Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 28/10/2016
For the switch to deep half guard, this starts when they move to technical mount. Protect your neck with your 'bottom' hand, as otherwise they'll have a clear route to choke you. Work on widening any space between the back of their knee and your torso, inserting your top arm into that space. Once you can get your arm through into the gap behind their knee, reach in and grab your gi trousers, by your knee.
Start moving your legs towards your head, until there is an opportunity to shove their leg between yours and switch to deep half guard, controlling that leg with both of your own. Get your shoulder right underneath that leg, wrapping your arm all the way around, in order to grip their knee. Hide your other arm under their leg, grabbing your own far hip. They will want to try and drive their arm underneath your non-wrapping arm, so it's important to take away any space.
Tweak their knee outwards, then roll to the top, staying tight. If you need to disrupt their balance, you can 'run' your legs back towards your head, then quickly turn the other way: this is what Jeff Glover calls the 'Homer sweep'. If your partner is wise to that and adjusts their weight accordingly, you may still be able to pop out the back, or at least escape from the mount.
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Teaching & Sparring Notes: When I was watching some video on this (I think Andrew Smith?), he was suggesting you grab your collar to defend. Chris was defending his neck in the usual way, which I think I prefer, but worth playing with both. Getting that shoulder under was the big thing people were forgetting, so must emphasise that next time. Hiding your arm and tweaking their knee were also getting forgotten, two other bits to emphasise. Also, rereading my notes, I realise that I didn't include the grabbing your trouser leg part. Instead, I said to bump them, then shove their leg between yours. That works too, but I'll try what I actually planned next time! ;)
My intention with this class was to introduce deep half guard in a way that beginners could pick up. Last time I tried, a lot of the less experienced students got confused. I think this time, it worked far better, ready for us to delve into deep half guard in December. From now on, I'll use this to start deep half guard, adding it as a drill in half guard month too. Looking forward to playing with that, I've been wanting to explore deep half properly for a while now.
Sparring was fun, testing out Hamza's mount defence, which is pretty good. He has a decent bump to butterfly, so working that out is interesting. Keeping a grip on the collar and not sitting on the hips helps block it, don't give them that space they need. Also, controlling the arms should stop it too, as that frame is key to the escape. With Matt we bounced around, going nogi unusually. He had cut his thumb and I didn't want my gi to rip the plaster off (or more selfishly, get any blood on my gi ;D).
I went for a crucifix, managed to secure it...but then completely forgot what to do with a gi to play with. I had a go at the armbar, but that's way harder than the choke. Rewatching Matt 'Aesopian' Kirtley's instructional (he has new footage), I see I'd forgotten about the RNC and single arm choke. That's something I'll play with at the weekend, as I'll be teaching the new nogi Sunday class (as Paul and Rich are both away).
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