10 min warm up
- Triangle
- Armbar
- Kimura
- Omoplata
- Bicycle Crunch
As a result of observing the warm up this class turned into mostly a lesson on hip movement. Specifically on swinging your hips without basing. We started looking at the flower or pendulum sweep. Named for the way we swing out the leg to gain momentum and allow us to switch our hip position, this is a sweep that either leads to an armbar or to mount. In the first clip below you will see that I control Ian's right arm with my left and grip inside his left leg with my right hand. Next I swing my left leg as far out as possible in order to align my hip with the direction he can no longer base. Note, neither of my feet are bridging off of anything.
From here I can attack the armbar directly or look to sweep Ian to his back first. In opting to sweep I stomp right leg toward the mat, and lift with my right underhook. This brings me up into more or less 'spiderweb' position. If Ian were to come off his right knee and post his right foot forward my angle would need to be sufficiently toward his head and shoulders to drive him beyond his ability to base.
Frequently, you will see this sweep taught not to the armbar position but instead to mount. This is done by swinging the leg out in the same manner, but then cutting it back toward the legs in an almost scissor like manner.
After looking at this we talked about how the same motion with different gripping leads us to our omoplata / omoplata sweeps. This time I grip Ians right leg with my left hand and his right sleeve with my right. I pull this cross grip high over my face as I again pendulum my far leg out, this time ever further until I have turned a full 180 degrees. My left leg comes high into the armpit, not the elbow, and I press Ian's hand into my near hip.
Again note my feet are not basing off anything. To finish the omoplata I would sit up and grab the belt as I drive my left knee toward the mat and extend my hip. To finish the sweep I roll Ian over me to com up kneeling next to him looking toward his feet.
This sweep can be used against a kneeling or standing opponent.
