I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:
One of the principles I live by is that any and every thing that works on me on the mat is subject to outright and blatant theft, and I have absolutely no reservations about it either. If it works on me, I steal it.
And oh boy, have I looted some great stuff over the years.
In fact, one particular piece of loot comes to mind at the moment.
Back in my purple belt days, Tim Spriggs (a straight up beast passer) started to give me trouble in the room. Whenever we got to half guard, he would establish a high collar grip on the same side as his trapped leg, so if I was playing on my right side with his right leg trapped, his right hand would always grab my left side collar.
He used that grip to control the inside space, and it absolutely slaughtered most of my offense in its infancy.
It was a really frustrating time for me.
I tried all kinds of different ways to deal with it, and none of them worked at all. Hell, more than once, whole rolls went by with us just fighting in that position. The best I could do was prevent the pass.
All my offense was dead.
And you know what?
I stole that grip.
There’s no shame in my game either. It was robbery in broad daylight. Hell, I’m proud of it too.
Since then, that grip has served me well.
Pinning that far shoulder to the mat does more than prevent offense. It also opens up a ridiculous strong knee cut, and I’ve used it to run roughshod through half from the top countless times.
The key, though, is to make sure that you control their bottom arm. The wrist must be pinned to the mat or the elbow must be lifted off the ground. That kills their ability to rotate, making the pass stupid easy.
On the other side of the coin though, I now have several answers for it when people try it on me.
And at least one of them can be found in the higher institute of half gyard learning along with many other tips and tricks.
Find out more here:
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