omoplatas

That was Monday's theme: omoplatas.

First we drilled the movement, the change of direction our body needs to make to align correctly. Then we drilled the setup to get to the right position on our partner. And finally, the whole submission to where we switch the legs and apply the lock.

In addition we looked at how to flatten our partner in case he ends up with his knees under him. Sometimes, we end up next to him all flattened out and he is on his knees. In that case, it is really hard to sit up, and the same technique will flatten him and allow us to sit up. Say he is on our right side (I have his left arm trapped). I reach across his calves with my right arm and grab is far (right) leg/pants. With a stiff arm I hold his leg in place while I shuffle my feet and butt to my left and away from his foot. This stretches him out and with a few wriggles, it brings at least one, but probably both his hips to the mat. Now it's easy to sit up and reach across his back to finish the submission.

After that, we had a few rolls. I saw no chance for an omoplata, so I played with my new toy (open guard, esp.spider guard). Failed in a couple of sweep attempts, but finally got one. Mucho happy! Someone else tried to armbar me and then transitioned to omoplata. But somewhere in that, I got my lower arm free and when he rolled to omoplata, my arm was gone :-). And I managed a cool transition to mount, set up ready for a triangle, no less! Alas, we had to reset.. Can't remember the rest, other than that I talked one of of the new guys through NOT allowing me to pull his arms across while in my guard. Because I'm just going straight to his back...

I had a really great evening. I'm finding that since I've abandoned trying to get and hold closed guard at all cost, I'm actually much more free in how and when I move. I'm also much more proactive when I think my oppononet might succeed in opening my guard, I go to open guard and stuff him around :-) Obviously, something has clicked in my brain. Again :-)