Front mount troubleshooting

Many people receive the answer to their prayers, but ignore them- or deny them, because the answers didn’t come in the expected form.  –Sophy Burnham




I was too weary to do a writeup last night; I hope I didn't lose a bunch of stuff.....

Tuesday lunchtime BJJ at GB Bellevue. Many of the same techniques/drills we have done over the past week. We did the grab-the-backs-of-the-heels takedown again, only this time instead of pushing one shin forward and the other back to go to front mount, we folded both shins back on the same side to go to side control. I hope that sometime this week we also cover the technical lift out of this takedown, since I remember doing that before. Having three different options for ending this will hopefully not leave me sitting there on my butt like a big fat panda bear after I get the takedown.
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4:30 basics class- nobody showed up except for me, so I got an hour private with Adrian! Score! We worked on my sorry excuse for front mount. I can't stay put for 3 seconds nor long enough to finish any subs. Adrian wants me to get higher, shoving the opponent's elbows up. I need to fully utilize all my posts, and not be afraid to move them around to try to defend the roll. It's gotten to the point that I'm resigned to getting rolled, and I need to stop accepting that. I can use my head to post (I think this will be a key- I have not been doing this). I can also pull the opponent's head off the mat, which makes it harder for hir to bridge.

Isolating one arm/shoulder can give me an opening to an armbar or mounted triangle. We also addressed isolating the near arm while in top side control.

Adrian suggests that I get my one deep cross collar grip and then hang onto it. Keep the opponent defending chokes, because every time s/he put hir hands up to defend the choke, I can wiggle up into hir armpits a little more. It seems like I am not getting the cross-collar chokes deep enough (STILL!). I frequently get a cross collar choke and then get rolled, and I can't seem to finish them from closed guard.

He also showed me another cool gi-tail choke. This one is from top side control, and uses the nearer gi tail. The hand which is nearest opponent's head, put it behind hir neck. With the other hand, pull the NEAR gi tail across hir chest and feed it to the behind-the-neck hand. It doesn't seem very threatening, but when you grab the outside-knee pants with your other hand and put your forehead down on the mat beside it, it chokes.  (I heart gi-tail chokes!)
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Wednesday lunchtime BJJ at GB Seattle, with Julia!

Same standing roundhouse parry to hip throw as last week. I was nice to Julia and set her down gently.  ;)   I had not been quite as gentle with John yesterday, and he kinda called me on it- he said, "Should I be throwing you harder?" I laughed and said, "I couldn't blame you if you did!" My breakfalls are still kinda clumsy, and I guess the right-sided ones are going to be painful for the rest of my life because of that broken finger.

Hook sweep: You sitting, opponent standing. You have 2 sleeve cuff grips and feet on hips. Switch to a cross-sleeve grip (ie, you grip opponent's left sleeve cuff with your left hand), grab behind opponent's left heel with the rt hand you just freed. Now hook your left toe behind hir rt heel. Push with the foot that you still have on hip, hook that heel out from under. Do not let go of either sleeve cuff or foot. Put your weight on your rt elbow, pull your rt leg under you so that you are belly-down, and stand up. Now you can control the opponent's leg and arm on that side, and go to KOB or side control.

Take the back from closed guard: As opponent reaches for your lapels, you pak sau the arm across your chest and grab the cross inside bicep. Yank opponent forward as you pull with your knees, and place hir front half on the mat beside you. Keep control of the arm. Hip out, stick your lower leg hook in, grab over opponent's back to armpit. Take the back. Do not fall too far to the front so that your are summersaulting off (or leaving your head where opponent can grab it).

Unfortunately Julia pulled a hip flexor, and could not spar afterward (although we did get about 5 min before class). I did one roll with SIDE CONTROL and one with Jason, who just got his black belt last week.

Dave (SIDE CONTROL) mentioned S mount again as an alternative to standard front mount- he uses it on me to great effect (he's pretty much the only person that I can't use the comb-over mount escape on, because he just switches to S mount every time I try to get his foot). Note to self- ask him to work on this specifically with me next time I get a chance to play with him.

I tried to get my gi-tail baseball bat choke on him, but he was spinning away from it. I put my foot over his head, but this time it did not work. He suggests trying to put my forehead to the mat (exactly as Adrian had showed me for the cross-gi-tail choke) instead. Must keep this in mind.

This was the first time I've ever rolled with Jason. He's small (like, *my* size small). So relaxed. I had what seemed to be a nice deep cross collar grip, and then I got another, but I could tell that he wasn't worried about it- he was as relaxed as if he was on his couch with a late night movie on and almost falling into a snooze. I said, "Still not deep enough, huh?" He said, "Nope." Gak!  He was fun, though. I hope I get a chance to work more with him.