Making Space & Thoughts on a New Pass

Very interesting tidbit shared by William in class today.
We were working on the position where one of your shins is across your opponents mid-section, almost as if they are trapping it in an attempt to pass to that side.
This is not the shin across the chest/scissor-sweep type setup.  Your hips are square up to your
opponent, with the bottom of one foot against the inside of your other knee.

The opponent will almost always attempt to pin that knee and pass in that direction (as your other leg is typically blocking the other side).  Bringing your opponent toward you and onto your shin allows you to sweep them and end up with knee-on-belly.
You block their knee on the side that they are passing, usually grabbing some gi at the outside of their knee.  The other hand grabs behind the opposite tricep - this would be their posting arm which you will control.  The outside leg acts as a pendulum to generate momentum at the hips.

It's a simple and effective sweep.  I need to practice automatically getting the right grips and hand position - having to think about it too much right now.

Oftentimes you need to buy some time to establish your position better with the shin (getting it in).
In other cases your opponent may have you in side control and you want to insert your knee.
Using a similar principle with the outside leg, you can bring your heel straight up and down while maintaining the 90 degree angle at your waist.  Bringing your leg down while you turn makes a lot of space between you and your opponent.  It certainly gets their mind off of their attack, and more often than not you can make some space and insert the knee/shin, perhaps even ending up with the above mentioned sweep.

As I was rolling the other day, I was trying to practice the principle of "on your side you're alive, on your back you're dead".  When I was on top in half-guard, I walked/hopped towards my opponent
to flatten them out.  Their natural reaction is shrimp a bit to get on their side and face you.  To do this they have to let go of your trapped half-guard leg it seems.  When they do that you can simply kick your heel to your butt and escape your leg.  I think if you also drive your other knee into their hip it can help block a recovery and aid the pass.  This is going to take some more exploring.

Awesome roll with the Angry Koala today - a methodical ass whipping is what I got.