My mom sends me Bible verses every day via email. Today’s verse was especially apropos to my experiences as a BJJ noob.

PROVERBS Chapter 15 : 31-32
If you pay attention when you are corrected, you are wise.
If you refuse to learn, you are hurting yourself.
If you accept correction, you will become wiser.

All of these techniques depend on securing side control. Greg pointed out a nuance that had escaped me other times we studied side control. Basically you drive your shoulder into your opponent’s chin and crank their head away from you. This prevents a bridge sweep and causes him to push your body away to relieve the pressure on his neck. This is when you scissor your legs under his arm. Unless you do the neck crank, it will be very difficult to establish control over your opponent’s arm. Anyway, when your opponent pushes you away, you shift your weight from his chin to his chest while you scissor. It’s okay to pull him toward you so his near shoulder is basically on top of your thigh.

Side control to triangle
This is a slick move that is extremely painful to drill.

1. From side control put knee on belly
2. When opp counters by pushing on thigh, control his hand by keeping it close to his side
3. Step OVER opponent’s countering arm and put calf under opponent’s head
4. Grab shin with opposite hand; at this point you control head and one arm
5. Post free hand to avoid being bridged OR
6. Roll into triangle when opp tries to bridge

Triangle to elbow guillotine

1. Try to drag opponent’s sleeve across your body
2. Opp will try to counter by jerking arm
3. In the space thus created, slide your hands under opponent’s elbow into guillotine position
4. While securing opponent’s body with your guard, lean into the guillotine

Triangle to kimura

1. Try to drag opponent’s sleeve across your body
2. Opp will try to counter by jerking arm
3. Keep opponent’s wrist close to his body
4. If his elbow bends reach over and secur the kimura

Side control to kimura

1. From side control, opponent will often try to cross-face to relieve pressure on his head
2. With hand closest to opponent’s feet, pull down on his bicep so his elbow is close to his side
3. With hand closest to opponent’s head make a knife and slide it across opponent’s face to secure opponent’s wrist
4. Do a wrist curl to tighten the lock
5. Secure the kimura and pull opponent’s elbow downwards while doing a wrist curl

Japhy: Japhy kept me in his half guard and prevented me from passing most of the time.  I passed a couple of times but he was able to sweep and basically turn around in my guard.  I was too tentative about going for a submission and I didn’t have a game plan.  When I ended up in mount I blanked out and wasn’t able to do anything useful.  To be honest I was surprised that I passed guard because I do it so rarely.

Rocco: Rocco basically outclassed me in every conceivable way.  I wasn’t able to pass his butterfly guard and when I did attempt to pass by stepping over his thigh he swept me with a variation of light-as-a-feather.  If I had tried to pin his thigh rather than stepping over I might have avoided a sweep.  Over and over, Rocco methodically worked his way from side-mount to mount to high-mount and then an arm bar.  My problem is that his transitions are so fluid that I didn’t know I was in trouble until it was too late.  Most white belts pause between transitions as they think through their next move.  Rocco is a purple belt and he thinks four or five moves ahead of me.  At one point Rocco had my back and was going for a collar choke.  I pummeled and was able to push back on my heels so that I was on my back.  Then I made a mistake.  Instead of driving back and wiggling my shoulders through his arms so my back was on top of his face and then stepping out to the side, I just tried to step to the side and he easily countered with heel hooks.  He was then able to secure a collar choke in a leisurely manner while I flopped ineffectually.

I think this would be a good guard pass if you’re trying to conserve energy. It seems to be less physically taxing than the standing guard pass. I kept forgetting to push down on my partner’s sternum. In a real match, someone would just sit up and counter the pass by grabbing me around the collar or something. Gotta work on that.

1. Posture up
2. Slide knee under opponent’s buttock
3. While pushing down on opponent’s torso, step out with other foot
4. Shuffle foot out so body is perpendicular and posture is high
5. Lower your body to break guard
6. Scoot your shin over opponent’s leg hooking it with foot
7. Hook opponent’s leg with other foot while maintaining grip on other leg to prevent sweep
8. While securing opponent’s leg, step back and hip through to side mount