This week Shawn Williams taught us some cool butterfly guard passes. Back in November Sean Flannery taught some butterfly passes but they were completely different. Unfortunately…I went to two classes and open mat today and I think I’m pretty tired because my pea brain can simply not remember two out of the three passes we learned today. Here’s the one I do remember.

Leg Spring

1. Rest your head on your opponent’s chest looking off to one side
2. Kick up with the leg on the same side that you’re looking
3. With your other leg jump up and over your opponent’s butterfly hook away from where you’re looking
4. Land on your feet, not your knees
5. Establish side control

When Shawn demonstrated this, he was almost vertical on step 3 with all his weight driving straight down. When I tried this move, I could tell my weight was way off to the side and I wasn’t heavy on my partner at all. Gotta work on that.

We learned a cool mount from side control. This technique inflicts a lot of pain on your opponent. The goal is to get his hips torqued over as far as they’ll go while his shoulders are still flat on the ground. It reminds me of the twister because you basically turn your opponent’s body like a corkscrew.

1. Get head and hip side control with your head-side arm over your opponent’s far bicep and your tail-side hand guarding his hip.
2. Isolate his near arm by backing up and driving it back with your butt.
3. Your opponent will raise his leg to block your mount.
4. Weave your hand in the gap between his legs and drive his hips over until your hand touches the mat.
5. Block his leg by posting your arm strong on the mat - this will keep the gap between his legs open which you need because next you..
6. Put your tail-side foot into the gap and pin his leg to the ground with your shin
7. Slide your head-side arm under your opponent’s head.
8. Get an underhook with your tail-side arm and walk your opponent’s far arm up until it is over his head.
9. At this point you can mount by swinging your tail-side leg over.

We didn’t talk about this but I noticed that when you finish Step 8 you are in a position to get a kata-gatame (arm triangle). Or else you could get an arm bar if you transition to S-mount. I want to try and see if I can get a kata-gatame if I can put this whole sequence together on the mat.

I have a couple other things I need to remember from class this week.

Why is it better to grab under your opponent’s armpit rather than atop his shoulder when you are stuck in side-mount?

1. Because it makes it harder for your opponent to isolate your arm by underhooking it.
2. If your opponent gets head-and-hip side control and you want to go for the single leg, you’re already set up to shoot your hand across his body and around his leg. If your hand is on top of his shoulder then you have to work it under his chest first and then try to get the leg.

When you’re stuck in side-mount why should you always make praying mantis arms with your hands hooked?

If you push with your hands and extend your arms, your opponent will just sit out and get underneath your arm. If you make a praying mantis hook, you can just drop your elbow to the mat and you have effectively made a “wall” that he can’t get through when he sits out.

When is it safe to go around your opponent’s front side when you’re transitioning to side control?

When you have a grip on his bottom ankle, which prevents him from hip-escaping away from you. If you don’t have a grip on the bottom ankle, you must go around the back.

Today we worked on escape from side mount. It felt great to be back on the mat again, after an extended absence due to 1) being in the woods in Virginia and 2) being sick for a week.

Shawn emphasized several important bio-mechanics for side-mount escapes.

1. Rather than grab the top of your opponent’s shoulder with your head-side hand, try to grab underneath his arm pit. This makes it harder to isolate your arm.
2. Don’t try to control your opponent’s body by extending your arms. (You’ll get arm-barred) Instead, make your arms like a praying mantis and hook your hands. Control your opponent’s body with your mantis hooks.
3. Make sure your tail-side elbow is on your opponent’s far hip. If you’re having trouble getting your elbow in position, you can hop your feet out towards your opponent’s head to get your forearm across your opponent’s belt-line and your elbow planted on his hip.

Transition to Closed Guard

In this sequence and the next your opponent has you in “regular” side control with a his head-side arm under your head, his tail-side arm under your arm, and his hands clasped in a gable grip.

1. Set up the transition by hopping your feet out towards your opponent’s head.
2. Bridge up while pushing with your forearms towards your opponent’s feet.
3. Get on your side so that you are facing your opponent.
4. Carve your lower shin across your opponent’s middle.
5. Put your foot on the ground and extend your knee so you can get your butt flat on the ground. At this point your foot will be between your opponent’s legs.
6. Push your opponent’s head away from the trapped foot.
7. Free your foot and close your guard.

