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I finally got a chance to put some of my new half guard stuff to the test tonight. My son and I drilled half guard for about 3 hours Saturday and my wife and I drilled for about an hour Sunday. But, tonight was the first night that I got to try any of this out in live sparring.
We started standing and I got a hip toss to side control and eventually improved to knee-on-belly then mount. At first I was trying to hold on to mount a little too aggressively. Then it clicked and my dumb ass realized that I wasn't getting to work any of my half guard stuff. I went for an armbar pretty much knowing he'd roll with it and took the opportunity to just transition into my guard.
From there I gave him minimal resistance; pretty much asking for him to pass. He started to pass to my left, so I dug my right foot into the back of his left knee to trap it. I used that to bridge up onto my left hip shooting my body into a deep curled position immediately getting my left arm under his right leg and my right arm under his right arm pit (what I believe Aesopian calls "traffic cop").
I moved into an electric chair sweep and moved to side control. We rolled for about 20 minutes straight and somewhere towards the middle of it I had his back. He started working to turn into my guard, so I eased up and let him transition into it. From there I let him work to pass. He started passing on my left side again. This time I used the same set up, but I wanted to try for a different sweep. So instead of going under his leg and gable gripping, I grabbed his foot and reached around with my right arm underhooking the other side; clasped my hands in an s-grip securing his ankle and got an old school sweep to side control.
I was really happy with being able to get to use some of what I'd been working on and see it work out so well against someone who is better than me. He told me after we rolled that every time I shot right into half guard it caught him off because I normally have a tendency to fight the pass until it's too late. Part of that was not having much of a half guard game in the past and the other part was that I feel pretty comfortable playing turtle so after they'd pass, I'd immediately turn into them and start working sweep from turtle guard.
I definitely wanted to say "thanks" to everyone who's contributed to this thread. I haven't been this excited about jits in months.
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