Armbar/Choke combo

In Fundamentals class today, we worked on more guard armbars and gi chokes. However, we also worked on a cool combo armbar/gi choke. To perform it, I have my opponent in my full guard. I trap their right wrist with my left hand. I then get a cross collar grip with my right, as if I am going for a gi choke. You use this to break their posture. They will probably tuck their chin to prevent the choke. Hip out towards their untrapped arm, using your left foot on their hip. Bring your right left up their back and dig your heels into it. If their chin is still tucket, bring the left leg over and lock in the arm bar. If they try to get tall and defend the armbar, grab their left shoulder with your left hand, hip out in the opposite direction (bring your left shoulder towards your left ankle) and lock in the choke. If their chin is tucked again, don't abandon it. Shake their head like a rag doll and you will get it locked everytime.

In this video, he does not do the choke, but he does do the armbar from the lapel grip

I did not roll today since I bruised my ribs in no-gi earlier in the week. I spent that free time working with a new guy on full guard posture and a guard pass. If feels good to no longer be the "new guy" in class.

First tournament is in the books

Well I lost my first match via an arm triangle with 30 seconds left. My hat goes off to my opponent who showed what 3 additional years of experience will do for you. I pulled guard and controlled him for about 1.5 minutes before he passed to half then eventually to side control then mount. I trapped and rolled and passed to half guard then got swept into an arm triangle.

The day before my tournament I tweaked my back on some spider throws (which had no affect on the outcome of the match) but I have taken a week off to recover. Today was my first class in exactly 1 week. We practiced bottom guard armbars.

Basically, arm drag your Publish Postopponents right arm across your body and place your left foot on their hips. Use your foot to rotate your body towards your opponent's free arm while climbing your right leg up your opponent's back. Now push your opponent's head out of the way while bringing your left leg over their head. DO NOT CROSS YOUR LEGS.  Grasp their hand with your right hand, make sure their thumb is pointed up, lift your hips, push your knees together and drive your heels into their body.

Armbars from the bottom

Today we worked on a cross collar choke from the bottom guard, cross collar armbar, and arm drag armbar.

Cross Collar Choke:
From bottom closed guard, get a deep collar grip with your opposite hand. Place your foot  on the same side as your free hand and push off and rotate towards the opponent. Next grip their opposite shoulder with your free hand. Now lock in the choke, pull them tight to your chest. Note: remember to breath when going for the submission.

Cross Collar Armbar:
Same as above, but when going for the shoulder, your opponent reaches for your arm to prevent you from setting up the choke. Their extended arm is trapped between your legs, as you swing the same side leg over their head and lock in the armbar.

Arm Drag Armbar:
From bottom guard, your opponent had grabbed your gi. With both hands, grab their wrist and use a hip thrust to force their grip free. Guide their arm across your body. Release your grip of your hand that is now across your body and reach over their shoulder and grasp their gi near their armpit. Glide your arm over their head and use your elbow to force the head away. This creates space for yo to swing your leg over their head and lock in the armbar.

We sparred for 30 minutes. I pulled off my first butterfly sweep and several key lock sweeps (that I am getting very good at -Gracie Combatives disk 1). I also played pretty good defense from my back. I need to work on balancing offense and defense. From my back I only focus on defending and on top, I continuously look for subs, leaving my posture vulnerable and I end up getting swept.

I am happy that I did not get gassed for the very first time, as I am breathing much better and learning where opportunities exist to buy time. Overall it was another positive class.

Great class today

In today's class, we continued to build on the arm drags from Saturday. We started with 3 varitions of an arm drag to leg take-down and 1 counter to the arm drag take-down attempt. The last technique we covered was a continuation to the closed guard arm drag sweep from last class. We worked on 3 finishing moves for that sweep.

For the first variation of the take-down, you attempt the arm drag of their rear arm, but your opponent pulls away. You then drop down and grasp their front leg and squeeze their knee between your legs as you drive your head into their chest and turn your opponent 45 degrees towards you. When the take-down is complete, you should land in side control.

Variation #2: Same as above but when you drop down, you grab both legs at the knees and turn 45 degrees. Should land in side control.

Variation #3: Same as variation #2 but when you grab both legs you squeeze them together, pin their arm against their body with your head, and they fall straight back mounted by you.

Counter: As your opponent goes for the arm drag and places their head in your chest, you quickly push off of their shoulders and move your body so that their head is outside your body. With your opposite hand, reach over their back and grab their belt and your free hand hooks their knee. Sit down and your momentum will cause you to roll your opponent and you land in mount.

For the closed guard arm drag sweep, we discussed 2 submissions that can be performed instead of sweeping. For the first one, once we have their arm locked  around their head, you make a weak attempt to trap their free arm. They react by pulling it back, giving you and opening to bring your leg over his shoulder for a triangle. Slide out your hips to gain leverage for a triangle.

See this technique here:

For the second submission, your opponent tries to pull back to avoid the triangle. As they do, they leave their trapped arm vunlerable for an arm bar. Simply grasp their wrist with both hands, bring your leg over his head so that both legs are sepearted by the trapped arm. Squeeze your legs together, and lift your hips for the sub.

