Hey All, sorry no post for a while, this whole being a new Dad thing is busier than I expected (lol), but I have still been able to roll a few times at least. A couple of things of note have happened on the mat recently, I'll mention both, but the thing with both of these techniques is that while I have been off the mat spending time in the hospital with my wife and young Paddy I have been doing moves in my head which I can't ever seem to stop doing. Anyway it is always nice to get on the mat and actually try them out, in this case I have had success with both, so here we go.
Half/Hooks Guard
I can't claim credit for making this up or anything, I was originally taught it by my coach John Will in a private lesson with him a few years ago. I have had success with it but haven't used it much as I very rarely get into the spot to do it. As well as learning from John I also found this great vid of it on Aesopian's Blog, I have put the link below, so you can check it out. Click here for vids
Anyways on the mat the other night we were running a set of drills essentially designed to encourage a person in guard to prevent their opponent from closing their guard once it was opened. One of the drills involved the person on top trying to maintain top position while preventing the person on the bottom from either pulling guard or sweeping. I found that I was able to use the concepts of getting one hook in to either get to full guard or use the sweep on the video's on basically any opponent regardless of size. I am just glad I had that running through my head before the half guard session. A small note I also found that I could get the same sweep even without the overhook, I simply started to sweep and when they posted with their free arm I brushed my arm to my head to take their post away. This had the added bonus of giving me the underhook once I had completed the sweep. I think the main key to making that series of movements work is to keep the elbow that isn't overhooking tight to your hip to block their knee from getting close to your body and also to interrupt their hips.
Butterfly Arm Drag
This one I would like to say I invented, in as much as anyone can claim they invented a technique, I mean I certainly didn't invent butterfly sweep and I didn't invent Arm Drags so all I can really claim is that I figured it out my self. Anyways I am a big fan of butterfly sweep (not hooks in sweep or elevator sweep as they call it in the UFC), I am talking about sweeping from the guard with your shins in your opponents biceps while controlling their wrists with your hands. This is one of my strongest sweeps, I take one shin across the belly and reach the same side hand down to their ankle, I then pull them with my shin towards the arm I am controlling and lift the ankle to take them over, normally to knee ride. I find that I can get that sweep on most people, but some people have been countering it recently by sitting back against the pull on their arm. So I figured that I could arm drag them by bailing on the ankle grip and reaching across so that both hands grabbed their sleeve. Then as they are resisting I simply kick my leg straight and pull their wrist with both hands giving me an arm drag, leading to all the good things that arm drags lead to. Anyways I thought of it and then tried it a few times on the mat and had pretty good success with it. I'll try to get some pics up here of the technique if I can.
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