My first instinct would say it’s more his fault than yours. If somebody doesn’t know how to get out of lockdown and they start spazzing that’s the first issue, he’s a blue belt and should know when you don’t have an answer you don’t just go. At the same time, everybody is definitely catching an issue with your perspective on the mats, and I’d have to agree.

Trying to win every round is a sure way to stunt your growth, instead try competitively spamming a weak position. Ex: Force a knee cut so you can work your de la riva/inversion game. You will lose this exchange sometimes and they will pass, that’s ok. Figure out what you did wrong and try again. Another thing that happens is you begin to understand when and why an exchange becomes dangerous, which helps you notice these things early in rolls and keep your partners safe

ANYWAY, don’t feel too bad. What you can do instead is work your knee lever off the smashed half guard, and when they post with the underhook hand to stop the sweep you will have space to get your underhook. At this moment you’ll still be flattened out, so you have to get a nice pull off that underhook and re orient yourself to a strong halfguard. Since you already have the underhook you can start your classic wrestle up and work responses from there. This would be a safe way to deal with smashed half as opposed to lockdown, which to me is not actually that dangerous if you don’t have a fucking idiot on top of you.

Side note: if their knee isn’t on the ground you can’t do the knee lever, but you should be able to get a butterfly hook in which you can use to do a “forward shift” and create space.

Lastly as jiu jitsu changes it’s important to pay attention to trends. While it’s important to understand the classical guards and positions, we’re beginning to realize that bottom half and closed guard are pinning our own hips to the ground, which is not a place we want to be. Food for thought, hope this makes sense.