2009-02-14 Sat AM BJJ Class

Cassio Werneck BJJ - Sacramento CA - Cassio Werneck

Still fighting off the head cold, but it's good to be back regardless.

Today it was two techniques from the rare and elusive De la Riva guard. I havnt seen this one drilled in a bit so it was great to see it again. It feels like it's just starting to make a little sense finally.

The first sweep was from the De la Riva guard with a shallow hook and a cross sleeve grip. By shallow hook I mean that the leg twined around your opponents (your rear leg) hooks into their thigh and not all the way across to their far hip. Now here's where it gets crazy. If your gripping their right ankle with your left arm your going to drive them back a bit with your feet, sit up, and roll over your shoulders to your left (their rear). When doing so you'll keep your left leg straight and it will in turn thread around their right leg and sweep them. You need to follow through and come out on top. I think thats about the best I can do in text.

The second wa a little less acrobatic. Ok, it was a lot less. This time you get the deep De la Riva, with the same side sleeve grip. now getting this deep you should be up and on your shoulder. Now when you come back down flat pull that opposite sleeve and they should be halfway down. proceed to come up smashing their thigh down with your leg and finish the pass. Pretty effective I think.

Rolled:
rolled three 8 min rounds
Chad, rest, Dan, rest, Marcos

Started with Chad (xfit). Rolling with Chad is usually good, and it was this time. Even though he's coming off knee surgery it's still a challenge keeping up I talked with him before the session about not being comfortable turning the corner from a knee across pass or leg smash pass and guess where I spen all my time on top. Funny that. He kept giving me just enough rope to work with and then when I finally did get around he took advantage of a kimura I left out there dangling around. That will teach me. I really need to remember to keep that arm hidden when I pass.

The Dan roll was pretty standard. I kept trying to pull closed guard and he kept having none of it. Then he proceeds to pass my feeble open guard. I need to get better there. I tried the "double pump" seated guard pass from Christin Graugart's blog. Got me over one leg but not completly passed. I'll have to give it a little more work.

Marcos just straight smashed me. I couldn't get closed guard so I basically had very little. I managed to make a few escapes but I felt that it was just out of one frying pan and into another fire. Good times. I did try the cross grip De la Riva sweep outlined above and actually got him over to his side for a second, but I think I was so shocked that I just st there on my butt and never even came up to finishes the pass. And by the time I realized what happened he had his base back.