Spider Guard Principles

Today we focused on Spider Guard. Some key tips include:

• For playing Spider Guard:
• Having your foot IN their elbow.
• Pushing their far arm and pulling their close arm when they shuffle side to side. After which, you then square up to make it hard to pass again.
• Alby, talks about lifting your hips for mobility.
• Kicking their hips away when they close the distance.
• For the leg lasso, keep your elbow down and lock your foot into their armpit.

• For passing the Spider Guard:
• Break their grips. Circle break.
• Get their leg off your biceps. Use BB Eddie's knee to forearm break technique. Bring their legs down as much as needed to use your knee.
• Get grips on both their pant legs. Drop both their legs down, pressure and then Toreando Pass.

Rolled with Nate and got stuck in half, knees on the mat. Prof. Dominic suggested to kick to the other side, so my butt is on the mat. I don't know what to call this position, but I'm going to call it reverse half guard. Nate suggests that when in postion, apply shoulder pressure, scoot my hips out, and kick out the other leg to use as a post from getting swept. Think of the other leg as a tail, without this leg post there, the opponent can swim their opposite arm into your face/chest and sweep you.

Tips from Alby

• If you cross your legs wrong in half guard, you can get kneebar-ed. If the outside leg is straight, your opponent can grab it roll over and finish with a kneebar. Therefore, you have to prevent your outside leg from being straight and tuck the ankle into the other leg.
• Triangles are everywhere. He got me in the inverted triangle twice!

Dominic is back teaching

Professor Dominic is back teaching because Professor Steve is away on vacationing in China. Dominic has been teaching half-guard techniques for the last 2 weeks. He says that the half-guard techniques will continue for several weeks. So far the focus of the techniques are from the bottom of half.

Techniques that we learned are:

1. Leg lift to regain full-guard.
2. Leg lift to opposite site to the back.
3. Frame and shrimp out to pummel under your opponent's armpit, then underhook their ankle and pass it to your arm that is pummelled under their arm around their butt, once the other hand is holding their ankle, drive into their body to sweep them (hook their knee if needed).
4. Frame and shrimp out to pummel under your opponent's armpit, now instead of passing their ankle to your other hand behind their butt, pass their gi skirt or belt (this is referred to as diaper grip), and finish the same as the sweep with their ankle.
5. Frame and shrimp out to pummel under your opponent's armpit, if your opponent wizards your arm, try to grab their pants at the knee or you can underhook the knee and sweep them backwards over their trapped arm.

Some things I learned from wrestling:

1. The side you sit out to is the side that your opponent is applying the less amount of weight too.
2. Single leg defence = wizard your arm in between their arms to grab your own leg, make sure to apply shoulder pressure, push their temple away. try Now try to pull your leg out or you can roll them.
3. When I shoot for the sweep single, I should go for their left leg.

Notes to Myself

Dominic was on the mats for a couple weeks in March because Steve was out on travel in Thailand. During his time back Dominic went over some "old school" techniques on not letting your opponent pass your guard by playing a "sitting guard." The idea basically calls for you to have your legs on your opponent's hips to follow them or use your legs to block their legs to prevent them from getting around your legs. You are usually either fully sitting up, on your side with one elbow, or on your side with one arm down. Dominic also went over a loop chock and front chock from the sitting guard; both can transition to and from each other. Another possibility is to have a collar grip which can set up a collar pull to take someone's back. One of my major flaws when I play sitting guard is that I don't hip escape and schoot my hips away from my opponents enough.

I also went and watched the 2012 Pan Ams. The event was located at UC Irvine and was huge. I went on Saturday and watched the Open Weight Black Belts compete, but honestly it was really hard to see from the stands. I couldn't make out who was whom and what happened. Next time, if I'm not competing or going with a bunch of BJJ buddies, I'll probably just order it onlines from BudoVideos because admission was $15/person and that's not including gas or driving time.

When Steve came back, he taught us a concept about connections and how staying connected to your opponent is very important. For example, you have to lock your shoulder and arms in place when smashing their legs to pass, or even locking your shoulder/arm in place to prevent someone from passing guard.

One new concept I learned was about pushing your opponent's head to the side they are trying to pass. Let's say for example, you are on bottom and the person is on top in half-guard. The side they are trying to pass will be the side you want to push their head to, this makes it difficult to pass. It's like when Mark was telling me to push Sam's head to the opposite side when I wanted to get out of his half-guard.

