BJJ 12.12.2009

As promised on thursday, Juha held a slightly longer class on saturday to teach us some techniques that aren't part of the Alliance beginner curriculum. The longer class (with more theory than usual) combined with the fact that I'm a little late with writing this entry mean that I don't remember every detail sharpy anymore. My apologies.

We warmed up with two rounds of light technical sparring, first with about 40% strength, going up to about 80%. It's always difficult to regulate the level of force, but both of the rounds felt good to me. Especially the first lighter round flowed nicely, and we were able to give and take positions without unnecessary competitiveness.

Like usual, we also went through a self-defense sequence. This time the attacker approached with a straight punch, which we evaded by leaning sideways and blocking the fist away from us. Juha demonstrated that, if possible, we should always move towards the "outside" of the attack. It essentially means that we should move to the side of the striking hand, so that he can't reach us with the other one. After blocking the strike, we did a bear hug takedown by pulling behind the lower back and pushing on the chest with our heads.

The class continued with some freeform guard passing for about ten to fifteen minutes. It was fun, but nothing spectacular happened here. I did learn that in order to kimura sweep someone, you have to do it with some determination. It's been a while since I've concentrated on them, and my lazy half-assed attempts weren't very successful at first.

We moved on to the main position of the day's techniques: the open guard. As a refresher of previous techniques, we practiced the familiar foot sweep. First, hook your foot behind one knee, pull yourself towards that leg until you can reach the ankle with your hand, and finally release your foot from the hook and use it to sweep the opponent's other leg. After the sweep, you still hold an ankle with your hand. Let the ankle slip into your armpit and grab the guy's belt with the hand, trapping his fully bent leg. As the opponent now only has one free leg, it's difficult for him to keep you in his half guard, and passing is relatively easy.

We also did the triangle choke from the open guard. Let's say you have your opponent in the open guard, with your left foot on his hip and your right foot on his biceps. Now, if he doesn't hold on to your legs, it's very easy to put your right leg on his neck for the triangle. Very simple and effective; I wonder why I haven't done this on a regular basis. I don't remember anyone ever holding my pants in open guard.

Juha gave us a few general pointers for the triangle:

• To get the triangle, it's important to raise your hips using your other foot (on the opponent's hip, for example) instead of just lazily lifting your leg.
  
• When your legs are in position, but your opponent keeps his arm on the wrong side, you don't want to just pull on the hand. Simply lift your hips to a bridge, and the arm automatically moves to a better position.
• If the opponent stacks his weight on you when you have the triangle, straighten your hips by "walking" backwards with your shoulders.
  

Next, it was time for the bonus technique. As we suspected from Juha's mysterious hints, it was the omoplata lock. We practiced taking it from the open guard, with both a kneeling and a standing opponent. It felt more complicated than many of the other locks we have done, but the basic idea was this:

1. On the side where your foot is on his hip, pull his sleeve towards the ground
   
2. Get the arm to bend (even a little) in the kimura direction, using your leg
3. Gain some angle between your bodies, so that your head is on the side of the bent arm
4. Bend the arm more with your leg, eventually hooking your foot under his chin
5. Grab his belt and move your body next to his
6. Sit up and point your feet away from your opponent
7. Extend your hips forward to get the submission

I couldn't find a video with the exact same technique (seems like you can get the omoplata by a gazillion different methods), but here is the closest match. The video starts out from the closed guard, after a kimura attempt, but from 0:25 onwards it's basically the same thing as Juha's example.


Juha quickly showed us some combination attacks using the omoplata, but I didn't grasp them well. The idea was to chain different submission attempts until something works. So, if you don't get the omoplata (your opponent escapes by rolling forwards at the end), you can get an armbar. And a triangle, somehow. And another omoplata. And a strange spinning mount thingy.

At the end, we did some freeform open guard passing instead of regular sparring. I think someone succeeded in the omoplata, but I didn't find a chance to try it out. Once again, I reminded myself that my open guard pretty much sucks. Maybe I should follow Juho's example and actively practice it while sparring.