Aesopian’s Totally Awesome Journal

Before I shot video, I took these photos of the basic long distance and deep half guard sweep that I use. This is the same one that I show in the first video.

Basic long distance half guard posture. Knee in the hip to maintain space and turn my on my side. Ankles crossed, left over right. Left hand on the shoulder, forearm framing the neck. Right hand controlling the far arm at the wrist or biceps.

He cannot underhook me when my arm is framing his neck. He also can’t overhook for the brabo. I can use the knee to make space and choose when I want to dive for the underhook. The right hand keeps the crossface away.

If he tries to drive in while sprawling his leg, I push off on his neck and pull my feet towards my butt to keep his leg trapped.

If he is particularly intent on crossfacing, I can go to the double paw and protect my face.

When I feel I have good control of the far arm, I slide my right hand to the wrist and reach over the arm with my left for the kimura.

If I wanted to finish the kimura, I’d hug his arm to my chest and shrimp my hips under him and work from there.

But he’s smart and postures up and straightens his arm and rips it out, but because he’s posturing and freeing his arm, the threat of the crossface is gone and he’s giving me access to his far knee.

I immediately dive under the leg with my right hand, bring my head to the thigh and gable grip my hands together.

My knee is still on his hip to carry his weight. I’m trying to bring my elbow and knee together to create a frame against him.

Elbow and knee touching. Also notice how I have my feet crossed. The simple detail of my left being over my right makes a huge difference in terms of how strongly I can hold him in my half guard.

My left arm becomes a shield to cover my head and hide my face so he can’t crossface. He’ll just slide off the top of my head.

I scoot my hips underneath him and try to throw his weight to his front. Notice how this puts his weight on his hands, making it hard for him to reach back and crossface. My elbow and knee are still touching, and my elbow is now jamming into his ribs/stomach to keep his weight off.

I may need to open my ankles now as I rock him over me so my knee can carry his weight.

Notice how I’m spreading his legs to disrupt his base as I pull his leg on my shoulder and scoot underneath him.

My hips keep going under him by shrimping and bumping my shoulder under his leg and throwing my right elbow to my left.

My right knee slides in under his thigh and keeps his hips up.

I stretch him away with my right knee under his thigh. My left leg comes up and steps on the inside of his knee/thigh and pushes too. This puts his weight off of me and on to his far knee. It also creates space for me to get on my left elbow.

The grip on the kneecap is important. It’s a strong grip that prevents him from kicking his leg out and run out of the sweep.

You can clearly see how my right knee/shin is creating space and where my left foot is going against his knee.

Stretch my left leg to kick his leg away and scoot my hips out. Now I’m carrying almost none of his weight and have plenty of room to get all the way up on my hand. My right leg is stepping on the mat now in preparation for a technical stand-up. The sweep from here is easy. Just stand up or come to your knees and move towards him.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 5:22 pm and is filed under Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response.