questions on rubber guard basics
So, I had the good fortune of dropping in to 10th Planet Melbourne for a fundamentals class (my friday night got cancelled, so I made the hour trip each way).
Firstly, Frank and his guys were terrifically friendly, and im already looking for ways to fit more trips into my schedule. I got a lot out of the basics class.
Im going to limit my questions to what was covered in that class, but if anyone could give me some insight:
1) im in closed guard, he is postured above me. I open my guard, put my feet on the ground and sit up, clinching with his upper boddy. As I drag him down, I put one foot on the hip, then throw the other up, putting on mission control. If possible, I catch his hand already on the ground and skip to new york.
In this position:
-should you hip escape slightly towards the side you will be attacking (while turning your body more into the centre)?
-how much distance do you want between his body and your guard - are you trying to stretch him out? It would seem that they become weaker the more you stretch them.
2) from new york, entries into the main path are the zombie, night of the living dead and the exhumer. Everyone goes for the zombie first, what are the tips for increasing the effectiveness of your zombie? Frank blew my mind by explaining that went you slip your hand through, you move towards their fingers, then elbow strike back to clear their arm. I found this made a difference, allowing me to exploit smaller openings than I had needed in the past - any other tips?
3) I get the hand to the mat and move to chill dog. My main options are the invisible collar, the croc, kung-fu move to jiu-claw and the meathook triangle. I know the omoplata transition is the signature move, but if I wanted to specialise in one of the other branches, is that going to be detrimental? The invisible collar chain and the meathook triangle are more appealing because they just seem that little bit more controlled.
4) The invisible collar - any guidance on making the squeeze submission work? Im definitely going to bring this up with frank next time I drop in. The two armbar transitions seem great from this position - in a classic closed guard I was getting a lot of armbars from highguard, so this really suits me. Any small details that I should be looking for?
So basically, given I am going to have to largely self learn, I want to start with basics, which seem to be: the basic path (ending in an omoplata or omoplata sweep), croc, invisible collar or meathook triangle. Are these a solid starting position?
I have already made the lockdown half and the butterfly the base of the rest of my bottom game.
Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated - ill be sure to make the journey to 10th planet melbourne as often as possible!
- James.
