Hip Bump Sweep and Back control defense

Wow, it's been a while since I last updated...haha...Not Diablo 3 related...I swear!

The other night we learnt the hip bump sweep. I must admit, I found it quite difficult to pull off, and I suppose it’s most likely due to being unfamiliar with it. There were alot of aspects to consider with it and though it seems fairly simple, pulling it off in wrestling seems like it’d be difficult unless done incredibly quickly.

Hip Bump Sweep

1. From a closed guard position, break down your opponent’s posture bringing them down with your legs and a grip on the lapel.
2. As your opponent tries to posture up, follow him and cross grab his arm in an overhook opening your guard. So with your right arm, sit up, going up on your left hand and reach over his right arm (diagonally opposite). Your left arm will be supporting from the hand (not the elbow).
3. Control their arm with the overhook, keeping your body close, and bump your hip (pushing hard with your leg) into their torso to sweep and reverse the position into you in Mount.

You need to control their arm to stop them from posting out and to assist in the sweep.
Submissions 101 breakdown. He makes it look so easy...

 

The main thing is to control that arm and push hard with that leg to get the momentum.

The alternative to this is if your opponent pushes you down, sensing you were going for the sweep, you can scoot your butt away a bit so you’re sitting, push the overhooking arm down over their neck (like a guillotine) and under their opposite arm. Clasp your hands together and if you can get a leg hook in, you should be able to sweep them over you.

Back control defence

Someone also gave me some tips for defending when someone has you in back control.

1. If with back to floor, push your legs off the floor and try to work your head higher than the person controlling you from behind. This will allow you to relieve the pressure of an attempted choke and make it harder for them to finish.
2. Roll to the opposite side that they are attempting to choke you from. So if they are trying to choke with their right, roll onto the left. This can trap their other arm and stop it from completing the choke.
3. From point 2 above, making small incremental shifts of their leg with a grip on their pants to remove the hook and under your body can improve your position and allow you to turn around.
4. Always defend your neck.

Important point, From back control, never lock your feet in front of your opponent as you’re just asking for an ankle lock.

Cross collar choke from knee ride

Today we worked with the cross collar choke from knee ride.
This is one of those which works as a good strategy to lure an opponent into moving the way that you want them to.

Starting from knee ride, using the same arm as knee, grab their lapel on the opposite side. So right knee ride, grab their right lapel (on your left) with your right hand, fingers in. Elbow should be down on the same level as your knee. Don't put it too high or they'll know you're going for the cross collar choke. From there, if they hip escape away from you (so facing you), lean forward to stop them from escaping and at the same time, punch your hand gripping their lapel through towards their far ear. This is integral or you won't create a grip point for your other hand. Also, they are not likely to hip escape towards you as this will expose their back and a potential arm bar. As you lean down, reach behind their head, grab with your thumb in the lapel and bring that arm down around their head and below the jaw. Pull back with both hands whilst pushing your knee forward and them flat onto their back. Most of the time, you'll get the choke here.
If you don't get the choke, you can transition to mount, tripod with your head above their head and tighten the choke. This should usually get it, even for those with really thick necks.

I had a lot of trouble finding anything from knee ride, but the concept is the same from mount as it is from knee ride. In this video, he actually gets the opposite grip in first, but this is a consequence of starting it from mount.

The alternative to this is if you can't get the 2nd grip behind their head, you don't even need it. As long as you control his shoulder, you can still get your wrist across his neck and complete the choke. A general rule of thumb here is to maintain a 90 degree angle with your wrists. From here, we worked with rolling them into your half guard and trapping them there. If they don't want to move, you can always push them onto their back and finish it from mount as above.

From guard, you can also execute this move. If you control their opposite lapel like before (deep is best), break their posture with your legs and reach around and grab their opposite lat or shoulder with the free arm (like you're climbing to back mount). This breaks their posture and brings them down towards you. Though it's not a cross collar choke like before, their priority is to regain their posture. They do this by pushing across and under the arm holding onto their lat. From there, it's just a matter of controlling their shoulder and completing the choke again. There should be almost no escape for them from this position as if they pull back, push forward or try to stand up, they will have to tap out.

So Cross collar choke...another choke to play around with!

Opponent standing in your guard

Last night we worked on options if an opponent stands when they’re in your guard.

First thing was to control their posture but grabbing their lapel. This is assuming that you’re still locked in with your feet in a closed guard, but they have managed to stand up.

I was also taught that when standing up in someone’s guard, you should grab both sides of their lapel, pull it down tight, and twist to get a good grip. Then, grabbing one of their sleeves (preferably the one which you will first stand up with), push that across, then stand to reduce the potential for a sweep.

