Terror

Was shocked to hear of the bombs in Boston today. Regardless of whether this was a domestic or foreign attack, it was unquestionably a terror attack. The word that comes to my mind is cowardly. I don't understand the mindset of people who think destruction is preferable to positive change. I guess it's easier to be a coward and to hide behind hate, intolerance and violence than to stand up and try to effect change for the better.

4/15 - Downtown

Worked on spider guard again today. The more we do it, the more I like it. Today we approached the scenario where your opponent is in your guard with both knees on the floor.

Technique
1. Spider Guard to Triangle/Omoplata: From spider guard with your feet on their hips and both sleeve grips, put R foot on the inside of their L elbow. Push their arm back with your foot and curl your toes around their bicep. This should give you a decent hook for you to control their arm for at least a little bit. Release your R hand grip and grip their R collar. Use your L hand to pull their R arm between your legs and onto your stomach. Pull their R sleeve toward you as you hip up. From here, you can move your R foot to behind their head for a triangle, or tuck their R arm into your L hip pocket for the omoplata.

2. Spider Guard to Arm-Drag: From spider guard with feet on their hips and both sleeve grips, put R foot on inside of the L elbow as above. As you do so, sit up into them by using the momentum of your foot pushing the arm back to bring you up. Release your R hand sleeve grip, grab their L tricep and pull their L arm into your arm-pit. Hop scoot your butt to the L and toward them, so that you hopefully clear their R knee and are in a good position to arm-drag. If you keep your foot on their elbow you may be able to control them, but it will also make it more difficult to complete the transition to the back.

The key with the arm-drag is to get your chest on the back of their arm and apply pressure as soon as possible. They'll want to pull their arm back to aid them in turning back into you. If you crowd the arm, you'll go a long way toward preventing that.

3. Preventing Stalling in your Closed Guard: Assume opponent is hunkered down in your closed guard. They have their arms close to their body and they're just riding out the roll. If they aren't moving at all, open your legs a bit, hip out to the L a tiny bit, reach in and start pulling the bottom R side of their gi top. Once you get the corner with your R hand, feed it to your L. Put your L foot just below your hand so that the bottom of your foot is flush with the fabric. Straighten your L foot. This will raise up their L arm (and in fact the whole L side of their upper body). Immediately stuff their L arm toward them by pushing their wrist (not their bicep, b/c they can get a grip or block it easier). Swing R leg over for triangle set-up.

4. Puppet-master: If opponent starts off in similar position as above, but is using their L arm to try to open your guard, use your R hand to push their L hand back, hip out to the L, and hook the top of your foot on the inside of their bicep. They're pretty much cooked at this point. You can throw your R leg over the back of their head and kimura their L arm, or reach over their back and pull their R arm toward you, or omoplata or triangle. Could also sweep, but you end up with your leg trapped underneath them, unless there's a more elegant way of doing it than what I was trying (which there probably is).

Rolls

Two rolls with Sarah, both very technical. We did a bit of 50/50 work, which was kinda fun. Most people bash Keenan and the Miyao's for having matches like that, but to me it's just as strategic and interesting as other positions. My lack of experience with leg locks makes this probably not a good choice for me though. A roll with Saul in which we had good back and forth. He let me work my guard game and regaining guard from side control. I couldn't stay in top side-control for very long, not surprisingly. A roll with Julio in which I tried not to leave any limbs out for longer than absolutely necessary. Did ok, but felt like I had nothing to offer in bottom side-control.