We started this class with a new warm up. As always it consisted of 3 techniques, worked first in isolation then in succession. The first was Sasae Tsuri Komi Ashi. The second was O uchi gari / Inside trip. The last was a double leg.
To put the three together we start with Sasae as it is an effective, but low commitment move. In the event it fails we should be hip in to our opponent. This allows us to circle our near leg and attempt our inside trip. If this also fails, we will be kneeling infront of our opponent. Stepping forward we drive and attack the legs with our hands.
Keep in mind that we are hoping for success at every stage of the series. Don't confuse chained attacks with insincere baits.
Deep Half Guard
The bulk of the class was spent introducing deep half guard. Most forms of half guard are characterized by us controlling one of our opponents legs and facing them directly, so that our chest is pointed at our opponents chest. Usually our bottom arm will look to control their far wrist and our top arm will look to either frame or find an underhook. In standard deep half guard, our bottom arm instead looks to underhook their free leg and and our goal becomes a combination of moving under them and moving them over us so that we can switch our hips and end up facing in the same direction as our opponent. This position gives us several options for attack depending on how our opponent responds. When we roll under our opponent they can respond a few different ways, but the main two are keeping their head side knee on the mat and elevating their hip side knee, or the reverse, elevating the head side knee and keeping the hip side knee on the mat. For this class we looked at the second option. Essentially, whichever one comes off the mat is carrying less weight and will be the leg we look to interact with.
Taking the back
The first, and largest threat from deep half is the back take. It is the highest scoring play on it's own, and it leads to the best position. Once we achieve our deep half position, the goal becomes lifting the leg over our head safely and moving to a crab ride position. If you are unfamiliar with crab ride, think of it as a backwards butterfly guard with our hooks in the back of the knees.
The biggest concern when trying to take the back is our opponents head side arm digging for an underhook after we lift the leg over the head. This will not only prevent our back take but will very likely lead to them passing our guard. So if we do not like the position of our opponents hands and we cannot be find a way to jostle them around and make them place their hands on the mat, it is better not to attempt the back take and instead attempt the technical stand up sweep.
Technical stand up
This sweep is essentially a Turkish Get Up against our opponents leg. In order to lift the leg we must shift as much of our opponents weight to their far knee at all times. The whole process of the setup is about shifting their weight and maintaining it as far from our head as possible. We will do this with a combination of our own knees and feet.
