RGA High Wycombe, (BJJ), Kev Capel, High Wycombe, UK - 01/12/2009
I assume most people who read this blog are already avid listeners of the Fightworks Podcast, but if you're not, now would be a great time to start. Caleb has really outdone himself recently, with fantastic interviews over the past fortnight, featuring Relson and Renzo Gracie respectively. Fascinating stuff, so give them a listen (or read, as they've been transcribed on the Fightworks Podcast site) if you haven't already.
Straightforward beginner class tonight, kicking off with drilling the sit-up sweep. Kev then went through the natural follow up if they resist, which is a kimura from guard.
Kev prefers to use a thumb grip, rather than the thumb on top. His reasoning is basically that he finds this more comfortable. Though you could argue that this makes it possible for them to use the thumb as a lever to escape, Kev suggests that your other grips (such as the arm locked against theirs, pulling it tight into your chest) go a long way to negating that vulnerability. He also noted that it's a quite different matter for the americana from mount, as the instinctive way to break your arm free from that positioning is straightening out against the thumb grip. Therefore in that situation, a thumbless grip is sensible.
To escape the kimura from guard, begin by locking your hands around their torso, using an s-grip (curve the fingers of one hand, then dig them into the space created by the curved fingers of your other hand). You should also drive forward, to take away the force of their leverage.
This is essentially a stalling position, so you don't want to stay here forever. Pick your moment, then quickly circle your trapped hand to your stomach: time it carefully, as they'll be looking to go back to the kimura. Drive your arm across their body (almost as if you were throwing an uppercut). That pulls their arm through at a painful angle, and if they don't let go of your arm, you'll be able to shoulder lock them with a kimura of your own.
I was too defensive on top from specific sparring from guard, once again. Most of the time I just defended against Howard's collar grip, bringing my arm over the top in an effort to nullify the choke attempt.
I found that in guard, if your hips are up high, you're ripe for that guard break where they stand up, drive their knee into your tailbone, then sit down. Possibly something to keep in mind when you're shifting into a high guard (or indeed if they do that to you, when you're trying to pass).
Underneath, I couldn't get that collar and arm grip from David Onuma's video. I think what I'm missing is breaking down their posture properly first, so I need to put my legs into that grip attempt much more. I was at least able to make more use of my underhook from half guard, in terms of off-balancing my training partner. However, I wasn't capitalising on securing a De La Riva hook from open guard: I need to make sure I have some kind of sweep in mind, rather than just inserting the hook and not doing anything with it.
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