93 Guard

1/9 - Downtown

My first experience with 93 guard. I like it, and it might be worth my while to try to work to that position as I'm escaping or defending bad positions.

1. Basic set-up: You're leaning slightly the R, with your R foot in the back of opponent's R knee (they are or more less kneeling on your foot). Left knee is on their R shoulder, and foot can be on their hip or next to their side. L arm is across their neck, with elbow touching your L knee and hand cupping (NOT gripping) the outside of their L upper arm. R hand is also cupping outside of their L upper arm.

Some tricks to this are to bring yourself in close to them. If you're farther away, it's easier for them to underhook your arm and/or get under your head. The forearm across their neck (upper chest) must have the elbow in contact with the knee that is up. You do NOT want them to pass their L knee over your R knee, b/c then they can just sit-out and pass to the side. Try to keep your knee next to theirs.

2. Sweep: Keep L hand blocking their L arm, take your R hand and cup under their R arm. Take L hand and push their R hand back as you slide to the side and arm drag to the back. I might have the hands mixed up.

3. Transition to arm-bar: From the set-up above, assume they slide their L arm under your head. Bring your R hand from the inside of their upper arm to the outside to their elbow or just above the elbow. Bring L knee up as you push their head to their R so that your knee is on the left side of their head. Roll (rotate) their arm toward you, gable grip hands together and armbar.

4. Transition to kimura: Same as #3, but they rotate their forearm in before you can finish. Bring your L leg over their L shoulder and onto their hip. If their arm is buried deep, get up on your R shoulder (you are getting close to being inverted at this point), switch your grips on their arm (slide your left forearm into their elbow crease) and as you drop back down off your shoulder, yank their arm out (carefully) and finish kimura. It didn't seem to matter where the R knee was, but I preferred to have it across their hips.

5. Transition to kimura then arm-bar: Same as #4, except they posture tall when you go for the kimura. Get pretty inverted (if you aren't already), slide R leg out from under them (if it isn't already out) and slide L leg across their chest (under their arms). Hip into them, and R leg will magically come across their face (by "magically" I mean I'm missing a step) and you roll into an arm-bar with them flat on their back. Viola.


Rolls
Before rolling, we did a two minute drill of whatever half-guard sweeps we could remember. I could remember exactly one half-guard sweeps (drive the bus). Seriously, someone take away my blue belt. I remember seminars with Mr. Owen in which we did quite a few, but couldn't remember the details. Embarrassing.

Rolled with Matt (AF), Blaine, Dennis, Antone, Chris. I did a fairly good job of attacking from guard today, mostly triangles, omoplatas and arm-bars. Tried hard to keep guys from passing my guard, and if I was about to give up a bad position at least put some thought into how I could set myself up to not give it up entirely. I ended up in an almost inverted guard quite a few times. I say "almost" b/c I had very little control of their limbs.

There were several times when I felt like my feet were in danger, mostly b/c they seemed to be getting caught under guys or weird transitions. Lucky I didn't get hurt today, but it was a near thing. Not sure what the deal was...might be that guys are upping intensity for tournament prep or I just wasn't as aware of my positioning as I usually am.