Today Shawn taught us a sequence from knee-on-belly. I like knee-on-belly because it works to my strengths. Namely, I weigh a ton and I have knees the size of bowling balls. I had a bad size-match with my training partner today and I imagined I could feel his ribs folding when I put my weight down. I felt pretty bad, but he’s hella tough and it was probably no big deal for him.

Side Control to Knee-on-Belly

• With your head-side hand grab the gi under your opponent’s armpit
• When your opponent counters by pushing his knee into your side, use your tail-side arm to drive his knee down and make space for your shin
• Slide your shin across your opponent’s belly and make sure to hook his belt line with your foot
• Get your other knee off the mat and plant your foot to the side
• Elevate your opponent’s head by prying it underneath the base of his skull and levering up (so he can’t bridge)

Cross Choke Variation 1

• From knee-on-belly, use your hand farthest from your opponent to grasp his collar and pull his shoulders up off the mat
• Slide your other hand deep into his collar.
• Reach across his neck and grasp the fabric of his kimono as close to your other hand as you can manage. You don’t need to get your hand inside the kimono
• Transition to mount by swinging the belly leg over
• Lean forward and try to touch your head to the mat on the side of your opponent’s head opposite the collar grab while drawing your elbows to your beltline

Cross Choke Variation 2 (Baseball Choke)
Shawn calls this the baseball choke because you hold onto your opponent’s collar with the palms of your hands facing in, the same way you grab a baseball bat. I had a hard time with this one.

• When you try to sink in the inside-grab to start the collar choke, sometimes your opponent will duck his head under your forearm so your grip is on the far side of his head and his neck is out of danger
• With an overhand grip grab your opponent’s collar on the near side of his head.
• Straighten your arms out
• Isolate your opponent’s near arm by sliding your knee against it while leaning back against his body
• Without releasing your grips or bending your arms transition to a north-south type position with your knees on either side of your opponent’s head so that you end up facing his feet
• Lean forward and try to touch your head to the mat next to his hip on the side where you have the overhand grip.
• Clear as mud?

Knee-on-Belly Defense
This is a cool reversal and if you do it right you end up in half-guard.

• Bridge
• With the V between your thumb and forefinger lift your opponent’s ankle to loosen his belt-line hook
• Hook his ankle with the leg closest to your opponent
• Hip out so you’re off to the side and drive the captured leg down if you need to tighten the half guard
• Pummel for an underhook and grab your opponent’s gi high up on his collar

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 13th, 2007 at 6:33 am and is filed under Hollywood BJJ, classwork, gi, technique. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.