Punk pits and more upright guarding

It's the Monday before Christmas (by the way, if I write Xmas it's because I'm lazy, not because I'm protesting anything), and I forewent my BJJ class Saturday morning in preparation for a punk concert that night (The Vandals Christmas show in Anaheim, CA). I tend to spend entire concerts in the pit, so I wanted to conserve my energy. I'm glad I did since I ran around in a decently rough pit for well over an hour between two bands. I also ended up with a nasty gash over my right eye from an accident head butt (echoes of MMA?). Hopefully that won't affect my grapping tonight, though I can't see how I can spar in the kickboxing class. It's a classic boxer's cut, fairly painless but right above the eye and waiting to bleed at the slightest poke poke.

At any rate I feel mostly recuperated from what was a pretty intense, full-body workout after spending all Sunday laying around, with a couple big meals in there. Last week we worked on the upright guard and I only touched on what we learned. I explained the position and an introductory sweep, but we actually went over a series of about six different moves that feed from one to another.

The sweep I described last week involved getting an underhook and falling over backward and to one side while extending the hooking foot. There are several assumptions there, the two biggest ones are:

A. You can get an underhook
B. You're able to fall backward while dragging your opponent

The next chain of sweeps assume neither of these.

The first sweep is another backward sweep. In fact, it's the same as the one mentioned above but without the underhook. Assuming you can't achieve underhook, reach across his chest and grab his opposite lapel with your lead hand. Now pull that lapel to your ear like you're answering a phone as you fall back and to one side while extending your hooking leg. Same effect without the underhook.

But that's assuming your opponent doesn't lean backward with enough power to thwart your yanking on his collar. That's fine, because his leaning back sets up a nice sweep too.

If your opponent knows what's coming there's a great chance he'll lean backwards to avoid being pulled down and swept. At that point you still have a hook (one dominant foot hooking really, while the other kind of hangs out being a pain in the ass) and a collar. Assuming you don't do anything silly like let him get an underhook on you and push you down, you can pull your hooking foot out, put it behind you at about a 45-degree angle and push off it. At the same time use your lead hand (the one holding his collar) to lay a forearm across his chest and push him back, and use your other hand to push his knee. The tricky part is that you're not pushing him straight back, but rather on a 45-degree angle. Your forearm should twist and push to get him back, and your hand on his knee shoves his base in the same rotational direction as your forearm is pushing. You need to hold his knee out of the way until you're completely past his legs, or a savvy guy will stick his knee between you and him and complicate your guard pass.

So now we've talked about two sweeps going backward, and one pushing your opponent on his back should he pull away from the initial sweep attempt. But there's a chance he could counter your last sweep attempt by pushing back on you again, and now your hook is out of place because you pulled it out to launch off of.

In this case you're still in position to attack. Keeping hold of his collar, cup the back of his head and shove it down and under your armpit, almost like you're going for a guillotine. But instead of falling straight backward and trying to wrap him up in a full guard, you keep your feet where they are. Dive your head down next to his so the two of you are ear-to-ear. Now spin so you're on your back, but reach through and grab hold of his tricep so he can't spin to match you. The loose collar grip you had should now be taut across his throat, and if you're holding his tricep he can't simply roll away.

But what happens if you miss and he rolls? Roll with him. Try to skitter around his legs as you roll so he's facing you but you have him in side mount. To keep him from rolling again grab his bottom knee and pick it up. If you've managed to do this while keeping the collar it's a tight choke and an overall uncomfortable place to be.