Open guard/guard pass study- Here in this match with vinny (which i lost), is one of the few times in competition that i ever failed a shoulder crunch. Lets take a look. First, notice the beautiful double kouchi to immediate elevation combo. As the initial kouchi fails, i make a shot at his legs, he sprawls the legs back to avoid that, but by doing so makes it impossible for him to back away entirely, making it easy for me to scoot underneath him. Once underneath him, notice me testing the waters to see whether i can enter straight ashi, cross ashi, or ultimately, pinch head lock. Once the pinch head lock comes into play a quick transition to a shoulder crunch had me confident i would put him over. In this match, i was very confident that if i got on top, i would dominate. I saw cyborg shut down vinny pretty handidly at adcc trials (less than a year before) and passing was something i was working on a lot and figured would put me in a spot to easily finish him. Because of this, i got over zealous with the shoulder crunch and stayed too long. I was initially unable to elongate his body with my hooks (specifically my right hook, giving me diagnol control ranging from his right hip to his left shoulder). because i wasnt able to to elongate his body, he was able to get his head directly over mine. For those of you who have watched my open guard instructional, or youtube vids on open guard, you know that the one thing you cannot allow is your opponents head to drift above yours. The second this happened i should have accepted that it had failed and entered the legs. Again, i was over zealous and now you understand why. Because my left elbow was high (as it should be in a shoulder crunch) vinny was able to quickly and beautifully hip switch over my 2 poorly positioned hooks and land perfectly between my elbow and knee. I knew at that point it wasnt worth the energy to retain guard (as it didnt make a difference in the rules), so i waited until he settled, quickly recovered, and went on to get stalled out for the next 13 minutes, losing the match haha. hopefully this little breakdown helped everyone and gave the haters a smile.