Obviously the takedown was nice. When you're in top side control and he has that guillotine on the other side, that shouldn't have worked for him. There is no way for him to choke you from there and you know the only thing he can do is hulk out and try to roll you. You should have been ready to base there and like everyone said your hips are too high. That contributes to you getting rolled over. It looked like you were pushing on his shoulder or upper arm when he had your head encircled. Instead of that put your forearm closest to his head on his neck to choke him and pull back a bit with your body. It will break the grip. When you do that try to keep his arm on the same side of your head with his upper arm trapped against the side of his head. Set up a far side arm triangle.
After you got rolled you did a good job of getting half guard. He never got a chance to work from side control.
At 1:32 he is extremely off balance. Instead of pushing on his waist, hook his leg with your arm, pinch down on his underhook on the other side, bridge and roll him. You would have swept him effortlessly. The way you did it worked but it was a struggle.
After you swept him your momentum is carrying you towards getting rolled again and you did. He rolled you the same way he did it before. Once again you did well to recover half guard.
At 1:54 you are in a bad half guard position. He is in a good position to pass. Instead of wrapping your arm around his head like you did which doesn't do anything useful and puts you at risk of being put in a horrible position (if he moved his head so it was on the other side of your arm, he is in a perfect position to pass to mount or far side arm triangle you), put it against his neck and bridge into him.
He then gives you back the underhook when he tries to push down on your leg. That pass really wasn't good. Instead of doing that one armed guillotine thing he should be crossfacing the shit out of you and driving his head to the mat. Anyway I digress. Once you get the underhook back you use it to go to your knees but I think you should have just played half guard. He was off balance the whole time he was in your half guard and at no point was he close to a pass. No need to give him a front head lock position there unless you're some super wrestler and you're going to plant him on his back like nothing.
With the choke I don't really know what that was, but you were slow in addressing it. Always protect your neck first, worry about preventing him from taking your back second, work on getting a better position by taking him down or pulling guard third. You put the takedown first and didn't protect your neck.
Overall it was pretty good. You were successful in reclaiming half guard from side control on several occasions. You have a knowledge of what to do in positions. I'm referring to how you always look for the underhook in half guard. Setting all of this stuff aside if you were more conscious of not getting rolled you probably would have won easily.
Wow dude, thank you so much for your comments. I haven't even absorbed all of it yet, and I've read it three times.
You echoed what my instructor said to me, and I've been trying to work on that stuff. I like your hierarchical breakdown of 1. neck 2. back 3. better position. You mean that from standing, as well as sitting, right?
Yeah, when I watched the takedown again, I realized that the thing I messed up on was my head placement for the single leg. I learned and perfected that from watching Marcelo's videos, and obviously when he takes the single leg off a missed arm-drag-leg-trip, he does it flawlessly.
You mention my half-guard game, and grabbing for underhooks, but that I should've stayed and played half-guard-- man I totally agree, I just hate my half-guard game, both bottom and top. Since the tourney (though I was injured for a bit after it) I've been working on my half-guard, a few passes, and then the whole theory behind the bottom game. At this point though, I'd rather have someone in my closed guard, and I'd even rather BE in closed guard, because I'm pretty confident in my breaking and passing from there. Rather be in open or butterfly, too, than half-guard.
I'm gonna watch the match again tonight and review it with your notes. I greatly appreciate them man!
edit: Yeah, and as for him guillotine-ing/chin-cupping me from side control, most people that aren't new just let a guillotine go after you pass their guard (as you can't choke from side control) so I honestly didn't know more than one way to defend it, besides waiting it out. At one point, if you watch closely, I do put my forearm across his throat and try and yank my head out, but he just kept holding on. I tried to go to North-South as well (I love North South) but he just held on SO tight. My teammates showed me how you can just wrap your arms around in the regular side-control positon, and cross-face choke with your shoulder though, in case anyone ever does this again.
