A suggestion for half-guard fundamentals.

As a new white belt, I was finding myself in the flattened out bottom position occasionally, and since my opponent won the under-hook and had a pretty tight cross-face, I was really having trouble doing anything other than trying to wedge an arm in and make a little space so I could breathe. (Both me and my normal training partner are over 300 lbs.) I certainly haven't seen all the half-guard videos, so maybe it does exist, but I ran across two ideas watching a Danaher half guard series.

One is a kind of windmill motion sweep where you chop the leg on the side you are being cross-faced and the head/neck on the side your opponent has won the under-hook with a kind of windmill motion while your outside foot bridges off the floor. Even against my really large training partner I was easily able to sweep him using this idea unless he removed his cross-face arm to post. When he did this I was able to get my arm back in and defend the cross-face and get some space to start working.

The other idea was working a sweep against the side the top opponent has won the under-hook on, you get both of your feet with toes slightly touching and knees up and you squeeze his leg with both of your legs. You don't bridge but you slightly lift and shift their weight towards the side they have won the under-hook. It allowed me to move my partner very easily, which caused him to post his hand on the mat and I could swim my own under-hook in.

The suggestion was not really to add either of these moves, because I am sure there are plenty of ideas similar to this that work well. It was more to give some kind of video that gives me options to be able to work better when I am in the most terrible spot (Which as a new white belt is often against a more experienced practitioner). This basically made it easier for me to attempt to work things that I have been learning from your videos because I was not longer afraid of getting into the "worst" position. Like Jason pointed out in a video and semi-quoted Osiander, "if you get here you have already messed up", but realistically I get put there often while learning so I think it should be one of the first ideas that a white belt learns after the fundamental ideas of the position itself. I was able to try quite a few things I had been learning from your videos yesterday that I had been struggling to try because even when I was punished I could recover the position and try again or try something else. It made it more fun to work and I was getting to try some things instead of just trying to breathe.

So as a brief summary, I think a key fundamental video should be made early in the series to address escaping the worst position so a new student can attempt some of the more offensive ideas instead of just trying to survive as a white belt. This made a huge difference to me personally, and I think it would be the same for other white belts. My apologies Jason if this already exists and I have just overlooked the video. I just wanted to share my own personal experience. I am now no longer scared to try different things because even if I am flattened out, I can recover better, and that made my rolls much more entertaining and productive.