Great class today. Still training in the same academy in Southern California, Babalu’s Iron Gym. We went over a double leg guard pass series today.
1. Start in partners closed guard with posture broken and his hands holding the back of my head down.
2. Place both hands on his abdomen, open my left knee out, turn my head to the left to get some breathing room, and then push with both hands, and at same time try to retract head back and up, in order to release head.
3. Now that head his released, I can establish posture.
4. Use my right hand to fold his lapels together and right hand to hold onto it, with fist at the level of his solar plexus.
5. Left hand either controls the sleeve of his right hand or his right waist line with elbow in his thigh.
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6. Stand up and squat with my elbows connected to my thighs trapping both his thighs. This enables control of his hips so he can’t move for a sweep or submission.
7. Bring my feet a little closer together so that I can stand up fully with good posture, with right hand, continue holding onto his lapels, however move it down so holding a much lower portion of his lapels, closer to his navel. This enables my right hand to push back against him if he tries to crunch up.
8. Let go of whatever my left hand is holding and reach backwards to find the opening where his ankles are crossed and thread my left arm through to break open his guard.
9. Once his guard is broken, use my left arm to underhook the back of his knee (popliteal fossa) against my inner elbow (antecubital fossa), and my hand cupping his knee cap.
10. Step back a half step and assume squat, so now I’m squatting with my left arm underhooking his right knee and right hand holding on to the inferiormost portions of his lapels.
11. Let go of right hand and immediately use it to underhook his left knee, and at the same time thrust my body forward and go onto my knees into kneeling position.
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12. Grip my hands together like a waist-level seat belt with his hips elevated onto my thighs, allowing for control of his hips, so he can’t re-establish guard, or attack for a submission.
13. Elevate my right knee and at same time twist my trunk so that his legs are now towards my right side, and my left elbow is down on his chest.
14. Now stand on toes of both feet driving forward, use my right hand to feed his left lapel to my left hand for a deep grip, and place my forearm onto his neck.
15. Right hand can them grab back of his pants waistline to control his hip as I continue to drive forward, pressure his neck and thrust my hips down until I’m passed his legs and his guard.
16. Finish in side control.
It was a good series to practice and I will try to incorporate this more into my arsenal of guard passes. I’ve been working on the knee slicer pass a lot with a moderate amount of success against people my level or below. I get denied pretty easily with higher level belts, which I guess is to be expected.
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We completed the class with position specific training, one guy in closed guard top and the other on bottom. I almost passed my first opponents guard, and ended up in half guard. As I was trying to pass the half guard, I found that I pretty much had an arm triangle, so I went for the submission and got the tap out. First time I ever applied the arm triangle before, so that felt good.
He got me back later on though with a leg triangle. When I’m trying to pass the guard I have a really bad habit of maintaining my grip on his lapels with my right hand, as in step 4 from above, and not moving them down the lapel, instead stubbornly holding a higher grip… and when I move to underhook his leg with my left arm, I get caught in a triangle.
I’m guaranteed to get caught with this once per training session. I need to be more cognizant of this in the future.
I still have a lot of issues with my game right now, the most glaring of which include a porous guard, limited guard pass arsenal, and hesitation with attacks.
It truly is a long journey.
I also trained with a big guy, somewhere between 6’2-6’4 weighing 300-350 lbs. He pretty much manhandled me. My skill level definitely isn’t quite high enough yet to withstand this size differential!
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