27/07/2022 - Teaching | Open Guard | Spiralhook (new name for DLR, because he's rightly been cancelled), underhook to technical stand up sweep

Teaching #Evening
Artemis BJJ (Easton Road), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK -27/07/2022

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Bring your leg around the outside of theirs, hooking your foot around the inside. This establishes the spiralhook, of which there are several variations. In a standard spiralhook guard, you grab the foot of the trapped leg with your same side hand, while your other foot presses into their far leg. Your free hand is looking to grab a sleeve or even better, their collar. If you can't get either, then grabbing a gi lapel can work too. From there, you can transfer the sleeve or lapel to your other hand behind their leg for a variety of sweeps, or do certain other sweeps should you have the gi collar instead.

I've always found the spiralhook a tricky position as I don't have flexible ankles or big feet. I therefore go for a spiral underhook instead. From the spiralhook, reach your same side hand between your butt and their leg, trying to get the crook of your elbow right against their leg for maximum reach. You can then either grab your shin with that hand, or your gi trousers. You can use this to prevent a common grip break that starts by them pushing down on your leg.

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Should they instead underhook your spiral leg to strip the leg, switch to x guard as an easy transition. If you're able to maintain the spiral, you can use the other leg to push theirs, and scoot your hips underneath them. You'll need a gi collar grip too, so that you can combine your leg push with a yank of the collar, in order to make them do a big step.

That should give you the opportunity to lift their trapped leg. Adjust your grip so they can't free their leg, bringing your own leg underneath. Come up on your free arm, in a technical stand-up motion. As you do, grab their other leg if it is in range. If not then pull back on the leg you have trapped, before driving forwards again to ideally grab that other leg and take them down.

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Teaching Notes: It's a quite confusing position, so although I'm explaining it very slowly and carefully, some people still have trouble working out where everything goes. But meh, I can fix that during drilling. However, next time it is probably worth doing the step-by-step thing I do at the end of class before drilling too, making absolutely sure everybody knows where to put their hands and legs.

27/02/2017 - Teaching | Open Guard | Inside Spiralhook Pull to Side Control

Teaching #637
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 27/02/2017

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Continuing on the inside spiralhook sequence, this is an alternative to the choke. Again you have a grip on the opposite collar with your shin across, while also hooking inside their leg. You're stuffing their same side wrist underneath your bottom leg. The scenario here is that they are trying to go for an underhook pass on your knee shielding leg. As they bring their arm under, kick your leg up to try and free it, then drive the side of your knee firmly into their shoulder blade. It needs to be the shoulder blade, as too high or too high, they will be able to square back up and recover their position.

You're also going to stiff arm with your collar grip, in order to both push their head away from you, while also driving it towards the mat with your shoulder blade pressure. That means you can release your grip on their wrist. Previously, we went for a choke by securing the back of the back and driving that forearm into the side of the neck. This time, grip the gi behind their head, using your arm and elbow to press their head down. You can then use that position to drive through for side control, based on the dominant control you have of their head.

The arm that is gripping the collar helps with that flip, as you bring the elbow up, while using your other arm to push their head down. If you require more leverage, shrimp out until you can get the foot of your shoulderblade leg inside their hip. You can then use that to flip them with a butterfly hook as you drive through. Alternatively, you could spin through to go and attack their turtle position instead.

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Teaching Notes: I didn't really think about the role of the collar gripping arm as a lever before, so will emphasise that if I teach this sweep again. The butterfly hook is something to emphasise too, as well as nothing that the choke is still there even if you don't get that sweep.

22/02/2017 - Teaching | Open Guard | Inside Spiralhook Tilt

Teaching #635
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 22/02/2017

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Previously I showed inside spiralhook where it is essentially a tripod sweep set-up. Today, I went with the version that is like a long range knee shield, open guard's version of half guard. Again you have grabbed their collar, pulling them down, while also hooking your foot on the inside of their leg, wrapping around the outside of their thigh. Your other leg is across their stomach, while your remaining hand grabs their same side wrist. Shove that underneath your bottom leg, which already starts to put them off balance.

From here, the sweep requires a particular pass attempt. They go for the leg weave, bringing their arm behind the hooking knee, trying to grab the other knee. If you don't do anything, they can squish your knees together and go for the pass. Before that hand gets any further, switch your grip from their collar to that wrist/sleeve. You can then tilt your body towards your knee shielding leg. As they have nothing to post with, you can roll right through. You end up with their arm wrapped by your leg in an odd position, but it sets you up for side control or potentially even mount.

In practice, that turn isn't always enough to knock them over. I've found it is therefore a good idea to be ready to switch into a butterfly hook with your bottom leg. That provides the leverage you need to complete the motion.

