I had really disturbing dream last night. Basically I got into a confrontation with another BJJ guy with whom I roll sometimes when I’m in Minnesota. I like this guy very much but for some reason I was gripped in a black rage and I put him in a foot lock and ripped his leg apart. BTW - I don’t know any foot locks but I guess anything goes in dream land. Then I kicked him in the head a few dozen times and stomped off. Later (still in my dream) I was seized with the most intense sense of guilt and remorse and I went to go and apologize. But I was too late. My victim was holding a press conference (!) and the paparazzi were there to heap me with shame. I don’t know what this dream means except that maybe I’m a tool.

Today I went to class at Minnesota Martial Arts Academy for the first time in months. Actually I’ve been to Minnesota twice since January but the first time I had a hamstring tear that caused a big scary lump to grow on my thigh. The second time I had the flu. I’m still rehabbing my MCL problem that has been plaguing me for the last few weeks, but I went to class anyway because I wanted to see what’s going on at MMAA.

When I walked into the gym I saw Sean Sherk there working his ass off on the mat as per usual. That guy has the most inspirational work ethic. Nick Thompson was there too, as well as a bunch of other professional fighters. Minnesota Martial Arts Academy is home to lots of pro MMA fighters. A lot of people come from other states to train with Greg Nelson and scrap with some of the best fighters in the game.

Anyway, today Andy Grahn taught the no-gi class. He started with two 5 minute rounds of calisthenics with medicine balls and other instruments of torture. Andy always starts class with lots of conditioning. Today he said that the reason is so our muscles will be tired and we’ll have to use technique instead of brute strength. I thought he was just being sadistic. Hee hee. Andy’s classes are awesome. I use his combos all the time when I roll.

We started with a half-guard pass to a form of side control I’ve never seen before. Basically you make a tripod with your head, knee and foot. The key is to plant your head on the mat on the opposite side of your trapped leg.

1. If your right leg is in your opponent’s figure-four, then you plant your head on the mat to your left next to his head.
2. Then you get up on your feet and drive your trapped knee to the ground so that your opponent’s hips are torqued over.
3. Pull your foot out and plant your tail-side knee on the ground right next to your opponent’s hip.
4. Balance yourself by getting up on your other foot.
5. Control your opponent’s near arm by grabbing under the tricep.

When we drilled this, Andy had us try to escape from tripod side control and it was really hard. None of the side-control escapes I know worked because my head was immobilized by my opponent’s head and I couldn’t shrimp away. It sucked. The only thing that kind of worked was to put my heels out far away from my butt and drag myself out from under my opponent with my hamstrings.
Transition to Mount
If you can’t get your foot out then you can transition to mount:

1. Switch your knee to your opponent’s other side and drive it to the ground.
2. Pummel for two underhooks.
3. Inch your hands up so that both of your opponent’s arms are isolated above his head.
4. Pull your foot out
5. Establish mount

We didn’t go any further with this technique but I think you could finish with an armbar or an arm triangle because your opponent’s arms are totally stranded. I also noticed that you’ve shut down his mount escapes because

• he can’t do a hip escape without making a frame with his arms
• he can’t do an uppa because he can’t push up on your hips
• he can’t block your transition to S-mount because he can’t push down on your hips.

Finally we worked on a counter to a kimura from half-guard. This is a rad counter because you end up with your own kimura except you’re in a dominant position postured up over your opponent. Basically the context is that your opponent has you in half-guard and he swims under you and locks a kimura on. The counter is hard to describe but it goes something like this:

1. Posture up on your head-side foot.
2. Grab under your own thigh with the arm being attacked.
3. Hip drive forward to break your opponent’s grips.
4. Making sure that his elbow is in the center of your chest grip his wrist with your free hand.
5. Lock in the kimura by passing your other hand underneath your opponent’s arm.

I missed yesterday’s no-gi class because I got totally jacked-up at work. I didn’t get back home until midnight. It was such a stressful day but for some reason I couldn’t sleep. I woke up at 5 am and started watching Marcelo Garcia videos on YouTube. Marcelo Garcia is the shiznit. I like his arm-drags.

Anyway, the point is I hate missing no-gi classes because I think I prefer no-gi now. It’s much faster and more fun for me somehow. But I must say, I feel sorry for the poor saps who have to roll with me because I am the sweatiest person alive. It’s weird and disgusting. I’m sweating right now as a matter of fact.

