Gather around, children, and hear the tale of saturday's class.
There was once a man named Juha, and he hated people with all his heart. So deep was his hatred, that he made us do 50 sit-ups, 50 twisting sit-ups, 50 crunches, 50 hip lifts, 50 leg lifts, 50 side crunches, 50 side leg lifts, 20 guard lifts, 40 burpees, and some guard passing. And that was just to warm us up for the remaining part of the longer-than-usual class.
After I had lost all will to live, we moved on to the day's technical agenda. The first thing for us was to practice our two-leg takedowns, focusing on aiming our force to the right direction. By bringing the hind knee down first you can pretty much ensure that the movement isn't shooting straight towards the ground. Once the momentum is built up, it is time to tip the opponent over by pushing him off from his base of balance, a little to the side.
When the takedowns were going more or less smoothly, we gathered for some guard passing. This time, Juha instructed us not to close our guard at all to work on our open guard skills. My open guard game sucks completely, and I lost almost every round miserably. For some reason, I have absolutely no idea how to act in open guard. My performances were so poor that I felt like I was not even learning from my mistakes. Note to self: learn the basics of open guard.
The second actual technique was an escape from high closed guard. If you end up in the situation where your opponent has you in his guard and his legs are high up on your back, you can try to navigate your knee between his legs. When standing up, grab his belt line or the edge of his pants, and push yourself backwards. This should clear up some space to put your knee in the middle. Get low on your other knee, and leave the front knee pointing up. Then you can pass the guard by stepping your front knee over the opponent's opposite thigh, and following with the rest of your limbs.
The last move was a simple choke from side control (top). When you have your hand under the opponent's head, put your thumb in his collar next to his neck and grab the gi. Next, pull your elbow free from under his head, and rotate your wrist over his neck. Finally, you grab the other collar with your other hand, and tighten the choke. This should work especially well in a situation where the opponent tries to turn towards you from underneath. When you have the grips sunk in, any shrimpy movements actually work against him.
Last, we had a few rounds of free rolling, and then we were free.
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