brief notes for myself

Too many things that have been learnt recently! Trying to remember them all, things that stand out and that I'll do a more detailed write up on later.

Standing guard trip 1. Snag leg from opponent standing in their guard, let go of the guard roll over your shoulder towards the snagged leg so you land on your knees and with the snagged leg, trip them by picking it up and leveraging at 2 points on the shin. From there, keep pressure on and move into side control. Actually managed to snag one in sparring today!

Standing guard trip 2 - drop down, leaving your legs open like a V, (hanging onto their sleeves) and bring it closed around their knees. Pull their weight forward and drop them to the side.

Standing guard trip 3 - Drop down, snag their leg with an arm underhook. Get your hip inside their knee, push up and to the side with your free hand and buckle the leg. Follow in a clockwise (or anti clockwise) to follow up for the mount control.

Standing guard trip 4 - Drop down, holding onto their lapel and sleeve. Release the lapel, pass the sleeve to the free hand and underhook their leg with the new free hand. Pass the sleeve back to the underhooking hand and release your guard and triangle your legs trapping the arm. This should result in them tripping and you ending up in a side control position (potentially mount).


Bread knife choke - from side control, move into front control. Get your arm under their armpit and towards their neck to grab the lapel, but mainly keeping their arm pinned to your body. Move back to side control with the pinned arm, reach through and grab the opposite lapel with thumb in, deep as you can get. From there, use the sharp part of your wrist to push down on their neck, whilst simultaneously raising their shoulder to get the choke. Tried this one in sparring today (no gi), was much harder to get the actual choke without the lapel, though you could theoretically get it with the hand behind their shoulder instead of grabbing the lapel. 

Notes to self
Keep good posture, head up
Both hands in, or both hands out, not one in and one out...ever.
Don't let them control your wrists, or you won't be able to pass the guard.

Hopefully going for my Kenpo Orange belt at the end of the month...still a bit to learn, but there should be enough time to learn it all properly!

On Saturday we worked a couple of combinations and things in MMA. I haven't updated in a while...not sure why. I guess I've been pretty busy, things have been hectic and though there have been things learnt, I didn't really feel like writing about them. Anyways, will be trying to get back into it!

Guard combination – Arm bar to triangle choke to arm bar

From guard position, set up for an arm bar, if they pull their arm out, switch your leg onto the other side of their head and set up the triangle. If they post off your chest and look up at the ceiling, swing your leg around for an arm bar on the other arm. Both of your legs will be on the same side of their head to get the final arm bar.

A really good video breakdown of it.

Guard combination – Triangle to Kimura

If they try to defend the triangle by pushing their arm around the other side, switch the triangle with your legs to the opposite side in order to reach that arm and put on the Kimura lock.

Guard Guillotine

From Guard, reach up and over your opponent’s opposite shoulder like when reaching for an Omo Plata. Instead of grabbing over their arm, bring your tricep down back against your opponent’s neck. If the opponent sits back, use the arm on their neck to lift you up (so they are doing all the work). Create space between your chests, then bring the same arm’s forearm around their neck, keeping it tight. Creating the space is integral to ensuring that your forearm gets under their chin. Bring your other hand underneath the fist in a cup and saucer sort of gesture and tighten. Pull your legs and straighten them out with their head on the floor to tighten the guillotine. Another way to think about tightening this choke is to uppercut with the choking arm.

If they try to fight the choking arm, loop your other arm in under their neck and close like in a rear naked choke.

Mount combination – Side Mount, Kimura, cutting arm bar, Figure 4 and Head arm choke

From mount, swim your hand inside your opponents arm and put your hand on your opponents shoulder, leverage with your elbow so their arm moves away from their body. Squirrel their forearm so it’s behind you and around your body. Bring your knee up under their arm pit and hop up to side mount, catching their wrist and reaching underneath with the other arm to get the Kimura lock. Your thigh can be used to bend their arm or even get the Kimura. The following video is a pretty good breakdown and though isn’t exactly the same, is pretty close.

If the Kimura lock doesn’t work and they straighten their arm, slide it up to your neck and close the cutting arm bar. If that doesn’t work, pass it past your neck to your opposite hand and reach your other arm around to your wrist to get the Figure 4 lock. If the Figure 4 lock doesn’t work and they bring their arm across, lean down (your chest on their tricep) and close off a head arm choke.

Headlock Control combination – Kimura, cutting arm bar and Figure 4

Similar combos to the above except from headlock control. A huge factor to getting the lock is to bring your top thigh up as the bracing. If their arm is around your body, you can reach around and push it down and bring your knee up to get a Kimura lock. If it’s straight, you can push the arm down to get the cutting arm bar on your knee. If that doesn’t work and they raise their arm up, you can get the Figure 4 lock from behind their head.

Passing an Open Guard

One way to pass the guard is to under hook one of their legs and with the other arm, keep their other leg pinned down so they can’t complete a triangle choke. Stand up, then cross step over their pinned leg and you can go straight into knee ride or side control.

Key thing is to ensure that their leg is pinned down, or they will be able to lock down the triangle.

Some of this is off the top of my head from the other day...so yeah, they may not be 100% correct, but they should be pretty close.

Couple of new things tonight

A few new things tonight, but nothing really requiring a long post.

1. From knee ride, trap their arm closest to you at the bicep if possible, put your foot over their head and sit back for arm bar.
2. When attempting the sweep in which you push their knee back, make sure their weight is forward by controlling their arm or they will be able to post with that arm.
3. When trying for the scissor sweep, make sure the bottom leg is low enough to catch their leg.
4. When in someones guard, if you decide to stand up, make sure your legs are out of reach. This may mean that you are bent at a 90 degree angle, but it means you're less likely to be swept. From there, if you control their knees, you can step back and out of their guard and slide into knee ride or side control.


Triangle choke from Guard
From guard, punch one of their hands so you trap one arm and their head between your legs. From there, close your legs like in closed guard. Simple breakdown.
1. From the guard in which you have one arm and their head in, lift your hips up and push their trapped arm across your body. Make sure you lift your hips.
2. Pull their head down towards you whilst you push off their hip. Change your angle with the hip push to allow for a better angle to get your other leg across the back of their neck.
3. Hook the leg on the back of their neck with your other leg. Make sure it goes across the back of their neck. Pull that leg from the shin or the foot so your foot sits in the crook of your knee.
4. Raise your hips and pull their head down to get the triangle. You should only see their arm and their head from where you are. If you can see more, angle away a bit more to tighten it.

So from the right side, punch their left hand (on your right side) through your legs and close your guard so you trap their right arm and their head. Lift your hips and push their right arm across to your right (across your hips). Pull down on their head, push with your left leg off their hip and bring your right leg down behind their head. Keep hold of the head so they don't escape. Once you've pushed off their hip and angle to your right, hook your right foot into the crook of your left knee and tighten. Lift your hips, pull their head down and if it's not finishing, angle more to your right to try and get the 90 degree angle.

An alternative as well to this is if they have your lapel, attack their left hand to release the grip, put it to the ground and over hook it. Grab their lapel with your over hooked hand to keep them down. From there, grab their other hand at the knuckle to loosen their grip and punch it through your legs to set it up as above.

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!