Jiu-Jitsu: The Trap-and-roll meets its Waterloo

I enter the turtle position a lot and the trap-and-roll (aka Peterson's roll) is

one of my go-to moves from there. It has become over time second nature whenever

I sense my opponent's arm on the far side. Once I trap that arm, rarely they can

counter. It has given me many victories on the mat.

 

In the past few months, however, people in my gym (especially Richard) were

getting good at taking my back just as I started the roll. It was not a good

feeling to be beaten at something I considered myself best at.

 

I finally figured out why: it has to do with the particular ways Machine teaches

turtle attacks. July 4th open mat, I explained to Michael, a skinny Asian white

belt, aftering rolling him, what I did, and how he could take my back.

 

It was his leg positions. If both legs were on my side and with the near-side

knee down, I would roll him easily. On the other hand, if he had one leg behind

my butt with the knee raised and the other knee at my side, he's in a good

position to take my back when I fall to the far side to roll as he had the time

to jump over and use my momentum, especially if he had the seatbelt grip

already.

 

A review of Henry's videos confirmed my understanding. He even explained

to counter the jumping-over how he angled his butt to toss them to his one

o'clock instead of straight across. But in the videos, his partner stayed at the

side without the knee behind the butt.

 

So what to do?

 

Darren taught a version where he first cut a better angle by moving away from the

leg behind and sticks his butts in the air to block them before the roll.

Erdurado Telles's forward roll reversal should work, too. The latter has been in

my mind for a while. I even saw it in Josh Barnett's Hammer roll where his

partner had exactly the same leg positions but instead of a seatbelt just

grabbed him across the chest from behind (that might be why he didn't bother to

trap the arm like Tolles did). I have to try all these.