Today we drilled the following flow:

Double Leg >>

<< Head and Arm Guillotine

Guillotine Counter >>

<< Butterfly Sweep

Hip Out >>

<< Danaher Choke

After class I was screwing around on YouTube and I saw a video for the D’Arce choke. I was all, “WTF! That’s the Danaher choke that I was just doing fifteen minutes ago!” I’m not sure who Danaher and D’Arce are but I think they ought to fight each other to see who gets to name the move.

Anyway, the Danaher/D’Arce choke is kind of advanced for me. What I really want to remember about today is the guillotine counter. I liked the counter Shawn Williams showed us because it doesn’t require you to hop over your opponent’s guard like you sometimes see. I’m not nimble enough to hop and the last time I tried I landed with my knee on my opponent’s ribs and practically killed the poor guy. So I don’t try that anymore as a courtesy to my partners.

So what you do is grab the choking wrist with your free hand using a monkey grip and pull your elbow down to your waist while looking up. Then you stabilize on your other leg while driving your shoulder downward into your opponent’s sternum. It’s important to get your opponent’s back flat because it makes it harder for him to keep his hands clasped. Also, if you stabilize on your knee, you’re vulnerable to a butterfly sweep. Or you’ll just lose your balance and flop over on your side like I did about thirty times.

Well tonight was my last class at Hollywood Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for a few weeks. I’m flying back to Minneapolis tomorrow and I’m looking forward to getting reacquainted with Minnesota Martial Arts Academy. In case you’re wondering, I have contracts at two different schools simultaneously which is expensive, but what can I say, I heart BJJ.

Anyway, when I got to class I realized I lost my favorite mouth guard and I was totally dejected. That mouth guard was my immortal beloved. It was just a lump of black plastic that cost $1.99 but it was way better than the fancy Shock Doctor mouthpiece that I payed $12 for. Sigh.

Today we drilled the transition from side-control to knee-on-belly. Shawn made some observations about knee-on-belly that I would like to remember:

• Knee-on-belly isn’t the best choice with no gi because you have fewer grips. For instance, you can’t get a collar grip and work for a cross choke or baseball choke. Since there are fewer grips, it’s a little more unstable.
• If your opponent is playing very defensively you might want to get knee-on-belly to open up opportunities for an arm-bar. For instance if your opponent tries to push up on your chest then you can get an easy arm-bar.
• If your opponent blocks a mount with his knee then you can pull your forearm across his beltline to make room for your shin. But before you do this, you should clutch his armpit with the hand you have under his head.
• Your stabilizing foot should be pointed at your opponent’s head. This ensures that your torso is directly over your opponent weighing heavily on him. If your foot is turned out, your spine is off center and you will be light on your opponent.
• If your opponent tries to bridge you off you can swing your legs over and re-establish knee-on-belly on the other side. But you have make certain not to come down on your knee because then you’ll be too light. You have to stabilize with your foot so that you are exerting downward pressure on your opponent’s belly.

Shawn also had some pointers for the counter to knee-on-belly:

• Bridge and hoist your opponent’ shin off you with the V of your hand so you can hook the leg and get work for half guard. Then use your free hand to hook your opponent’s other thigh. This prevents him from mounting with that leg. But you have to keep your arm bent with your elbow close to your side so your arm doesn’t get attacked and isolated.
• Don’t use your hand to push your opponent’s thigh down into your half guard. Use your forearm to press down on his thigh while shrimping your body. If you extend your arm you’re vulnerable to an arm bar. If you need to sink in the figure four on your opponent’s leg, you can scorpion your legs to pull him down into the half-guard with your legs, rather than push him down with your hand.

BTW - I forgot to bring a hand towel to dry myself off and my partner and I were sliding around on a slick of sweat like greased pigs on a water slide.  No gi rules!

Shawn Williams taught some rad armbar counters today, which is good because I never know what to do when I get caught in one of these. The thing I instinctively want to do is to bend my arm which is correct but Shawn taught me how to do a real technical counter and not just spaz out like I’ve been doing. Today’s sequences were very intricate and I don’t think I can describe them right but here goes. As usual I have to preface this blog by saying … I’m a white belt with six months of training. Nothing you read here can be considered even remotely instructional. This stuff is just a place for me to record my thoughts from class time.

Basic Arm Bar Escape
This counter starts when your opponent works an armbar from guard. The biomechanic that Shawn emphasized is exactly the thing I kept screwing up. Namely, you can’t let go of your own bicep.

• When you start to feel the armbar grab your bicep with the arm being attacked and scoot up and to the side so your opponent is stacked with his hips under your tail-side knee and your head-side knee tight against his side.
• Get up on the ball of your foot with the head-side foot.
• With the free arm, grab the outside of your opponent’s far knee and pull it close to your face
• Pull your trapped arm out with a series of small jerks. (Shawn made the interesting point that a big arm jerk does not work as well with human physiology)
• Swivel your hips around your opponent’s rear so you’re on the other side of your opponent.  At this point you still control your opponent’s legs
• Plant your head-side hand on the far side of your opponent’s head while driving his legs to the mat with your other hand
• Plant your tail-side hand on the mat next to your opponent’s near hip
• Transition to side control.