I also had the chance to roll with Steve again. It's been a long time since I rolled with him, but he caught me in a half-guard sweep twice and then arm-barred me... twice! The second time he half-guard swept me, he was disappointed and yelled: "Come on man! You let the same thing happen again." I was disappointed too and asked him what was my mistake. My mistake was that I was trying to smash his legs by turning my hip in... onto his legs. This made me face the direction he was facing and made me very light. Steve says I should turn my hip from the other side (left) in to smash his lower leg and be facing him. This way I have more pressure and feel heavy.

One thing I have to note is that the deep half guard sweep Justin taught me works really well. Especially, on guys who are not too heavy and aren't used to playing the deep half guard game from the top.

I need to toughed up. Not only in BJJ, but wrestling, and maybe consider taking Muay Thai again. I need that grit, passionate, toughness of a fighter, but at the same time, I wonder if this grit of a fighter will make me more impatient and mad more easily. I don't know, but I have to find that balance that makes me a better fighter so that I can earn respect.

Smash Pass

Alex showed a Smash Pass from Half Guard he learned from training at Marcelo Garcia's school.

1. From Half Guard (top), underhook your opponent's far arm.
2. Overhook their near arm and keep your head/shoulders tight to theirs.
3. Sprawl out on their bottom leg and slowly pass.

1st Stripe - Blue Belt!

Alex awarded me with my first stripe for my blue belt. Alex has been teaching class this week because both Professor Dominic Parker and Steve Gable are out due to broken legs. Dominic was in an motorcycle accident and Steve fought in Bellator 55 against Ricardo Tirloni.

Here's a link to the fight.

What we learned this week:

• "Steering Wheel" one leg takedown
• Half-guard escape to side control.
• North-South choke

This Week's Training

On Monday we went over the most basic guard pass. The one with one straight arm and other hand on opponent's hips. I get the concept in theory and in my mind I can do it, but in real life I still have trouble with this guard pass. I feel like my arms are too short and I have to move back as I'm posted up.

Yesterday was an awesome day because I got to roll with J (aka Justin). He's really good, better than the 4 stripe white belt that he displays. When we first rolled, I started out in his guard and his spider guarded me when I opened him up. He swept me with the spider guard sweep that I hate and mounted me. I didn't want him on top of me so I tried to get him into half guard, but really it ended up like a quarter guard. While in quarter guard, he did a Neto Roll, it caught me by surprised and I ended up in his guard again! Lots of things happened after which he submitted me with an arm triangle. After the match I asked him to show the Neto Roll and he said it's supposed to get my back from it.

I also rolled with Glenn. I had his back most of the time but he did a good job of defining. He's pretty good for only being a 2 stripes white belt. I ended up getting him in a rear-naked choke. Justin told me I could have finished him with a gi choke from behind: grab the lapel then grab their collar from behind, try to push their collar through my arm grabbing the label, what this does is brings my forearm grabbing their lapel closer to their throat. Pretty interesting choke for when you don't want to keep fighting for the rear-naked or traditional gi choke.

Passing Guard Tips From Larry

Today I roll with a blue belt named Larry. He gave me some tips for passing guard. He recommended standing guard passes because they are more affected.

1. Hands to opponent's armpits and spawl.
2. Then put one of your knee in between their guard to open it.
3. Once opponent's guard is opened, get into "combat stance" and press one fist down on opponent's stomach holding while other hand is holding onto their leg. (here I don't the fist on stomach is required, but you could have both hands on their legs and stay in combat stand to prevent from getting swept).
4. While in this stance make sure you are close to their hip so that you are in control.
5. Push their leg down and pass.

When sparring with Larry, I observed his "style". Every time I was in his guard, he would push one of my arms across me and try to get my back. While fighting this and trying to open his guard, he would sweep me and mount me. I would this try to bump and get him into half-guard. After which he would S-mount me, after the S-mount he would work at getting my back. I would roll back and he would mount me. Basically, he had dominated with positions the whole time and I was playing all defense.

Larry said that this is more of a no-gi pass and Prof. Steve teaches it in the no-gi class. He also give me another tip:

• "Anytime you are about to do anything, think how it makes you vulnerable, how it exposes you." I think this is really good advice/principle. This is to help you be prepared in case you have to defend. Sometimes I'm so focused on passing guard or whatever that I forget that I could be exposing myself and end up getting submitted or in a worst position.

I looked up a standing guard pass on the internet and want to try this one out some time: