head)

Never too experienced to learn to do something right.

Great training today in the Fundamentals class at Dark Horse.  We went over some basic headlock escapes and then worked on mount attacks and drills.  Fun class and great to see friends there and see them improving.

In the open mat after class, though, I was rolling with one of the blue belts and got caught in his closed guard for a long time.  Matt got on me a bit about staying there so long and this led to a conversation about proper opening of the closed guard.  Man, I have some bad habits to get rid of...I think today was a bit of a wake-up call for me that I've been handling the closed guard just all wrong for a long time.

You see, after you've been rolling for a while with the same person, it's very typical to sort of have minor pauses, places where you stop and say 'hey good one' or just where you feel safe enough to catch your breath.  Inside a closed guard is one of those moments.  It's like, you've worked hard for a long time on techniques, and eventually blown your pass or otherwise screwed up and your opponent has settled in to their closed guard and often they give you a moment's breathing room here as well while they ponder their next move or attack, so it's very natural to just sort of say 'ah, nice one' and even to sort of stay tight to them and not work defensively or not work on -getting out- of this bad situation.  It's easy to stall from there and it's a difficult position to get out of, usually requiring a fair bit of effort, so psychologically it's natural to want to "take a moment" to compose yourself and concentrate on stalling.   This is all bad bad bad.

Nothing could be worse for your game than to fall into this kind of thinking.  I was chuckling at a blog post of someone the other day who said he'd made it his goal to just not get tapped.  I thought "if you aren't getting tapped, how can you be learning anything but stalling"!  Well, the above mentality is just the same thing.  How can you be learning to pass someone's closed guard, when you accept that it's hard and then just try the easiest things you can, hoping they will make a mistake. 

Passing the closed guard can be done a number of ways, but the very first thing one should be doing is working to stand up.  Work on this should begin even as the guard is closed.  There should be no 'settling in for a long battle' moment.  No composure moment.  No 'hey good job' time.  One needs to immediately begin working on the job at hand, which is to stand up.  The double lapel grip is a great one.  Standing up, switching to a single lapel and pushing the knee down works!!  Alternate grip can be same side sleeve (step up first on the side of the sleeve you cross/capture).  The important thing is, stand up!  I've been taught this since my white belt days.  I remember Eliot yelling at us "IF YOU WANT TO PASS YOU HAVE TO STAND UP!!"  I've heard it from every professor I've probably ever worked with for any length of time.  It's the single most common advice I've ever had about passing the closed guard.  Why then, have I been ignoring this advice and settling in for a nice long closed guard battle...a battle which I commonly lose against advanced players.

In another example, I was working with Professor Dudderar the other day after class on simple cross-collar chokes.  Turns out I've been doing them wrong for years, which explains why so many of my collar chokes haven't been working.  My technique wasn't too far off, but still, it was far enough off that fixing a couple of minor points is probably going to double my chances of finishing these chokes.

I guess, what happened today just resonated well with my experience with the cross-collar chokes on Wednesday night created a minor epiphany (btw, see Mike Rowe's comments on peripeteia and anagnorisis here)...I need to keep an open mind toward everything on the mat and in life.  Not just the new things, the old things too.  Not just the new kick-ass move from youtube.com, but the move you learned the first 3 months in your first BJJ class.  Not just the new latest thing in your life, but the thing you take for granted every day. 

I'm never too experienced to learn to do something right. 

I'll try to keep that in mind.

Defeating the Deep Half-Guard

Yesterday's class at the Dark Horse was all about defeating the half-guard and deep half-guard. 

Defeating the half-guard by pushing them flat:
The half-guard is a great position with lots of defensive possibilities, but it's also half-way toward setting up a nice smash pass (or X-Pass) for the guy on top.  Either can be set up easily, just straight arm the torso of the bottom player and grab their inside knee.  No gi, you'd just cup the hip and knee.  At this point, you want to step up with your inside leg and simultaneously pull their inside knee up while keeping pressure on the bottom player's torso to control his hips.  Literally, you are going to turn the bottom player onto his back, with knees in the air to set up the smash pass pressure.  To smash pass, simply keep going!  Alternate route: You already have your hands set up for a great X-Pass, leave the hands where they are and step around the inside leg to move to knee-on-belly.  Pretty slick!

Deep half guard:
Really, this comes down to two things: prevention, and unwinding. 

Prevention: The deep-half guard can be stopped before it's started.  As they leave their head up (when moving to close up the deep half-guard) or when they are just starting to set it up and are on the way in, a simple cross-face will do the trick nicely.  Grab the head and lock them out. 
Bonus: If they have their hand already buried trying to get in deep, just switch your hips to trap this arm.  Your cross face and switched hips create a really nasty position that is very similar to reverse kesa gatame (basically, you are just doing Xande's half-guard pass at this point).

Unwinding:  If they are in deep already and only controlling the leg (and not the belt), then you have the option of unwinding the position.  You basically just underhook their far arm to turn them into you, then switch hips to reverse kesa gatame again.  You end up sort of laying next to them.  Now you can drive your head to the other side of them and get up on that knee they are still holding onto and work your cross-knee pass.  OR...simply go for it and move right across them to 3/4 mount.  Either way: good for you, bad for them.


Good class!