closed guard attacks

Monday night we worked on how to break down someone in your closed guard.

We were shown and then practices flaring out the elbows and then grabbing the head or getting over and underhook. Then we had a look at options when their wrists are planted below our floating ribs. Aside from that, there were hints on how to use the legs at the same time to facilitate posture breaking.

We had a brief look at rubber guard and how to set it up, then how to get the arm to the mat and lock it in there. From that we ran through the steps of going for omoplata, or jiu-claw, if our legs are stretched out. I'd only seen that in Eddie Bravo's book, and was surprised how effective that straigtening of the legs is in getting the opponent flattened out and taking away the most effective omoplata escape, the forward roll. Nasty, nasty.. I like it :-)

Then some free wrestling from closed guard, with an emphasis on breaking down the opponent in guard to set up submission, or alternatively, try to posture up and pass. I did't set the world on fire with this. Break down and control - yes. Set something up - fail... I have much work to do!

Lastly, one round of free wrestling. I scored one of the blue belts. He toyed with me. Gave me a wee opening to get out of a shitty spot (which, at least - I used!), just to catch me in another bad or worse spot as soon as I got out. Yikes! Once I could have gone for a very low single as he stood up, but I saw the edge of the mat behind him and refrained. Good things to report: I escaped an armbar with a technique I recently learned and again, my closed guard