ham sandwich

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If you just have a minute to ponder the beauty of the ham sandwich, here’s a quicky:

Of course B Mac has a lot more on this topic:

Rolling footage of repeated ham sandwich attacks:

If they keep their leg straight to deny the ham sandwich, get even more 10th Planet on them and switch to an electric chair:

He continues deeper into the dark arts with a toe hold if the ham sandwich doesn’t do the trick

and one more from another favorite of halfguardlife:

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Putting a Truck in Reverse

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I’ve probably posted this before, but this clip is from Mastering the Twister. I think I started doing rolling back takes because of Ryan Hall’s Back Attack’s series. Despite his digs at Bravo’s moves, I find Bravo’s implementation to be more complete and applicable in my game than Hall’s version (big surprise that Half Guard Mike likes 10th Planet stuff, right?). He doesn’t spend a lot of time on the reversals but he does explain how to avoid getting flipped.

BMac has a good demonstration of trucks gone wrong. I’m pretty sure Bianca has already used this against me. I’d love to see everyone else have this awareness so that I tighten my game up.

Oh no! I missed the opportunities while they were initiating the truck and I failed to reverse them. Now I’m fully in the truck! You might still be able to flip it:

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homie control

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There are a few extended videos at https://www.10thplanetjj.com/techniques-archive/ but there isn’t much from 10th Planet on Youtube.

This isn’t my favorite video from Coach Brian. It gets extended a bit by his coaching of the young camera operator. It’s probably the best I’ve found:

I found a second one:

Here is Giancarlo Bodoni showing it from full guard:

I don’t know what happened to part 3. I didn’t find it on Youtube.

Bonus: Pinch headlock into triangle (for DJ).

Here’s Eddie Bravo doing it at high speed, ending with the transition to spider web. He points out that he prefers the head control rather than the shoulder crunch. I do too. Gordon Ryan, the best in the world, prefers the shoulder crunch variant. It is not clear to me what Gordon gains from his approach compared to the head and arm. I’m sure there’s something there, but I don’t see it.

Since the other elements of the pinch headlock/homie control are covered in the other videos, here’s some help with the swim move:

I appreciate the comments at the end about not doing the move to the guy. It’s in line with the Rabbit Season Duck Season concept. Put yourself in position to help the move happen when your opponent asks for it.

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rabbit season duck season

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It applies to nearly all of Jiu Jitsu, but I find myself needing the reminder when I struggle with butterfly guard. If you’re fully committed to pulling someone in, they’ll sit their weight back and it’ll be hard to move them. Sometimes you gotta give’em the ole Rabbit Season, Duck Season and threaten them in a different direction so that they’ll help you move them in the direction you want to go.

I watched Gordon’s sweep of Buchecha over and over again:

Look at Buchecha!

He’s a big dude. He’s sitting all the way back to the opposite side of the trapped arm. He also has his left leg posted out in opposition to the anticipated sweeping direction. Outside of detaching his left arm, Buchecha is doing everything to stop a roll to his left, Gordon’s right. But that’s what happens. I know Gordon consumes his share of acai, but how the hell does he just roll over from there?

He doesn’t. He pushes into Buchecha first:

Gordon mentions this in his video with Bernardo, but you don’t see him really push Bernardo because Bernardo is being a cooperative uke. Compare the position of Buchecha’s hip to his knee. In the second picture, he’s being driven backward. If he goes further back, he’ll be on his ass. He can’t accept that, so he pushes forward to get his right leg back underneath him.

At that point, he’s Daffy declaring “Duck season! Shoot!” and Gordon “Buggs” Ryan gets what he wants.

I posted this one before, but here’s Saulo talking about butterfly setups as “going through the guy” to get them to push back:

This guy hunts:

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shoulder crunch sweep

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Some highlights just stick with you. Watching Eddie Bravo hit the electric chair sweep on Royler Gracie repeatedly sent me down the lockdown halfguard rabbit hole. More recently, the clip of Gordon Ryan sweeping Buchecha has been stuck in my head. It’s not a brand new technique, and it’s been used elsewhere but watching Buchecha flail as he gets caught and rolled is pretty wild.

lol @ glappers

That short clip just makes it easy to rewatch the sweep. The whole match is on youtube if you want to see it.

Gordon gave a step by step walk through of that exact exchange:

Here are a couple other breakdowns that show Gordon using it in multiple matches:

Before Gordon was the greatest, there was Marcelo Garcia. He had butterfly moves too:

If you only have a minute, here’s BMac with a tip:

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New Years 2023

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We’ll be moving on from the half guard emphasis at the beginning of the year, but I like this video and I don’t think I’ve posted it on this site before. Jason Scully’s videos are the opposite of Danaher’s: quick demonstrations of moves without long monologues. Sometimes you just want ideas for some options and don’t need a research paper.

By popular demand, we’ll start to dabble in the dark arts. Since I’ve spent nearly all of my recent training time in the gi, I am not fully comfortable playing footsie. I have more work to do on my own understanding of it. To get started, I want to pick moves and positions that complement things we’re already doing and won’t be illegal for everyone in their normal competition contexts.

That brings us to footlocks/straight ankle locks. Here are a pair of finishes. The second finish accounts for positioning that acknowledges heel hooks but doesn’t require us to break IBJJF rules:

Below is my obligatory inclusion of Lachlan Giles. I agree with him that I don’t want people in class to get focused on footlocks from top position rather than working on passing the guard. Still, we gotta start somewhere.

I’m less bothered by leg attacks initiated from the bottom. It feels less like giving up on positioning. Single leg X guard attaches nicely to footlocks, so we can work on transitioning into and sweeping from SLX.

Watch Gers escape the footlock attempt in the middle of his match by clearing the bottom leg. His opponent didn’t step over with his other leg to keep Gers away. Gerson shucked the leg and went directly into a dominant top position. This is also a reminder of why everyone is encouraged to work guard passing more than footlocks. Gerson’s opponent could have taken the top position and worked a pass but he fell back for the foot and ended up getting smashed on bottom for it.

Here’s a version of establishing SLX from half butterfly:

From butterfly:

Leg details from Marcelo on the butterfly to SLX transition and sweep:

More Lachlan on sweeping from SLX:

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bad half to good half

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From my recollection of morning crew folks at the recent tournament, I saw escapes, guard passes, and successful guard pulls, but not successful guard offense. Also, everyone ended up in half guard at some point. Half guard life is real.

We’re revisiting that in class. Most of the things we’re doing have already been covered by previous posts. See: https://halfguardlife.com/tag/half-guard/ for the whole collection. More specifically, we’ve started by working from bad half guard positions into better half guard positions using the Whip Down with the Lockdown and the John Wayne Sweep.

I’ve referenced similar BMac videos before, but I don’t think I’ve shared this one:

If our opponent is very resistant to movements across our body (as in the Whip Down or John Wayne), then we could turn into them in the move Kesting calls the Kamikaze. He also continues with a move to bail on half guard using a butterfly hook and his own John Wayne explanation. We’ll work on those as well:

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