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Teaching Notes: This is a sequence from JJS #036, which has a whole bunch of 'what if' scenarios for inside spiralhook. I had Sam in mind when wanting to teach these, as he uses this knee shield position a lot. It's also a position I want to play with more myself, as it can be good for slowing down the action, something I'm always keen to do when sparring. For next time, I think it's worth highlighting the the butterfly hook is there as a back up for when things go wrong, rather than the first thing you try. Also, people kept letting go of the bottom hand, which makes it tougher to get in position and complete the sweep: if that hand is free, it can start messing things up by grabbing legs and collars. ;)

I think gripping the sleeve is much stronger than gripping the wrist, so I may just teach it like that next time, ignoring the wrist altogether (though it is less painful on the fingers if you're grasping a wrist). Also, people need to know the leg weave for this: Paul's class right before was exactly on that leg weave, fitting well, but it is difficult to teach this without it (as the person on top won't know what to do).

22/07/2016 - Teaching | Open Guard | Deep spiralhook X Guard Sweep (weak side)

Teaching #533
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 22/07/2016

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Again, starting from a double sleeve grip with both feet on the hips, shift towards the leg which you want to spiralhook. Swing your same side leg around that for an initial spiralhook, bringing your instep to their inner thigh, releasing your same side sleeve grip in order to grab their heel. Pull the heel towards you, so they can't easily move their foot. Watch out for them kicking it across your buttcheeks: you want to keep that heel jammed against your body. If they are on their knees but have their front knee raised, push into their far hip and/or knee to make space for your hook

Shift a bit more to the side and raise your hips, turning towards them in order to extend that spiralhook all the way to the other thigh. This is what Dónal used to call the 'surfboard', due to the way you do a sort of plank with your lower body. When you've got your instep in place, solidly hooked around their thigh, bring your other foot lower on their leg, hooking around the other side. Your feet should now be forming an x, hence the 'x guard' part of this technique. Squeeze your knees and pull them in.

At this point, you can switch from grabbing the heel back to the sleeve. Using your knees and those sleeve grips, steer them in the direction your lower foot is pointing, in order to knock them to the ground. If they resist, you can go in the other direction, but this is weaker because it normally won't lead smoothly into a pass. As they fall, extend what was your bottom foot, maintaining the tension in order to push their leg away. Your other leg (which was spiralhooking) comes out for base. Turning as you follow them up, you'll generally end up in a sort of combat base, ready to pass.

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Teaching Notes: More monkey tree drills, where Steve W came up with a slight variation. He's a powerful guy, so was able to use that muscle to support his weight from Aaron's arm. What I didn't realise until later is that it left a black mark on that arm from Steve's humongous grip strength! So not one to rely on, if impressive nevertheless. ;)

A video posted by Artemis BJJ (@artemisbjj) on Jul 22, 2016 at 12:14pm PDT

20/07/2016 - Teaching | Open Guard | Deep spiralhook X Guard Sweep (strong side)

Teaching #532
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 20/07/2016

A photo posted by Artemis BJJ (@artemisbjj) on Jul 22, 2016 at 12:02am PDT

As Ana was coming for a seminar on Sunday, I wanted to run the class through her deep spiralhook x guard sweep. To begin, you want to get a super deep spiralhook. Starting from a double sleeve grip with both feet on the hips, shift towards the leg which you want to spiralhook. Swing your same side leg around that for an initial spiralhook, bringing your instep to their inner thigh, releasing your same side sleeve grip in order to grab their heel. Pull the heel towards you, so they can't easily move their foot. Watch out for them kicking it across your buttcheeks: you want to keep that heel jammed against your body.

Shift a bit more to the side and raise your hips, turning towards them in order to extend that spiralhook all the way to the other thigh. This is what Dónal used to call the 'surfboard', due to the way you do a sort of plank with your lower body. When you've got your instep in place, solidly hooked around their thigh, bring your other foot lower on their leg, hooking around the other side. Your feet should now be forming an x, hence the 'x guard' part of this technique. Squeeze your knees and pull them in.

At this point, you can switch from grabbing the heel back to the sleeve. Using your knees and those sleeve grips, steer them in the direction your lower foot is pointing, in order to knock them to the ground. Maintaining your sleeve grips, come up on your elbow, then step out what was your lower foot. You can then do a knee cut with what was the spiralhook to finish.

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Teaching Notes: As well as that main technique, I also include Ana's 'monkey tree' drill. That can be quite challenging. Two people form the 'tree' by clinching, then a third jumps on a back, with the goal of spinning to the front (like somebody has just stood up in their guard) and then swinging across to closed guard on the other person. That swing across is invariably where it goes wrong. I've managed it a few times, but I've also fallen down quite a few times too. You need to stay high and make sure you have a good grip on their gi, or it will drop you to the mat. Sam demonstrated it well, which didn't surprise me given his general agility. :)

A video posted by Artemis BJJ (@artemisbjj) on Jul 23, 2016 at 4:09am PDT

The technique itself went fairly well, though I'll need to practice that lots to iron out all the kinks. It's already been a useful addition to my open guard, meaning I have an option where I can entangle their legs without having to mash up my fingers with crazy grips (I was sticking with pistol grips on this).