18/08/2010 - BJJ (Advanced)

Class #334
Gracie Barra Birmingham, (BJJ), Norby Nowak, Birmingham, UK – 18/08/2010

Yep, more De La Riva sweeps tonight. We began by reviewing the options from last week. All of them begin by holding both sleeves, then establishing the De La Riva hook (wrapping your same leg behind their knee, hooking their inner thigh with your instep). Grab their heel, then push on their far leg and simultaneously sit up. Move your same side hand from their heel to wrap behind their knee, then transfer the other sleeve to that hand behind the knee.

From here, the first sweep is to grab their far collar with your free hand, still pushing with your leg on their leg, then pull them down and out, rolling on top. From here, maintaining your grips, pass the guard. Note that even should they try and block your hips with their hands, your can roll over the top, twisting your body.

The second sweep starts the same, but this time, when you switch their sleeve to your knee hand, they push down with their free hand to release the grip. You switch your grip to that hand instead, then swivelling through, reach for their far leg with your arm (wrapping around the outside), then roll them in the direction they’re facing to coming up on top.

The third sweep was one we hadn’t covered before. This time, they manage to free both of their hands. As this is gi, you still have the option of grabbing their belt and pulling it tight with the hand your have behind their knee (or if their gi has a long skirt, like the judogi I wear, you can grab that instead).

You are now going to switch the position of your legs, so that the one closest to their leg wraps around, your foot pointing backwards. This will be on the side they’re facing, Your other leg also curls back, so that your knee is touching your other foot. In other words, it is the same position as a common stretch for your legs. Finally, grab the gi material by their far knee with your other hand.

Maintaining both grips, drive forward into their leg, making sure your head is on the inside of their hip (so, like a single leg takedown). Due to your grip on their far knee, they can’t just step back. Once they fall, lock out your arm to stop them moving that leg. From here, you should be able to easily pass, as one leg is immobilised by their belt, the other by your hand.

The next sweep follows on from that. Should you find your leg position, you can try it with your legs wrapped around the other way (so, your foot with be touching your knee, but behind them). You probably won’t have enough leverage, but this does put you in position for a similar sweep to before, where you swivel to your back, then roll them over in the direction their facing, using your grip on their knee to help.

They have both their hands free, so may well try to base out. That isn’t a problem: all you do is kick your legs up to disrupt their balance, then roll in the other direction (i.e, the direction opposite to the way they’re facing), pulling that far knee away from you as you do so, in the direction it is pointing. From here, you should be able to pass as before.

I felt my wrist was sufficiently rested to try specific sparring today, although that didn’t go too well. I either got passed very quickly, or ended up fighting from half-guard. I managed to sweep a couple of white belts, but in a fairly sloppy fashion. Passing didn’t work too well, as while I was circling my leg back and around then trying to pass, I’m missing some details, as I was often still struggling to pass their knee. I also got caught by a lovely sweep from one of those same white belts, who got a grip on the back of my gi and rolled me right over.

There was a large French contingent visiting today, which made for an interesting change: most of the people I sparred were from that group (several brown and purple belts, plus a couple of whites). However, during free sparring, I ended up with two regular GB Brum members. First was a big blue belt I’ve rolled with before, who tends to take things fairly easy, so I thought that would be a good idea given my wrist.

The second was a white belt I haven’t sparred before, where the pace was also relatively relaxed. He must be fairly new, as I kept getting into position for a triangle. Having said that, I failed to finish any of them, as often happens. While I could lock my legs, I was normally either too stacked, or couldn’t slide my legs into a proper triangle: presumably I wasn’t scooting back enough, or creating a sufficiently decent angle.

I had a go at switching to an armbar a few times, but he immediately got a secure grip by clasping his hands. I’ve got some idea of how to break that from mount, but was at a bit of a loss from guard. Something to work on, though I’m not normally going to get the time to sit there and ponder like today, as the pace wasn’t too quick.

I’m off to Wales tomorrow, but should be training again on Tuesday, as normal.