Transition to Arm Bar

1. Set up the transition by hopping your feet out towards your opponent’s head.
2. Bridge while arcing your forearms over your face.
3. Pull your body towards your feet using your hamstrings. Your head will pop out of your opponent’s gable grip as though by magic.
4. Elevate your hips as though you’re doing a leg lift but carve your tail-side leg under your opponent’s armpit across his chest and swing your head-side head over his head.
5. Secure your opponent’s head-side arm and apply the arm-bar.
6. If your opponent tries to counter the arm-bar by driving into you, you can sweep by driving your tail-side knee into his arm-pit so he falls to the mat onto his back. You’re still in arm-bar position so you can finish from here.

Transition to Side Control

In this sequence your opponent has head and hip side control. In other words, his head-side hand is posted across your body and his tail-side hand is controlling your near hip. I used to do a variation of this move but my version didn’t incorporate the single-leg takedown. Basically my version was steps 1, 2, and 6 and I would end up squared off with my opponent meaning I then had to scramble to get dominant position. Shawn’s technique is way more efficient and I’m glad to avoid a scramble because I generally lose scrambles due to my lack of athleticism.

1. Set up the transition by hopping your feet out towards your opponent’s head.
2. Bridge up while pushing with your forearms towards your opponent’s feet.
3. With your head-side hand make a windshield-wiper down so your hand is pointing toward your opponent’s feet.
4. Bring your tail-side elbow to your belt line.
5. Shoot your windshield-wiper hand across your opponent’s hip and behind his thigh.
6. Scissor your legs so you are facing the mat.
7. Plant your ear against your opponent’s thigh.
8. Put your other hand on top of the windshield-wiper hand, so that both hands are around your opponent’s leg. You are now in position for a single-leg.
9. If possible, try to block your opponent’s foot on the trapped leg with your knee. This will also have the effect of getting you behind him.
10. Get up on your feet and drive against your opponent. He will flop down on his side with very little effort on your part.
11. Grab your opponent’s mat-side leg to prevent him from shrimping.
12. Walk around toward your opponent’s face and secure side control with your arm under his head.

After class I had a nice surprise. As some of you know I started training 7 months ago and in that whole time I’ve never been promoted. Being a perpetual white belt never bothered me actually. What really makes me hate myself is when I can’t put techniques together when I’m rolling. Or when I’m sloppy or lazy. I basically just want to be have a beautiful BJJ game and do good on the mat.

Anyway, as I was leaving Shawn gave me a new white belt with three tips and I was both shocked and very gratified. As an additional bonus, my new belt is longer which is cool because my other belt barely fit around my stomach. When I tied the old one off, there were like two inches of belt past the knot. It was totally embarassing.

Watching the Brock Lesnar/Frank Mir fight last night made me think back to the very first UFC when a physically over-matched Royce Gracie left a swath of destruction down the center of the octagon. If there was ever a question that technique can defeat strength Royce Gracie laid that question to rest with a jaw-dropping display of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Given the history of UFC, I’m not sure why so many pundits were convinced Lesnar would beat Mir. If a littler guy can’t beat a bigger, stronger guy than the entire premise of Jiu-Jitsu is worthless and we should all just go to the weight room and try to get pumped up. Right?

One other gripe before I shut up about this forever. A lot of the Monday morning quarterbacks are saying stuff like, “Lesnar would have destroyed Mir but for the one mistake.” I think that reasoning is deeply flawed. If Lesnar made a big mistake in the first 90 seconds of the fight, he’d make roughly 3 big mistakes per round, or 15 big mistakes over the course of a fight. Compare that to someone like Fedor Emelianenko, who makes almost no mental errors, and you begin to grasp how much Lesnar has to learn (and unlearn) before he takes the belt. Personally, I think it’s inevitable that Lesnar takes the belt. He’s too talented and driven not to. As he raises his game he is going to be pounding guys like rented mules.