I went away last night thinking about your message, so I paid attention in training to what I did with my rubber guard, and I have some more comments.
Funnily enough I read through the book again today and found a comment from Eddie where he says if he gets heavily stacked he usually gives it up and tries to go to Butterfly to work sweeps. I'll definately give your suggested sweep a try on the mat and see how it works out.
Well, for the record, my suggested sweep (and calling it a sweep is probably giving it more credit than it deserves) works best when they panic and stack hard, because their momentum is already taking them over your head, so all you're doing is going with the flow. Another option is to just abandon rubber guard entirely and go back to regular closed guard. Their posture is already broken, so you can use your non-mission-control hand to grab the back of their head. If you can then dig immediately for an overwrap, then you can work the triangle or the half butterfly sweep - especially if you already have their hand on the mat, because the overwrap is dead easy to snag on that side at that point. That sequence happens a lot for me.
A third option when you're stacked, and I think one that Eddie teaches in his book, is to use one of the open sweeps, like whatever it is that he calls the balloon sweep. I don't have much luck with that from being stacked in rubber guard because I find that their weight is so far forward that opening up gives them opportunities I don't want them to have. I also don't transition much to butterfly from rubber guard - I like butterfly, and my butterfly game is pretty aggressive, but that's not usually a path I take to butterfly. It's a personal thing - you'll find what works for you. Maybe I'll feel differently as I continue to play with it, but it's not instinctual for me.
I've currently been playing the guard for about 5 weeks, I've been using it every single time I roll. I find that if I can get the hand to the mat, I can 9 times out of 10 get to Jiu Claw without an issue. However, I find that when I switch to The Pump I get stacked as the arm goes across, maybe I'm sitting there too long and need to be faster with moving from there.
That sounds like a panic moment (your opponent's panic moment) to me, because they know you're trapping the arm. That is a big drawback to the pump, in my opinion - it telegraphs your intent, and no matter how tight you are, you still risk them going "oh shit!" and... stacking you, picking you up, whatever. You can accomplish almost the same thing without doing the pump if you can pull their hand across from Crackhead or Invisible Collar as you swing that leg and over their shoulder. I think Eddie calls the resulting positions a Croc? It's basically a high crooked guard (we call that "pit stop"; I'm not sure if that's our club's name for it, or if it's a name everybody uses) where you've trapped their shoulder and their arm is right there for the taking. And if you can't finish by squeezing your knees together and hyperextending their elbow, you can just slide your foot in front of their face and switch to a regular armbar finish. I don't know if I'm doing a good job of explaining it, but it's a solid option.
Have you worked the Swim Move at all? It is truly a thing of beauty, and unless your opponent knows what you're going for, it doesn't freak them out because it seems so slack. It is definitely my #1 sweep - highest percentage, most fun, and the one I go for most often. I can now get it from a dozen different positions: mount, regular closed guard, many of the stages of rubber guard where their hand isn't on the mat, blah blah. And it puts you right in Spider Web, which has become my new favourite place to be - on an average night of rolling, probably 25% of my finishes come from Spider Web. Sometimes I can even catch them with a belly-down armbar on the way, which is less flashy but probably safer and just as satisfying.
I'll try and get some footage this week and put it up here for your critique.
Thanks for your reply, it's nice to get some informed opinions on the subject.
Haha! I love talking about rubber guard! Part of me wants to share it with everybody, and the other part wants to keep everybody else in the dark so that it keeps working for me.
