North/South Escapes

1/10 - Valley

Today we worked north/south escapes, and I absolutely loved the techniques. It seems likely that I'll be able to apply them during rolling, or at least try. No rolling at the end of the class.

Setup: Opponent has you in north/south. You have your hands clenched into fists on either side of their hips.

1. Fish to Half Guard: Bring R arm across their upper chest and fist to their L shoulder, perpendicular and touching your L fist. Pop your head out to the L, and swing both legs up in the air to the L and then sweep down and to the right. Should be able to slide R knee across their R hip and perhaps deeper, while the L leg comes over the top of their back R leg to trap it. You can get to full guard, attack the back or possibly go for arm-bars or chokes from here.

2. Roll to Take the Back: With both hands on both of their hips, bridge up and then scoot away from them, creating space. The more space the better. Roll over your R shoulder and get your R hook in. Straighten your left leg and turn your hips into them to get your L hook in. This makes it a little bit easier than the scoot, scoot, scoot that is normally necessary to get both hooks in.

3. Roll to Arm-bar: Same as above to the point where you get your R hook in. You have their R arm/shoulder trapped at this point, so push their head away (toward their L), and bring your L leg over their face. Bridge into their arm. One thing to note here is that you do NOT need or want to bring your legs together to finish the arm-bar. It's perfectly ok and probably desirable for your R hook to stay in and your L to stay across their face. I loved this move.

4. Foot in Belt: Good trick for starting this is when you have both hands on their belt, get your fingers in between the two loops while you are gripping instead of letting go, reaching around their back and then trying to separate the two loops. Put your L knee against the R side of their head and push it to their L. Roll over your R shoulder, get your foot into the top loop, grip the inside of their gi pants at the knees and roll them over the top of you. Foot should remain at their back in the belt, R hand should remain on their R pant leg and their R arm/shoulder will be trapped under your R arm. Bring L leg over their head, squeeze knees toward each other, bridge up into their elbow. Note on this one...do NOT try to create space on the bottom before rolling and hooking your foot. This works better with less space. Also, keep elbows tight together during the entirety of this, as it will result in a tighter grip on their shoulder.