While sparring today, I had my most productive experience yet. I did an excellent job of conserving energy and executed several trap and roll sweeps. I focused on keeping my hooks in and trying to control my opponent's posture.  While rolling with a new guy, I was able to assist him with his breathing and also demonstrated the trap and roll that I managed to execute against him at will.

I did run into issues when sparring with a purple. He appeared to seemlessly slide out of my guard (specifically the half guard) and then he would transition to a knee on the belly from side control. I couldnt seem to find a way to escape that knee and even tapped a couple of times because I could not breathe.

I am extremely excited by progress and hope to continue building on this experience. For now, I am going to focus on refining what I learned this week to make sure those techniques are engrained in my brain.

Flying Armbar and Windmill Sweep

Today's class was an interesting one. We started with the Flying Armbar and then the Windmill Sweep in the event that the opponent has strong posture and prevents the armbar. We warmed up with 20 backwards falls, in which only 50% were applied correctly (thus my aching back). We drilled the Flying Armbar and Windmill for another 40, of which I was dropped twice (again with the back). I dTowards the end of the drilling, my partner suggested that I throw my hips back as I jumped, which allowed me to wrap my hips on and angle instead of perpendicular to my opponent. That seems to work better.

The last 20 minutes of class were spent sparing. There was no mercy for me today as my first sparing opponent was a blue, then a pro MMA purple, and then a female blue. I realized  that despite all the websites indicating that BJJ is the great equalizer for the weak, strength does play a huge factor. Against the purple, he pulled guard immediately  and figured I would tap on a quick triangle. I kept my head down and he wasn't able to get the lock. I then overpowered his wrist and held it flat on the mat. I locked in the Americana purely by strength but my inexperience caused me to roll the wrong was and he was able to take my back. My stamina is slowly improving, but I am still struggling with patience and energy conservation. 2 of my 3 sparring partners had to remind me to breath.

Being so new, I need to focus on defensive drills and sweeps rather than locks and subs. Since I busted my unhealed knee open for the 3rd consecutive class, I will take the holidays off from BJJ training to allow myself to heal and study more defensive moves. I did effectively utilize some wrist control and leg hooks that I picked up on the internet, so I would have to say that my self study dilemma may have worked itself out (i.e. Is it worth studying techniques on the internet?).

Flying Armbar
While standing, grab your opponent either at the elbow (preferred) or wrist. With your other hand, grab your opponents collar or the back of the neck. Jump up and lock your ankles above your opponents waist. It helps to thrown your hips out. Now toss the leg that is on the same side as the arm grip over your opponents head. This motion should take your opponent to the ground where the armbar can be locked in. In the event that your opponent has strong posture, apply an inside hook around your opponents leg using your other arm (the one that is not being used for the armbar). Now pull the knee toward you and your opponent will fall to the ground inside your guard. If you lose the armbar, proceed to the windmill sweep below.

Windmill Sweep
This sweep works well after a failed flying armbar attempt because you already have the required hook in place and possibly still have control of the opposite arm.
To perform the Windmill Sweep from the bottom full guard, control one of your opponents arms either via armdrag, elbow lock, or wrist control. Basically you just want to make sure that arm cannot be used to stop the sweep.  Swing your hips out towards that arm, creating space between your opponents leg and your other arm. Now apply an inside leg hook with your free arm. Now propel your opposite leg (the one that is on the same side as the arm control, towards your opponents leg to gain leverage, then quickly back down to the ground. As you are on the downward motion, pull the locked leg towards you. Your opponent will roll on his back and your momentum should allow you to follow for the mount.

Cross grip armbar from the full guard

I just received a copy of Greg Jackson's ground game (awesome book by the way) and the very first lesson was a cross grip armbar from full guard. I have only been at this BJJ thing for a few weeks, but I can't count the number of times this would have come in handy. It seems I am always on my arse these days:)

How it's done:
If you are in the closed guard, open the guard and grab your opponents triceps with your opposite hand.
Next reach across with your free hand, and place on the opposite shoulder of your opponent.
Use your opponents shoulder as leverage to pull your hips out, perpendicular to your opponent.
Now swing your legs over so that both are on the same side as your shoulder grip.
Lay back and lock in the armbar.

Anywho, here is a demo of the technique:

Day 1

So for my first day of class, I was nervous as heck, but that all went away when I was put into my first Kimura from the closed guard. After about 10 min of warmups, and 2 wardrobe malfunctions (aparently the pants don't tie in the front), I was ready to get started.

We worked on Armbars from the mount, Kimura from the closed guard, and 3 kimura defense techniques. The last 20 min of class was dedicated to sparing, so I figured I would be sitting that out. Boy was I wrong. master Jim told me the best way to learn is to get my butt kicked, so I was tossed into the mix.

I started out using all my muscles on the top guard, trying to prevent a roll. Having little knowledge of leverage and weight distribution, I was gassed after 90 seconds.

I throughly enjoyed my first class and look forward to my next one on Thursday. I have decided to keep a training log and will also work on a freemind (thanks Tangled Triangle). Those links can be found on the right.

Armbar from the Mount
Kimura from closed guard