Butterfly guard

Last week we covered butterfly guard so I am a little late but tonight we covered a sweep from the butterfly guard when your opponent stands up. It starts with a single hook and the opponent standing up, you keep your head tucked on the opponents in thigh and a grip the leg from the knee up with your outer arm. You lift with the leg that you have the hook in with and roll to the opposite side of the leg you are lifting, this sets up many sweeps. I got this technique down pretty well so I don't need to dwell on it much.

At the end of the class when we were doing our sparring rounds is when I noticed something that I didn't figure out until the drive home. One of my opponents was a high school wrestler so from the start he had the take down advantage. The easiest way for me to negate that was to pull guard, problem solved right? no, This guy is more flexible than me and has been doing this for longer than me but we are still fairly even with a little advantage to him since he arm barred me and I didn't submit him....but I could have...this is the part I didn't notice until the drive home. When I pulled guard from the start every time I was getting in deep on his collar and falling back with my weight, I would get to the ground and let this grip go....now that I look back this was so stupid, I could have set up a cross choke so easily if I had kept that grip and slipped the other hand in on the way down. The only other issue in my game right now is sticking to the basics, I like to try new things but I always leave and hole in my game when I do so.....I need to stick to basics like posture, or getting the under hook from half guard and THEN try those new things.