All of these moves assume your opponent has just stood up in your guard.
Arm bar variant
One option is that whilst grabbing their lapel and controlling their posture, you can walk your legs further up their shoulders, one leg at a time (whilst still on their back), adjust your angle by under hooking one of their legs. Trap one of their arms and swing your leg around for an arm bar.
Arm bar variant 2
The other option is if you can’t get the arm bar due to your opponent stacking you, you can reach across to their other foot (the one that you didn’t under hook before) with the same arm, grabbing from the front. Maintain the grip with your attacking arm. You then bridge your hips and roll them, keeping your legs tight together. This ends up with them on the ground in an arm bar, they may roll, but you can still get the arm bar even if they end up face down or face up.
Omo Plata variant (from right hand POV) – this one is a bit fuzzy...
Similar set up to the above, instead of swinging your leg around and to the opposite side of their head and pinning it there, swing your left leg around and close it in a triangle around their left arm (Your right foot being in the crook of your left knee). Hip escape to the right. From there, trip them up with your right arm in the under hook on their left leg and pushing your right thigh down on their arm.  Clear their left leg out of the way, grab their belt and pull yourself into sitting position. Their arm should be trapped between your legs. Undo the triangle, lean forward, right leg on their tricep, right foot just near your left leg to get the submission. Aim to lean towards their opposite shoulder for the tap.
Some of the points are a little bit hazy as it’s a little bit more of a technical move. Hopefully we will revisit this one later. The teacher said this was more of a blue belt technique, but was just introducing it to us for future reference.

Anyways, points to remember from this lesson.
1.    Control their posture with a grip on their lapel.
2.    From someone’s guard, grab both sides of their lapel, pull down and twist inwards. Control their arm (via sleeve) that you intend to start standing up from.
3.    You can change your angle and attack from utilising your opponent’s legs
4.     If you control their posture with their lapel, you can shimmy your legs up to their shoulders for a different attack.
5.    Sweeps are also available from this position.
6.    For the Omo Plata, lean towards their opposite shoulder that you’re attacking. Pushing your thigh down against their tricep is critical to pushing your opponent into the Omo Plata position.

I actually managed to get someone during wrestling to submit to an Omo Plata! ^_^V First time ever! I’m not sure how I even set it up, but I found myself in the position for it and used point 6 to get it.
I did also try to get a D’arce Choke from side control, but failed to execute it properly...more practice required methinks!

Front Sweep, Back Sweep and variations

Last night we learnt the front sweep, the back sweep and a couple of variations.

These all start from you pulling guard position on someone who is standing up. So say both of you are standing, you grab their gi and jump into guard with them standing.

Back Sweep
1.    From Guard (and your opponent standing), you drop down onto your shoulders, letting your legs go.
2.    As your knees pass their torso, bring them together and keep your feet on their back, toes facing inwards. This essentially means that they are trapped between your knees and feet.
3.    Grab their legs behind the ankle (thus trapping them) and thrust your hips up (therefore pushing your knees into them).
4.    This should make them stumble backwards and fall onto their back. Once they are on their back, grabbing their lapel and drag yourself up into Mount position.
This works exactly the same without the Gi. I’ve noticed that this one is really good as well for when people are trying to stand up in your guard, you can usually get them in the transition period and reverse the positions.

Front Sweep
1.    From Guard (and your opponent standing), grab your opponent’s gi sleeves and drop down onto your shoulders, letting your legs go.
2.    Bracing your feet on their stomach (toes in or out), pull their weight over you with your grip and flip them over your head.
3.    Maintain grips and follow them as they fall over onto their back so you end up in Mount position.
This one seems to rely more on Gi, though you could probably do it with grabbing wrists, it would be difficult, especially as everything tends to be slippery.


Variation sweep 1 – Hand stand sweep
1.    From Guard (and your opponent standing), drop down onto your shoulders. Slightly lower yourself by loosening your legs a bit, but don’t let them go. Your hip should be approximately in line with their knee. 
2.    Hook your right arm behind their left leg from the inside so the inside of your elbow is on their ankle.
3.    Put your left hand next to your head with fingers facing down and push to the side. This will force their knee to bend and trip them onto the floor.
4.    Grab their lapel and drag yourself into Mount position.

Variation Sweep 2 – Knee binding sweep variant
1.    From Guard (and your opponent standing), grab your opponent’s gi sleeves(?) and drop down onto your shoulders, letting your legs go.
2.    Allow your legs to spread into a V as you drop and bring them together again in closed guard at a point just above their knees, forcing their knees together.
3.    From there, it’s just a matter of tripping them down to the side. Use your legs around their legs to move up to Mount position.

Practice practice practice!