After tonight’s class I decided I’m going to avoid blogging about technique. It’s too hard to not be prescriptive, and as a white belt and all-around scrub I have no place writing prescriptively about BJJ technique. The more classes I go to the more I realize I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. And I don’t want to write something that inadvertently misrepresents Shawn or the academy.

One thing I did realize tonight is that you can transition to arm-bar from the cradle. How do I know? Because Alex arm-barred me three times tonight after cradling me in back-mount. I couldn’t really see how he did it so I’ll have to ask about it later.

When I first started going to Hollywood BJJ seven months ago Shawn Williams taught us some techniques from back mount. Back then I wasn’t writing everything down so all of that technique disappeared into the sucking vortex of my memory. Regardless, my back-mount game sucks ass, kind of like the rest of my game. I basically just try to do the collar choke or rear-naked choke. I actually can’t remember how to do collar chokes correctly but I think I have a grasp of the rear-naked choke. Luckily I think we’re going to start covering back-mount curriculum again so I can harden the many soft spots in my back-mount.

What do you do with your feet?
The last time I rolled at Minnesota Martial Arts Academy I kept crossing my ankles in back-mount. My partner would hang his calf across my ankles and it was very painful. I used to wrestle and I think the ankle-crossing habit is a hold-over from my wrestling days.

Another thing I do is get a figure-four around my opponent’s middle. Shawn showed us a counter to the figure-four that was very simple and effective. I guess the figure-four isn’t as good a technique as I thought. Also, sometimes when I do the figure-four the dude just rolls over and my ankle gets crushed underneath the combined weight of our bodies.

What Shawn recommended was just plain old heel hooks. The other foot technique he recommends is a belt-line hook. When he demonstrated it it looked like his other foot was resting on top of the other guy’s thigh.

As I walked home I was pondering why heel-hooks are better than a figure-four body lock. I think the reason is that heel-hooks give you control plus mobility whereas a figure-four only gives you control (which can be easily compromised as Shawn demonstrated). For instance, with heel-hooks you can just use your feet to push down on your opponent’s thighs to get him over onto whichever side you want. With a figure-four once you’re on your side, it’s pretty hard to get over onto the other side. If you can’t finish you’d have to somehow get your bottom leg free and try to scramble for dominant position.

What do you do with your hands?
This was pretty simple. Basically you should have one arm under your opponent’s arm and the other arm over his shoulder in choking position. The under-hook arm should “hide” the choking arm because your opponent will try to attack your choking arm. When Shawn demonstrated this he just grabbed the forearm of the choking arm. It’s pretty hard to get a monkey grip on your opponent’s choking arm if his hand is in the way. It’s like trying to palm a big lumpy volleyball that’s been coated in baby oil.

What do you do with your head?
Shawn really emphasized the importance of head placement. If you have your head in close to your opponent’s head it really hampers his mobility. Basically, if he tries to turn into you he can’t because your head is in the way. Also, it kind of hurts to have someone’s skull grinding into your ear. Another aspect of head placement is that if you have someone’s back, you want your opponent’s head below your head, otherwise you can’t really choke them effectively. The converse of this is that if your opponent has your back, you want to get your head above his head to make it harder for him to choke you.

How to counter a back-mount escape
The way I know to get out of back control is to

1. drive back on your heels until your head is above your opponent’s head
2. get your shoulders on the mat
3. when your opponent tries to mount by swinging his leg over, hook the leg and get half-guard

Shawn taught us a cool counter to this escape which allows you to maintain back-mount. I like this technique because you aren’t vulnerable to getting stuck in half guard as you are in step 3 above.

1. when your opponent starts step 2 above…
2. while keeping your hands clasped do the Homer Simpson walk backwards until your hips are facing the mat and your opponent is on his side
3. bring your shin against your opponent’s back
4. pull his torso up onto your thigh as though you’re cradling him
5. get a heel hook over your opponent’s body with your free leg
6. pull him back into back-control

As I’m writing this it occurs to me that after step 5 you’re also in position for an armbar, since he’s lying on his side and you have an underhook on the arm farthest from the mat. On second thought you would only have an underhook on his upper arm if he turned towards your choking arm which he probably wouldn’t do. I guess it’s time for bed.

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.