Dealing with squirmy white belts

[Ross Davidson]

So yesterday was our first HB session at a new location, and a lot of people showed up. Great turnout. There seems to be a lot of white belts that train at this place, most of which, that I rolled with, were easy to wrap up and control, but this one white belt (Gracie Barra kid) was really squirmy. I had no problem tapping him once I wrapped him up, but it was really hard to do. It seems like all he's ever been taught are hip escapes, because when we were drilling lockdown stuff, he couldn't stop himself from trying to hip escape; he kept doing it and saying it as though he just knew that you do that for everything in half guard. So how do y'all deal with real squirmy guys? You know, like slow them down.

[Andrew Sarasin]

Stick your finger in his butt like they do in wrestling...jk lol

[bobby rivers]

More presh. Shoulder presh and hip presh(leg drag). Keep him flat. Crossfaces help. And isolate his elbows from his body. He has to be able to push off you to hip escape.

I also like to shell up and let him zerk out till he falls intoj soemething.

[Ross Davidson]

Yea I started shelling up and just letting them screw up after that match, as I was friggin exhausted from training so intensely, all week, and yesterday morning. It's weird just letting people pass your guard yet knowing that they won't tap you. I can't afford to do that with the guys I regularly train with lol.

But yea, I thought about just doing that against really squirmy guys after I posted this.

On a side note, I feel like training with other white belts will really help polish my submissions, as they're usually hard to come by against the higher belts

[Ross Davidson]

This is jiu jitsu, Andrew. We don't give up our backs, unlike those wrastlers

[Brent Smith]

Control the hips. That slows the squirmy ones down.

[Krazy Lobster]

As a Barra guy myself, I have to tell ya: there's very little emphasis on half-guard. VERY LITTLE. We learn two or three things: Americana/Kimura from the Half-Guard; Guard Recovery (this is the "main path", if you will); and a sweep that looks a lot like Old School.
In my recent experience, the Lockdown ruins 90% of all white and blue belts at my school. We have around 100 students here, and every time I roll with whites/blues, they can't even begin to pass the Lockdown. I can't do much, because I'm still trying to learn how to use it correctly, but they can't pass. So we kinda stay in stalemate. I'm getting pretty good at surviving collar chokes, thanks to the Whip Up/Down, but that's about it. I'm trying to learn the Electric Chair.

So, yeah, if you guys wanna compete against Barra guys (white/blue ), go for the Lockdown.

[Jon Watkins]

Trickery. Dats Jiu Jitsu.

[Andrew Sarasin]

lol, true, but on that note, I have been giving my back a lot for more than 2 years in turtle position, that's just what I thought we were supposed to do because we did a lot of techniques from that position. I found out through eddie's mastering the twister DVD that JJ guys don't give their back, its a big nono. And by the way. i got that from joe rogans podcast, never knew it existed.

This is jiu jitsu, Andrew. We don't give up our backs, unlike those wrastlers

[Andrew Sarasin]

Wow, sounds super familiar from where I used to do JJ in Ottawa. submissions 101 and MTS helped me make my game more valuable in half guard.

As a Barra guy myself, I have to tell ya: there's very little emphasis on half-guard. VERY LITTLE. We learn two or three things: Americana/Kimura from the Half-Guard; Guard Recovery (this is the "main path", if you will); and a sweep that looks a lot like Old School.
In my recent experience, the Lockdown ruins 90% of all white and blue belts at my school. We have around 100 students here, and every time I roll with whites/blues, they can't even begin to pass the Lockdown. I can't do much, because I'm still trying to learn how to use it correctly, but they can't pass. So we kinda stay in stalemate. I'm getting pretty good at surviving collar chokes, thanks to the Whip Up/Down, but that's about it. I'm trying to learn the Electric Chair.

So, yeah, if you guys wanna compete against Barra guys (white/blue ), go for the Lockdown.