07/02/2012 - Gracie Barra Bristol (Defending the Back)

Class #445
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Dónal Carmody, Bristol, UK - 07/02/2012

Lots of great drills from Dónal as usual, all related to guard passing. Start by standing up, holding their knees. They shrimp, you drive your weight through your hands and therefore also jam their knees to match, then hop over to the side behind their knees. They shrimp again and you repeat the motion to the other side.

Another nice guard passing drill, which we've done before, again starts with your standing up. This time, you're square on to their open guard, although for the drill they aren't getting any grips on you, they're just lying on the mat, feet on the floor. Bring one your legs between theirs, then drive your knee across to the opposite side. As you do, with your opposite arm, underhook their same side armpit.

An interesting variation pops up if they manage to get an underhook. Immediately overhook/whizzer that arm, reaching your overhook hand right through to their hip. As you continue the pass, slide your hand back, keeping your arm straight. Eventually that should mean you're hooking their near side leg, helping you to move into side control.

The text message for tonight indicated that the topic was be preventing your opponent taking your back, which sounded interesting (although Geeza does sometimes put his own spin on the text message either I or Dónal send him about our respective classes). That proved to be an extremely simple (which in BJJ tends to be a very positive adjective) concept from turtle. After they've got their first hook, all you do is turn towards their leg (so, towards the outside), recovering half guard. That's it. :)

During sparring, Dónal had another cool tip (as he very often does: if you've got the chance to do a private with him, go do it) for passing half guard. This depends on how they've locked their feet to trap your leg. If the big toe of the foot is nearest to you, then you simply bring your trapped leg back and shove that foot off by hooking under their heel, breaking their grip. Is the big toe is pointing away, that means their heel is on the wrong side, so you can't just bring your leg back and knock the foot away.