Spider Guard

4/6 - Downtown

We worked spider guard all day, and then some techniques from Robson's inverted spider (?) guard. I really liked what we did, even if I'm not sure what to call it. :)

We're still doing 6min rolls, even though Pans is in the rear-view. I'm not sure if this is going to continue through the summer tournament season, but it's interesting how the addition of just one minute effects the flow of our rolls. Specifically, we're typically getting four different partners per day instead of five. I'm not sure that it's making that much of a difference in the big picture, but I do feel like something is lacking when only rolling with four people.

Technique

Spider Guard:
1. Closed Guard to Spider Guard: Sleeve grip both sides. Turn on your side, squeeze legs on either side of opponent's chest. Bring L leg through, knee on the inside of their elbow and foot on their hip. Flare knee out. Turn to R side and do the same thing. Don't need to keep a death grip on the sleeves at all times. If they aren't trying to pull their arms away, you can relax your grip. Tighten only when necessary.

2. Spider Guard to Triangle: You have R foot on inside of opponent's L elbow. Opponent posts R knee up in combat stance. Take your L foot off of their hip, turn to your L side and hook the inside of their R ankle with the top of your L foot. Kick out to get their weight off of the leg and straighten their leg perpendicular to you. Immediately move L foot back to their hip. Step up on both feet, elevating your hips. Consequently, if they try to posture up, they will take you up with them. Move R foot from their L arm to across the back of their neck. Maintain sleeve grips, keeping their L arm from moving inside your triangle and keeping their R arm in. Move L foot from their hip to hook over R foot.

3. Spider Guard to Omoplata: Same setup as #2. After you kick their leg out, put their R arm in your L pocket. Rotate around and straighten your legs before bending your lower legs to the R. Straightening your legs will help keep you heavy and prevent them from turning right back into you.

4. Spider Guard Sweep: Opponent is in combat stance, but in this case the same side knee is up as your bicep control. You have their R bicep with your L foot, and their R knee is up. Switch the sleeve control of their L hand from your R hand to your L hand. Bring your R foot to hook on the outside of their R thigh. Feed your R hand under your R thigh and to the outside of their L shin (similar to how you would use it to do the DLR drill). Goal is to rotate and get your head under their body. They will probably post, in which case you take their back. Get your L knee behind the back of their L thigh, then extend your legs away from you and bring your R knee behind the back of the R thigh as you roll flat on your back. This will prevent them from getting to their side and set you up for a back take.

5. Robson Inverted Spider: I don't know what to call this. Instead of foot in bicep, put R foot in their L armpit with your toes pointing behind them. Switch the grip on their L sleeve from R hand to L. Grip on the inside fabric of their pants on their L knee and invert. Control them with the push/pull from their armpit and sleeve.

6. Inverted Spider Triangle: Assuming they try to break the grip on their knee after you invert, grip their R sleeve with your R hand. L hand has grip on their L sleeve. Keep R foot in their pit as you bring L leg around the back of their head. Once you have it settled, take R foot off and finish triangle.

7. Inverted Spider Sweep: If they try to kill your L leg as you invert, bring your knee in toward you. Let go of grip on their L sleeve with your R hand and move it to the back of their R tricep. Pinch it in to you. Bring your L leg over their head and arm-bar.

Rolls

Rolled with Fernando (W), Antone, Manny & Colt. Told myself that I was going to work sweeps instead of submissions, but triangled Fernando at least once from guard and tried another. Swept several times to mount though, so felt better about that.

Tried very hard not to leave anything out for Antone to snag, but he was able to sink a choke. Otherwise I stayed fairly tight and was able to survive.

Had a good back and forth roll with Manny. He was on top almost the entire time. I worked to regain guard, and he often passed to side-control and I was barely hanging on to quarter guard for a good portion of the time. At one point I had a kimura from guard or half guard and it was close, but I kept changing the angle instead of just following through with what I had. I think I was getting impatient and wasn't sure that I had the right angle. Pity.

Colt was on top most of the time. Same deal, kept working to try to regain guard.

Nando was there but wasn't rolling much as he's still trying to heal his injury.