Did passing the guard drilling where I was out in the middle, the rest of the school cycling though on top.
Went against the same purple belt from Friday. Switched from full to half guard with a framing posture. Fought for a good while, several minutes. He kept trying the scissors pass, sprawling passes, reverse scarf passing. The forearm in the throat screwed most of these up for him. Would turn his face the wrong way and keep pressure on his throat. Went through a mental checklist: Am I controlling the space? Am I turned on my side? Am I defending the cross face? Do I have good grips?
He did get an underhook at one point. I treated it like my old half butterfly game and took the overhook. I kept shrimping out and putting my knee in, stretching him back and grabbing his outside wrist. Kept scooting back and trying to pull my bottom knee out like I wanted to go to full guard. When he postured up a little and used his hand to try to push my knee back in, I bumped to create space then reached over for a kimura.
He was able to grab his thigh to defend but I held on to the kimura grip. Stayed relaxed with it hugged tight to my chest and concentrated on scooting my hips to a better angle; didn't want to burn myself out try to finish it with arm strength. I'd jerk on it and put pressure on when I felt him trying to fix his positioning, so he'd have to switch his focus to defending the arm instead. Got a strangely easy sweep to the side of the kimura'd arm but bridging and rolling towards that side.
Asked him about it later and he told me he felt I was about to get the submission and he'd rather give up position first.
Went with a tall, skinny blue belt. A little below my weight. Played the same game, going for the kimura. I got the grip and was using it to play with his posture while I rocked him back and forth and side to side with my hip movement. Kept scooting to a better angle to finish and he started trying to roll out to escape. I went with it and did a backroll. His leg came out at some point, and he was "past" my guard, but I kept my grip and carried through with the moment. I shoved his kimura'd arm into him as I drove up to my knees and he flipped over.
Went with the purple belt again. Had a much harder time. He finally managed to back out and I switched to butterfly guard. Went for a hook sweep and he jumped over it. Scrambled to recover guard. He hugged and pinned both my legs. Shoved his head and got up on my elbow but he muscled through it and finally passed. Nothing technical, but that's what I get from a guy who told me "Strength is part of my game."
Sparred with a white belt. Maybe a little bigger than me and strong. Just worked on maintaining the long distance half guard and then diving into traditional or deep sweeps, and switching between traditional and deep. Kept switching between the two main hip movements to see how to get them working in combination.
Finally got to use this position:
Super deep half guard on a single leg. Head right under their hips, actually resting on their other thigh. Their leg laying along your entire body, in line with your spine. An ankle over their ankle, a hook under it, way down at the end of their leg. Both arms hugging a single thigh.
Got a sweep by grabbing his arm with both hands and hugging it to his thigh. Rocked his weight to his rear then spun around his leg and came to my knees to sweep him and come on top.
General Notes:
I saw what Zankou was saying about turning the toes down and hooking their ankle with my foot. Depending on whether I wanted to pull them in or push them back, I'd switch between crossing my ankle on the outside or opening them and hooking the ankle.
The more they postured back and avoided the backroll motion and kimura, the easier it was to get an underhook use the rocking hip motion to carry their leg over me and go deep. I'm wondering if their attempts to keep away and not let me under their outside leg makes it easier to get deep under the single leg, like in the photo above. Will experiment with that.
It's still not feeling natural and I feel awkward going for a lot of the positions and sweeps, but I'm happy with the success so far. These look like they'll be a fun and interesting 2 months.
