25/09/2014 - Artemis BJJ | The Back | Turtle Escapes To Half Guard & Gi Tail Choke Details

Class #595
Artemis BJJ (Impact Gym), Dónal Carmody, Bristol, UK - 25/09/2014

Fairly straightforward class tonight, with an escape from turtle that essentially involved turning to half guard. I'm not sure I quite got all the details, especially as I'm writing this up a few days later, but the situation is that they have one hook in. First, be careful to block their other hook creeping in, keeping your elbow tight.Turn towards the side they've hooked, spinning towards the floor rather than towards the ceiling. Immediately secure an underhook, putting you into half guard.

In sparring, I was with a strong white belt, playing around with the back take option Dónal showed earlier. I was a bit uncertain about it on Tuesday, but it was working great today. However, I need to grip higher. I was just grabbing whatever bits of gi I could and then rolling over their shoulder. I should have been grabbing right under their armpits and pulling the gi in tight there before rolling, so I'll work on that next time.

Underneath, I went for the wing escape a few times, but generally stayed lazy and just clamped in tight. Once he gave me some space, I grabbed the leg and went to half guard. A few times, I ended up wrapping the bottom of both his legs with mine and then wriggling back into guard, which was a bit random.

With Rafal, I got into the gi tail grip nice and deep, but wasn't able to do much with it. I looked for the choke, then I thought about sweeping, failing to get the post/posture/leverage thing yet again. Finally I thought maybe a triangle, perhaps by digging my leg in and then kicking out. I got confused as to grips: fortunately for me, all was about to become clear.

Dónal had been watching, so I got a quick refresher on the private he taught me a while back about gi tail attacks, with some extra details. The main addition was using their arm to choke them when you can't get into the standard gi tail choke. Reach across with your free hand to grab their elbow, pulling that across your body. I had tried to do that in sparring, but I was just pulling the elbow backwards, thinking about triangles without being in position.

Instead, you do pull it back, but you're just opening it. You've reached right across to grab it. Turn, moving that elbow to your other hip, where you can clamp in with your body to keep it in place. Push off their arm-side hip to scoot your hips out, which will enable you to trap their arm even more. At that point, pulling on the gi tail should result in a choke, combined with pressing into their trapped arm.

The triangle is an option too, but rather than pulling the arm out to get my knee in, you can instead kick the leg down, then swing it around. They aren't normally defending against the leg in that direction, so it's a higher percentage approach.