[Sherdog_Mutt]

Originally Posted by Zankou

That sounds very similar to the reverse DLR sweep. I did not know you can do it from half butterfly tho.

Though effective, the strain it places on your training partner's knee concerns me a bit.

There are some cool sweeps from z-guard I have seen on Diogo's dvd that are somewhat similar. Basically you get up on an elbow, and your underhooking arm grabs the pants by the shin of the trapped foot. Then you drive into the guy and back. He has no base to stop you.

Yeah... basically the same general idea as a reverse DLR sweep. It does place a strain on the partner's knee but I've been pretty good about pulling off the sweep slowly. It's not one of those sweeps that needs to be done explosively.

Interesting sweep from z-guard. When I get a chance, I need to check out Rey's DVD. For the next month, I'm going to be playing around more with z-guard and quarter-guard. I've been doing a lot of deep half-guard and half-butterfly lately and need to work on other aspects of my repertoire. Thanks for the tip.

[Zankou]

Originally Posted by Sherdog_Mutt

I'm coming onto this thread late and still reading up on the posts but I just had a suggestion for you Aesopian regarding your 2 biggest concerns: getting onto your side and getting the underhook.

A trick that Gustavo Machado showed me (as a little guy he says this really helped him out) was to simply shove the inside portion of the untrapped knee. It's weird but this results in you stretching out the opponent's base (easing any weight he's using to crush you) and you naturally turn onto your side when this happens. Moreover, at this juncture you've created a sliver of space to help you obtain the proper underhook. I've used this tip a ton of times against some of the behemoths that I roll against and found it very effective.

That interests me because it is somewhat similar to what Jorge does in this clip.

http://www.aesopian.com/164/jorges-half-guard/

He grabs the pants on the outer side of the untrapped knee with his free hand and, by bumping with his knees and pulling on the pants, hoists the guy way up and gets the hips extremely elevated, at which point the opponent is hapless. I'm not sure how well that pants grip would work with bigger opponents who drop a nasty crossface on you, but it seems to be a very effective way of unbalancing guys near your own weight.

[codemonkey76]

I played a bit more with half-guard last night and managed to get the foot grab sweep against a small purple belt. He didn't crossface me and i dove under and had my head on his thigh and had a triangle on his trapped leg so i could start think about what to do and he started trying to prise my triangled legs apart, and i could see his foot underneath so i reached under pulled itup to his but and came to my knees and he went over...

[Aesopian]

I have to go back on my second goal, the standing guard passes. I've been working half guard so much that I'm always ending up in half guard after sweeps. So I'm simply changing my goal to working on my half guard passes. It fits the main goal much better.

[JarMan]

I have worked the deep half guard with a lot of success. Even against the higher belts. But I learned something to look out for after being submitted by a good black belt three or four times in a row. Say I've got his right leg in my half guard and my right arm has the deep underhook on his left leg. He stepped all the way around my head with his left leg like he was going to kneebar my left leg. (As a matter of fact, he did kneebar me once, but not at first.) So he was basically sitting on my stomach looking towards my feet. I had the lockdown on his right leg still, except that his knee was facing up instead of down. But he was still able to attack my left foot (which was under my right knee) and get me with a toe hold. The next time I let go of the lockdown to fight off the toe hold. That's when he kneebarred me. After another toe hold and a near kneebar I finally learned to not let him step all the way around my head with the leg I had underhooked.

[Aesopian]

As luck would have it, we're covering half guard passes in class this week. Looks like I was right to refocus my goals.

I am going to apply the same approach to the top of half guard that I've been using for the bottom.

Base of Operations - Half guard safety position
Primary Energies - Reverse scarf, underhook, hip switch sit-out.

I start with a "base of operations", a position and grips that lets me defend myself, limit their offense, and then launch into my attacks. From the bottom, this is long distance half guard with a framing posture. From the top, this is half guard safety position. The key points of this position are:

- Hug low by the hips. If they have the underhook, scoot down, slide your elbow back and hug their hips. This makes their underhook shallow and weak.
- Head in their chest. Drive the crown of your head into their chest, shoulder or even their face to flatten them out.
- Control their paw arm. Get your own paw grip on their biceps and control their arm, either pulling it up or pinning it to the mat.
- Knees pinched. Squeezing your knees together or even triangling your legs prevents them from pulling their leg out to full guard or putting in a hook for half butterfly or underhooking it for deep half guard. Folding your trapped leg under your butt (or triangling it) also hides it so they can't get lockdown.

From here, work to flatten them out and remove their underhook and paw grip. Circle towards them to flatten their hips out (as Saulo teaches).

Once I'm safe and have had a chance to feel them out, I can advance into one of the primary energies. I call them "energies" since that's partly how I think of them, since it allows me to visualize them generally in terms of broad movements and positions.

For example, from the bottom of half guard, I'm thinking in general terms of movement and momentum. Underhooking and scooting to the back around the outside, getting under the free leg and going out the back, or getting under the single leg. The specific grips and sweeps change, but the core "energy" of how I use them is there, i.e. how I use my hips, the relative positions of our bodies, etc. And in reality, the energies get blended and used in combination, but it helps to train them separately so I understand them individually before mixing them.

But back to passing. I've got three main ways of passing I want to work on. The first is the reverse scarf pass, where I turn to face the legs. This can be done with or without the underhook, and can even be used to negate their underhook. The next is the underhooking passes, particularly where you get your knee out and cross it to slide into side control. The third is the failsafe, where they get the underhook and start moving to your back, so you switch your hips and sit on the other side.

There are other passes, such as sprawling and hugging the legs, scissors passes, underhooking the legs, etc., and I'm sure I'll find a place for them, but I want to focus on these three since 1) the reverse scarf is so goddamned annoying for the bottom man, 2) the underhook passes are so dominating and I want to improve my underhooks, and 3) I really should use the hip switch more now that my timing is good enough to take advantage of it.

The fun will be seeing how these passes work in combinations (e.g. going from safety position to reverse pass and switching to an underhooking pass when they expose their arm). It'll also be interesting to see how I can use them in combination with sweeps, so I'm immediately passing as I come on top.

[Aesopian]

I really want to find a better term than "energies". That sounds so New Age.

[Sherdog_Mutt]

Originally Posted by Aesopian

I really want to find a better term than "energies". That sounds so New Age.

Why not just call them movements?

[Zankou]

I just went to excess and bought Jen's Half Guard set and Rigan's Half Guard set. I will report back once I've scanned through them. I watched the first Rigan dvd last night, and part of the Jen dvd. Pretty interesting stuff. The Jen set looks great, even though I've heard little about it.

[Zankou]

Originally Posted by Aesopian

I really want to find a better term than "energies". That sounds so New Age.

How about "vibes." That better?