Mizblog

First day of training in the new year! They’ve opened up the mat by removing the back room walls, so it’s continuous mat all the way back now, punctuated only by the heavy bag pillars. They keep one heavy bag by the posts, as sort of a pad and a visual cue. It was also very very dirty. I swept up the small back part of the mat, and warmed up before class.

Class started with a nice warmup. Then we did some half guard stuff. Basics are to block the cross face with your frame, and establish the knee shield. From there, slip that top hand to get the underhook as you give up the knee shield. Dive your head down to the belt as you reach your underhook over their back and pull them down, forcing them to put their hands on the mat. From there, our first technique was the OG sweep, where you reach your bottom hand through and grab their far side foot or shin from underneath. Switch your feet so you can lift their trapped foot with your outside foot, and that lets you get your bottom leg out. Get to your knees and push them over that far side foot that you’re still holding to prevent them from basing out.

The second technique started the same way, but in that scenario you’re unable to reach under and grab the foot. So instead you push the far side knee out, grip the pants, and when they try to recover their interrupted base, you hip into them and use the knee grip to lift it as you roll them over you.

Then we rolled. I started with Matt, and I taught him stuff. He showed off his collar grip frame with his fist in my neck, which made it very difficult for me to do anything at all.

Next I rolled with Colt, who’s recovering his back. Good roll. After that we didn’t have partners so we just talked for the final round.