Two Unconventional Guard Passing Techniques
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We worked on two unconventional guard passes this Saturday, along with a painful catch wrestling choke and some Greco arm drag / takedown techniques. Dave substituted for Brandon, who will usually be conducting the Saturday class. Brandon’s training partner taught the Greco portion, which was worth of it’s own post…maybe tomorrow.
At least once every few months, Dave will go over a technique for passing the guard that more resembles catch wrestling than BJJ. In fact, he learned this technique from Mark Schultz, an Olympic wrestling champion who studied BJJ with Pedro Sauer.
The technique uses momentum to flip the guard player onto his stomach when they won’t open their guard. The person on top does a “box jump” (posts off of the guard player’s hips and hops to his feet), keeping the weight low and the feet back to avoid an easy leg trap. Then the top person drops down to one knee (either side), posts with the hand and kicks the other leg over their opponent, deftly planting it on the mat. This rotates the opponent’s hips around and plants them on their stomach. You should have trapped a leg in this process, which opens up an ankle lock, calf cutter or other painful submission. Or you can pass the leg and take the back.
I’ve learned this one before, but when trying to apply it I always had problems because instead of keeping my posture up while kicking the leg over, I would effectively just turn around to my hands and knees. It’s crucial that your hip movement is powerful and the kick rotates your opponent’s hips 180 degrees, but your hips only rotate 90 degrees.
The guard player can counter this move by blocking your kicking leg with their hand, so it may be wise to trap the hand before you kick the leg over.
Another unconventional guard break is what Dave calls the “Mowgli” after the Jungle Book character. The Mowgli accomplishes the same task (flips the guard player onto their stomach). If someone has you in closed guard and they will not open it, box jump, then pick one of their shoulders and do a powerful bear crawl, keeping your hips low, toward and over that shoulder. The movement will flip them onto their stomach and break the guard.
Now for the real pain.
Ever been like me in this video… in the position for an anaconda or a D’arce, but unable to get the angle to finish? Enter a catch wrestling strangle hold that both cuts off blood and hurts like crazy. This is another Schultz move, and can be done from standing or kneeling, and uses this exact setup. And it doesn’t matter if their arm is defending and preventing the triangle…it attacks the neck on the opposite side of the trapped arm.
To perform the move, thread your arm clear around his trapped arm to the point where your radial bone is cutting across the neck of your opponent. This may require quickly twisting your torso around and pushing your arm through, to the point where your head is more or less in your opponent’s armpit. Yeah. Now your squeezing power is all focused on the far side of your opponent’s neck. Either grip your wrist or gable grip, then pull your forearm into the carotid artery by squeezing. You’ll get the tap either from pain or from the choke.
Dave said that particular move is not fun when an Olympic wrestling champion performs it on you. I can only imagine.
We didn’t really roll today, just practiced these moves. I did, however, experience practicing with a female grappler for the first time. Since I am horrible with names and I don’t want to print the wrong name, I’ll forego that this round. It was definitely an interesting experience, though, since she was at least two feet shorter than me. We found out rather quickly that the first guard passing move does not work well with an opponent who is a lot shorter than you. When I tried to flip her by kicking my leg over, she just stuck to my torso and moved with me instead of flipping. When she tried it to me, I could easily keep my guard closed even when she rotated. The best move for both of us was the Mowgli, which seems to work regardless of the size difference between training partners.
I was grateful for Georgette’s post about rolling with women. The practice went well regardless of the height difference and my inexperience in training with a female training partner.
PRINCIPLES:
- By shifting your angle, you can attack different areas with from the same position.
- Power comes from the hips. Yet again.
© SkinnyD for Arcanum BJJ, 2010. |
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