Arm Drags

As with many techniques and concepts in Jiu Jitsu for me arm drags have followed the same progression. That is to say, we are shown a technique, we try to make it work (with more or less success), then it “clicks” and the mechanics of the technique start to become evident. After that you usually start to get a few notches on your belt and develop an ownership for the technique.

For me this has happened with arm drags quite recently, which is allowing all the good things that come with arm drags including; taking the back, triangles and sweeps. I found that the key seems to be not so much in the “dragging” the arm, but in “hanging” from the arm. As I reach an arm accross to the inside of of my opponents opposite bicep and start to pull the arm accross, I lift my back and hips slightly off the ground so that my weight is directly hanging off my opponents arm. This makes it very difficult for my opponent to escape and makes the speed of the arm drag a lot quicker. As soon as I drag the arm, I consolidate by getting about halfway to the back, grabbing my opponents far lat to “close the door” on my opponents arm and putting my outside leg over their back to start climbing on their back. From their I have been trying for three options (Plan A, B and C if you like).

1. Taking the Back - Once the arm drag is complete you are already half way to the back. To consolidate the position I like to reach over the back and get a paddle grip on the far arm as I slide my far leg further over the back to get a hook. While I do this I climb more squarely onto the back using the paddle grip for an anchor. Once on the back I use my near arm to either attack the neck or setup a harness.

2. Triangle - This is a far more successful option for me as most people tend to defent the back very hard. Essentially as I am completing the arm drag I take my inside knee quite high towards the opponents chest. Once in place I maintain my grip on my opponents far lat to keep my attachement to them and then use my other hand to block their far arm. To clear the arm and get to “triangle guard” (one arm in one arm out) there are two basic options. The first is to block the arms movement and bring my knee and foot inside their arm and around the neck. The Second is when the person triest to use the arm to pin my leg and attempt a pass. In this case I push the arm between my legs while I swing my leg around and over the neck. In either case once I have cleared the arm, I have Triangle Guard and can complete the triangles as I normally would.

3 Hooks Sweep - There are 2 basic ways to get the hooks sweep from the arm drag, one towards that arm that is dragged and the other is away. I most commonly go for the away from the arm drag option, as I find it easier as the opponent is already unbalanced and there abaility to post is killed by the arm drag, I basically use my inside arm as an underhook and sitout to the underhook side and lean back for the sweep. The other option is the to go towards the arm drag. In this scenario, you reach the inside arm out over both your opponents arms to kill the post. You are already sitting out to the side so you lean down and do the sweep.

There arm many more things that can be done from the arm drag, but that is the 3 things that are working for me the most at the moment.

Have fun stay safe on the mat!

Can Openers

When I say “Can Openers” a lot of people get the image of neck cranks from inside guard a la Tito Ortiz, but that isn’t what I am looking at here. These can openers are means seperating a persons arms from their body when they are defending really well in the bottom position. I have been working with three different types of can openers recently;

1. The “Homer Simpson” - I picked this name as it resembles Homer’s celebratory habit of lying on his side and “running” in a circle. Essentially this technique is from side control and is used to clear the far arm from the body to insert an underhook and go for submissions. To do it you grab your opponents far trap (as you would with an underhook) and make sure that your bicep is between his elbow and body. Then making sure that your chest is low enough to be below the level of your opponents forearm do the tight Homer Simpson walk around the head of your opponent until the arm is clear. Once it is free you have many options, such as a progression of submissions like: Figure 4, Straight entangled Arm Bar, Far Arm Bar.

2. The Wrist Drive - This technique is much like the previous one and achieves a similar result, the only difference is that instead of driving in a circular motion around the body, the pressure goes in a straight line driven by both feet. Start by gripping the arm in the same way as the previous technique, but slide your chest up to the wrist. Once there drive accross the body with both legs, this should apply maximum leverage on the elbow and force the arm away. Once arm is seperated follow the same submissions as the previous example.

3. The Smear - Unlike the previous two can openers, the smear is done from front control and is used to clear an arm to setup a forearm choke or front headlock. In essence I use the inside of rib cage as a hook to drag the opponents arm away from the body. Start in front control and move slightly further down opponents body so you can get your rib cage over the opponents elbow. Then keeping tight to their body move laterally back and forth smearing their arms away from their body. As soon as the arm clears the body drop your elbow into the arm pit to keep it seperated. From there you can start to attack with Front Headlocks or setup a forearm choke, it is also a good scenario for setting up a cross face with the arm trapped.

