De La Riva Sweep 5

1: Boca decides to try and pass the guard by cross-sliding his right knee over De La Riva’s right leg



2: De la Riva places his hooking foot on the ground, grabs his other leg by the knee to support his leg and pivots the foot under Boca’s far thigh.



3: He kicks his right leg up and lifts his hips to raise Boca’s leg…



4: … and now switches legs, placing his left foot under Boca’s thigh, grabbing the leg and sleeve, and sweeps Boca to his right



5: He follows Boca and gains cross side.

De La Riva Sweep 4

1: Boca attempts to escape De la Riva’s guard by standing up



2: De la Riva counters by sitting up using his hooking leg and …



3: …traps Boca’s right arm and leg.



4: He places his left hand on the ground and sit up into Boca causing him to fall backwards.



5: He now comes to the top, clears the guard and achieves cross side position.

De La Riva Sweep 3

1: Boca is back in de la Riva’s open guard.



2: Boca removes de la Riva’s hook by pointing his knee to the outside.



3: De La Riva reacts by swinging his other leg over Boca’s arm and hooking his foot under Boca’s thigh.



4: De la Riva places his other foot on the ground and shifts his hip away from Boca and kicks his hook straight up to sweep him.



5: De la Riva pulls his sweeping leg free and comes to the top position

De La Riva Sweep 2

Part two in the sweep series continues below;



1: De la Riva starts the sweep by controlling Boca’s sleeves and inserting his hook behind Boca’s knee.



2: He proceeds by shifting his hip away from the hooking leg and switching his right hand from the sleeve to the lapel



3: He starts the sweep by pulling Boca towards him…



4: …and then rolling him to his left, immediately working to pass Boca’s guard.



Alternate Finish, Photo 1: if Boca resists by backing out, de la Riva will place his left hand behind him on the ground and sit up…



Alternate Finish, Photo 2: …sweeping Boca backwards, passing his legs as before

De La Riva Sweep 1

I have decided I want to continue to work on my deep half guard, as if I can get it to a competitive level in a school where deep half guard is the speciality, then it will be pretty hard to beat against people who have only come across it a couple times. So thats what I 'should' do. But I am going to do what I want to do and also work on the de la riva! These two positions seem to go hand in hand quite well and I think I should be able to drill them together quite nicely. Here are a few cool sweeps I found courtisy of www.grapplearts.com:

TECHNIQUE 1: BASIC DE LA RIVA SWEEP



1: De la Riva has Boca in the open guard with both feet on his hips controlling both his sleeves with his hands.



2: De la Riva shifts his hips over to one side to hook his foot behind Boca’s knee on the inside of the thigh.



3: He places his other foot on Boca’s knee and grabs his far sleeve with both hands…



4: …straightens his hooking leg, pushes on Boca’s knee with the other foot and pulls on his sleeve to get the sweep.



5: De la Riva swims under Boca’s armpit with his far arm and switches his hip to disengage his legs…



6: …and slides his hip out to gain cross side

Deep Half Guard Sweeps

Over the last few competitions I was really struggling to connect my top game to my bottom game. While I was scoring points and getting submissions on top, if I ended up on bottom in guard I was finding it hard to end up back on top. I started looking at different solutions and various positions to initiate sweeps so I could have a 'complete' plan. After trying a few different things, Tolly let me borrow his Marcelo Garcia X guard book. What a cool book! Loads of cool moves in there and a nice biography on Garcia. Some nice pictures too. However, after trying out a few of the moves, I quickly realised that for me to develop any sort of X guard game, I first needed to refine and improve my guard game (which is exactly what Marcelo Garcia reccomends in his book). And that got me thinking about delving into half guard...

However, practicing 'half guard' would seem to be a very, very broad statement. Within 'the half guard' there is deep half guard, quarter half guard, Z guard, butterfly half guard and a bunch of other ones I am sure I havn't come across yet! After messing around with a few of the different positions, I decided to dedicate a couple months to the deep half guard. Check out these cool sweeps :)














These sweeps have been great fun and I feel they have made me really comfortable in half guard. There seems to be so much to do from this position! Anyway I just wanted to post these videos, more for myself so I can find them easier than anything else.