D'arce, Anaconda and North South chokes

Tonight I learnt a few new chokes, but I think the thing I need to work on the most at the moment is my posture. When we start wrestling, I've been told that my weight and head is too far forward and this results in me being easy to guillotine or be controlled from the back. Same with being in guard, posture is integral to ensuring that I can at least prepare to pass.

Today someone taught me the D'arce Choke, a variation to a head arm choke.
Submissions 101 D'arce Choke breakdown and concept.

Instead of starting on top, I was taught the choke from side control, if they're trying to hip escape away from you (facing you), you dig your arm closest to their leg under their top arm, under the arm pit and around their neck. Then with that same arm, loop it back and grab your other bicep to close the choke and tighten (like a rear naked choke).

I was also taught the Anaconda choke (another variation of the head arm choke) but I must admit, I'm a bit hazy on the details. It seems very similar, to the D'arce, except the arm is dug deep from the other end (so dig in from the neck), bring it under his opposite armpit from the side of the neck you dug and close it like a rear naked choke again.

With each of these chokes, getting that arm as deep as possible seems to be one of the key, or you can't close the choke off. 

Someone also taught me the basic North South Choke. From front control, slip your arm under the neck, push their head to the side and get their neck in between your lat and bicep. Then, with the other hand gripping the choking arm, pull it tight and sink your body down, pushing your chest forward. The sink is really important. Another submissions 101 video explaining how to execute it! Whether their arm gets caught in it or not isn't really important, as long as you have unhindered access to their neck.

Figure 4 lock (Americana) from mount. I need to focus more on putting all my weight into getting that arm down and working for it.
If the person is tightly keeping their arms to their body, I can always attack the neck to get them to open up.  Got caught with this several times.

So some points for improvement:

• Work on keeping posture upright! This is especially key when in a guard, mounted or even at the start of wrestling.
• Use my weight to try and manipulate people, not my strength. 
• Keep my weight as low and centred as possible. Extending beyond my weight results in easy sweeps.
• Attack the neck if an opportunity is not presenting itself from mount.
• Look for under the arm or under the neck choke opportunities.

Throat hurts...someone choked me pretty hard, hopefully it doesn't bruise.

Scissor Sweep

Tonight we learnt the scissor sweep and variations to the scissor sweep!
Sweeps are really fun and can completely reverse your position in a single move. Simple demonstration and instructions from Submissions 101.

Scissor sweep starts off fairly simply from controlling an opponent in your guard.
Points I took note of included:
1. From Guard position, commencing position is right hand gripping the inside of their lapel (cross grab), left hand controlling their right hand from the sleeve.
2. If in closed guard, unlock the feet, hip escape to the right (pushing with your right leg), bringing your right knee across their chest. Maintain hand grips.
3. In a single motion, pull them towards you with your arms (loading their weight towards you) and push your right leg across in a forward kicking motion, pulling your left leg back in the opposite direction (hence the scissoring) and sweep their legs out from under them. Getting their weight moving towards you is pretty important or your left leg will have a lot more trouble sweeping the legs out from under them.
4. This usually ends up with you in the mounted position.

Variations to this include (from when you have hip escaped and have the knee across their torso):
1. If the left leg cannot sweep the legs out from under them (their weight is too far back), instead of trying to sweep the leg out, put your left leg on their right knee and push it back, removing their support. This should also end up with you in mounted position. This is also shown in the Submissions 101 video.

2. If they raise their left leg and put their foot on the floor (so their right leg is on their knees, left is on their foot, think it's called the commando position), bring your right foot back to hook under their left leg behind the knee. Proceed to raise that leg and sweep from there.

3. (This one is a bit hazy...so forgive me if it's wrong) If they raise their right leg instead (in a mirror of point 2 above) and put their foot at the crook of your left knee, push off their hip with your right leg, hip escape to the left, insert your left leg under their right leg and push it across the body so you hook into their torso. From there, pull their opposite arm across and towards you (let go of the collar grip). Reach over their shoulder, grab their belt. Pull their weight onto you using the belt as leverage and kick your right leg out, spinning them to your right. This should get you in side control. (I'll check details on this one later...haha...). This one seemed a bit convoluted, but from doing a bit of reading and research, it looks like the reaching over and grabbing the lat or belt makes it's way into a few variations of the scissor sweep.

The best bit about the scissor sweep is that once I'd learnt it, it was very easy to execute and I managed to pull it off multiple times during sparring! I think I'll write a bit more about the mechanics of the scissor sweep later when I have a bit more time!

I think that this blog is already having a positive effect on my training and the way I'm thinking about the martial arts. I'm thinking more about the mechanics and the bases in which the submissions, the sweeps and positions are most effective. Hopefully this continues!