Spider Guard Sweep, 3 Ways

I felt a bit like a stranger walking into the gym last night! I’ve said it a lot lately, but so much has happened in the past month, and time for jiu jitsu disappeared. I missed out on the last couple weeks of our guest instructor Gabriel too. I heard he’s off to Europe to do a few seminars over there next.

It was nice to have Damian back teaching. We had a normal warm up…which I realized about half way though that I was going to have a rough night. A month off has done my stamina no favors. We rounded the warmup off with an 8 minute round of light rolling against Long. Yeah, it was going to be a long night.

The lesson was three variations of a sweep from spider guard. They were very similar to a technique I’ve been doing for a while where I can switch around to take the back. Start with a foot on a bicep and one on the hip. Drop the hip foot to the ground, pull him forward to off balance and underhook his leg. Here, normally I’d switch to the back. But last night’s sweeps included an x guard variation and one where you don’t underhook, but wrap your leg around the outside of his. Long, Mongoose, and I rotated drilling.

Rolling, we broke up into two groups of 4. Long, Mongoose, Dumicorn and I were one. We’d do 2 minute rounds, with one guy staying on his back for 3 rounds. Starting in spider guard. Bottom guy has to get to guard, sweep or submit. Top guy needs to pass. I started off on the bottom. Did okay with Mongoose and Long. Dumi had a totally different style to passing. Long and Mike were trying to be fast, which I could beat with good grips and moving with them. Dumi was slow, heavy, and tight. Took me a bit to figure out how to adjust, but I did get to guard a couple of times with him.

In the end, I did survive the night. Winded and tired, but happy.