Musings from the BJJ Gi #14, lesson 15; rear takedown & elevator sweep

The rear takedown drill involves responding to the indicator of your opponent attempting to push your head into a guillotine once you have established the clinch. You take this opportunity to step forward and raise your head high behind their shoulder, and bend them forward/put their posture off balance, before stepping further around to attain the full rear clinch, with hands S-gripped. I need to remember that the rear clinch stance is not directly behind them, but off to the side, so that one of my ears is pressed flat against their lower back. The rear takdown involves taking a small setup step with your inner foot/foot which is closest to theirs, and then with your outer foot/furthest away foot, place your foot behind their furthest away heel, keeping that leg straight. You then squat with your other leg, and sit down on that side, and using 'bungee cord' arms, when your arms are fully outstretched, pull your opponent backwards, but with a quick yank, and then let go so you can tuck your arms out of the way of their fall. Ideally, you then roll up on your shoulder with the momentum of the fall, and bring your outer leg over the top of your fallen opponent so that you can attain modified mount.

There were 2 variations of the elevator sweep; the standard variation and the headlock variation. The standard variation starts from the punch block series stage 1 locked up (them inside your closed guard, head held down, 1 arm wrapped up). The indicator for the elevator sweep is that they stand up on one leg to stack you up and use their free arm to start punching you in the ribs on that side. You unlock your feet, and kind of tilt your hips out, using their standing leg as the leverage point, this new side angle of your hips allows you to more easily position your foot underneath their standing leg's knee. You block their punches with your arm on that side, and when it's safe, switch that blocking arm to an underhook, then lift with the foot under their knee, drive with the arm underhook, and chop underneath with the leg on the other side, turning them over, and attaining full mount.

The headlock variation is where the relevance of the Michael Jackson photo comes in. There is a move in this variation which involves grabbing your own head and kind of thrusting your hips a little bit. The instructor at the academy nicknamed this move 'GQ', in reference to a model's stereotype magazine front cover pose laying on the ground; lying on your side, supporting your head with your hand and elbow on the ground. But myself and my Gracie Garage training partner Ash had already previously nicknamed this same movement 'Michael Jackson-ing', in reference to part of his Billie Jean dance sequence, where he grabs his own hat and thrusts his hips. Anyway, the headlock variation starts in the same position again, except your opponent has their arm around the back of your neck, in a headlock. You catch that headlocking arm by the bicep and pin it to the ground with your head, same hip tilt move and punch block move, to get your foot and arm underhooked on that side, and then the 'Michael Jackson-ing' move comes into play; you grab your own head, so that that arm is tightly wrapping up their headlocking arm, and lift north, while simultaneously chopping south with that chopping leg, so that you are kind of stretching their headlocking arm and their leg on the same side in opposite directions, which flattens them out on that side of their body, and allows you to easily roll them over and attain full mount.
Cheers

• David.