25/06/2014 - Teaching | Whizzer Counter Roll

Teaching #161
Artemis BJJ (Bristol Sports Centre), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 25/06/2014

It's almost the last week of half guard month, though as Monday is still June, that gives me a lesson to cover some passing. This week, I continued with simple sweeps from underneath. A couple of days ago I went through the toe grab sweep, so today I'm following up with what Gordo (the guy who effectively created the half guard as a viable position) calls 'Plan B'. I don't think that's very descriptive, so I'm going with whizzer counter roll.

The situation is that you've managed to get the underhook under half guard, but they've threaded their arm through in what's called a 'whizzer'. That ruins your back take, but it doesn't stop you sweeping them. Indrek Reiland shows how you can still do the toe grab, or you can do a counter roll movement. With your free hand, push their knee outwards to disrupt their base: you can also underhook that leg if you prefer. Dive your body underneath them, putting your head into the gap between their arm and their leg.

Finally, bring your whizzered elbow back towards their head, aiming to clamp your elbow to your side (as much as you can in that position). From here you should be able to roll them over fairly easily. If you need some additional help, try tweaking their leg out like you do with the toe grab sweep.
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Teaching Notes: I went through that half guard back take drill I wanted, which seemed to be better understood than I expected. Both the experienced and beginner students appeared to manage it ok. I'd like to add in recovering full guard to the drill as well, so next week I'll see if that can be done in a way that makes sense. That way I can get in several important skills into the one drill: taking the back, maintaining half guard and recovering full guard. I could even add in a pass to side control, but that might be getting too complicated.

Technique tonight also went well, with no major problems cropping up in drilling. Chris suggested underhooking the leg, so I'll be adding that in when I teach it next time, as practicing it myself that seemed to work just as well as pushing the knee. The main area I'd like to play around with in more depth is the leg configuration as you're rolling them over. Tweaking the leg is one option, but I'm sure there must be other variations that could potentially increase leverage.