Counter Sweep Variation 1
This counter is for when you lose your balance while you have your opponent stacked and your opponent sweeps you onto your back by extending his legs.  In this position, you’re vulnerable to a seated arm bar. (Although ideally you still have a grip on your bicep) The last step is the most counter-intuitive but it was truly amazing how effective it was when we drilled it. Shawn coached me through this until I finally got it right.

• Bridge up and turn towards your opponent’s crotch
• With the foot farthest from your opponent’s head rotate your hips by making a big step over towards your opponent’s head so you are face down
• In order to close the distance so you can work to get your opponent stacked forcefully straighten out the head-side leg behind you
• Start over with the escape described above

Counter Sweep Variation 2
This counter is different from the last in that you turn away from your opponent’s crotch. It’s also scarier because you essentially give up your arm.

• If you’re on your back in an arm bar…
• Rotate your arm so that your thumb is pointing at your opponent’s chest
• Let your knees flop towards your opponent’s feet
• Bridge and take a small step towards your opponent’s feet with the foot furthest from his head
• Then rotate your hips by taking a big step over with the foot closest to your opponent’s head so that you end up facing the mat
• Scramble into position 0

My rolling today can be summed up thusly: I sucked ass. Here’s my self-critique:

Good

• Got a clean sit-up sweep. This is only the second time I’ve been able to do this sweep
• Got a clean mount-escape by shrimping and then hipping out when Pat transitioned to side-control
• Did a decent lumberjack-sweep and transition to mount

Bad

• Got into a fruitless hand-war with Suzuki while mounting him. I have a tendency to stick with my game-plan even if it’s not working, and I rarely transition to a different attack. This is partly because I’m trying to practice a specific technique and partly because I’m a dumb ass. In this case, I had decided that I was going to try for a mounted triangle and so I wasted a lot of time trying to isolate an arm and ignoring other opportunities.
• When mounted, I kept trying for a leg hook to half-guard and ignored an easier opportunity to transition to butterfly guard.
• Got stacked and passed three times because
  • I failed to control my opponent’s posture.
  • Let my legs get gathered up on his shoulders rather than weighing them heavy on his arms.
• Kept grabbing at my opponent’s collars even though it was a no-gi class
• While executing a guard pass on my knees I forgot to counter the far leg to avoid getting hooked up in half-guard. I did this like four times in a row and I was scratching my head wondering how I kept getting stuck in half-guard. As per usual, I remembered what I should have done while walking away from the building.

My wife Laura, a therapist and life coach, says that I get into “Negative Thought Spirals”. I this means I think about things in a negative way and fail to acknowledge the positive aspects of whatever it is I’m obsessing over until I fall into a deep and stagnant depression. I think I need to work on my mental game as much as my physical game because I make a lot of mental mistakes and that makes me more depressed than anything.

Today I had a fun no-gi class at HBJJ. I remembered to bring a small hand towel which I used to wipe up the rivulets of sweat pouring from my head. The towel was drenched through within ten minutes. Gross. Shawn taught us a high single-leg takedown as well as variations of the arm bar and triangle. It was rad.

High single leg take down

Shawn gave the following tip that I found useful: If your stance is closed, go for the double. If your stance is open (i.e. your lead foot is left and your opponent’s lead foot is right) then it’s better to go for a high single. I think this is because if you go for a single on the far leg you’ll get stuck in a guillotine.

1. From a closed stance, step into your opponent with your trailing foot and step back with your leading foot to square your opponent up and position him into an open stance.
2. Scoop up the leg and crook your hand in the dimple below opponent’s knee
3. Squat down with the side of your face on opponent’s centerline looking straight past his torso and make certain there is no “daylight” between his hip and your torso
4. Push the captured knee backward through your legs, sort of like snapping a football from a squat
5. Be heavy on opponent’s hip so they have no stability and have to hop around
6. Step forward with your trailing leg
7. Step backward with your leading leg
8. Squat down while maintaining heavy downward pressure on opponent’s hip, so that he flops down

Armbar

Shawn taught us a cool grip for controlling your opponent’s posture. Basically you reach under and grab the bicep of the far arm. Then with your other hand you do a cross-face and grab your opponent’s trap. Shawn gave us some cool biomechanical tips:

• Flex your foot on the side you have draped across your opponent’s shoulders. This engages the hamstrings and makes you heavier on your opponent.
• During the setup, point your toes the way you want your hips to face
• With the leg closest to your opponent’s head, push down forcefully with your heel
• You don’t need to hip-up dramatically. The important thing is to force-vector downwards.

Triangle

I used to try to get triangles while rolling but I stopped trying because I could never lock one in. My legs are flexible but they’re both short and wide. Whenever I tried to lock a triangle, I wasn’t able to get the cross leg parallel to the ground, and therefore, wasn’t able to get my ankle into the crook of the straight leg. Usually I ended up getting stacked and then passed. I had written this submission off as a low-percentage move for me but Shawn straightened me out. Basically, if you have trouble getting a triangle because your legs are really thick you can engage the following biomechanics:

• Grab your shin on the cross-leg as close to your opponent’s head as possible (but don’t grab your foot because you can break it)
• Scoot backwards
• Plant your free leg on your opponent’s hip and drive him back so he’s stretched out and pulled backwards into the triangle.

By employing Shawn’s teachings I was able to get a good tight triangle for the first time in six months of training and I couldn’t believe how easy it was.