This class looked primarily at the Omoplata from De La Riva. The first thing to understand here is that we need to off balance our opponent. We do this two ways. First we drive them away by sitting up and pushing hard on the posted leg. Next we fall to our side while lifting the near leg, which should be light now. This will hopefully cause them to post the free far hand on the mat and allow us to attack the near arm. If you have good hip mobility you can attack right away but I often find it helpful to remove my DLR hook and use that foot on their back to elevate my hips. Once in the omoplata, you can try to sit up and finish, but I usually prefer to sweep and finish from the top. During the sweep I try to straighten my legs to get the most weight possible on their shoulder, but also to keep my knees out of my own way when I roll. Coming up on the roll, backstep to trap the head with your knee and turn to slide your hip under the shoulder you are attacking. Be sure to lift the outside knee up toward the sky to apply immediate pressure.
If they interfere with the backstep we can float across again to come up in the classic omoplata position again, but this time they will be much more broken down and we will already be covering their back blocking their ability to roll out.
If they choose to try to roll out of the omoplata earlier, the grip on the leg should allow us to move to the kneebar. Key points for this are to sit up to make it easier to get into position hip to hip, and to make sure to trap the big toe against your neck. If the foot is on the wrong side of the head, they have a lot more options to escape.