Heaps of Fun have a crack!

X Guard

I am still really only scratching the surface of this great game, but I am liking what I am finding. X- Guard has become my answer for people who manage to flatten me out in Half Guard, even if I have the appropriate underhook sometimes people still cross face so well that I am flat out on my back, especially with stronger opponents. My approach is to under hook my opponents free leg and start to shuffle my self further under them, this originally came as a result of avoiding the discomfort of the cross face, but pretty soon turned into “Back Door Escape”. When I am dealing with someone to strong for the back door option or who is to low to make it work, I trap the opponents far heel to the ground with my inside leg and then insert my outside hook. Then using the hook and my arm I can create enough space to insert the rear hook. It is really important when you are transitioning to full X-Guard that you use your free arm to block your opponents knee so they step over your hook to mount.

Now, the sweeps, there are 2 I have been doing regularly and one I have been trying (poorly)...

1. Ankle Grab - This sweep involves grabbing the outside of the opponents far ankle with your free hand. Then by pulling in on the ankle as you extend your hooks you can cause your opponents to fall back, you need to go to your knees and under hooks both legs straight away to get your pass and avoid the triangle though.

2. Hi/Low Hooks - To do this sweep slide your front hook down to the opponents ankle and your rear hook up as high as possible. The by extending both legs you cause the opponents far leg to be swept out from underneath them, they should fall backwards. As above underhook both legs to pass.

3. Near Arm control - This is a sweep or more accurately a series of sweeps that I am playing with from watching Marcelo Garcia, it involves controlling the opponents near arm and passing it to your underhooking arm to grip the sleeve or wrist. The idea, as near as I can tell, is to take more control of your opponent to do basically all the other X- Guard sweeps, or to free your hand up to pull down on the opponents lapel to give you rolling sweeps. To date I have had only marginal success with this, however I supect the weakest link is me not the technique at this stage!

Triangles

As I have mentioned in previous blogs I was a self confessed “Triangle Spastic” until about 6 months ago, in that most of my game was going OK and developing well, but I couldn’t get a triangle for love or money. Now that I have scaled the invisible barrier though I am actually finding that I’ll get 1 or 2 taps with triangles every time that I roll. So what has changed? Basically I have gotten better at them... But it is more that that it is also my approach, this has 2 steps,

1. Clear one arm to get what I call triangle guard and
2. Cinch up the choke and finish.

The big improvement is not only getting good at those 2 parts individually but also seemlessly linking the 2 of them and performing them with control at all times. A bit of a dogged tenacity in the application doesn’t hurt either as opponents tend to get a bit of the “a tiger is at most dangerous when cornered” thing going on and really explode to get away as you are trying to finish it.

In terms of the details of those 2 steps though the things that I am looking for as follows:

1. Clearing the arm. Ther are heaps of ways to achieve this, but other than specific gameplans to achieve this (eg rubber guard etc) the things I have the most success really revolve around cutting angles away from the arm I am trying to clear. Basically by this I mean doing something like faking an Omoplata attempt or getting an Underhook and sitting my hips out to that side. I have been getting arm drags and faking going for the back then clearing the far arm as well. In each case this gives me more freedom to control the opponents far arm and either force my leg past it or push it between my hips. As soon as I clear the arm I immediately cross my legs and control the opponents posture. Which brings me to Point 2.

2. Finishing the Triangle. When I was developing whatever ability I have at the Triangle Choke I knew I had to divide them into these points, and while I knew the variations for point 1 were endless, I really didn’t want to too much variation on point 2. So the keys are making sure that I turn my body to make the angle for my calf to cut accross the neck (rather than relying on my non-existent flexibility). This involved doing various things to keep the person from posturing, usually underhooking the free arm and “hanging” my weight as well placing my palm over my ankle to lock my leg down on the neck. From here it is jsut a question of triangling my legs and squeezing my knees. The only points tidy up the choke for me are: pointing both sets of toes to the ceiling, doing a slight crunch and often getting a gable grip on the free arm and squeezing down to prevent turning out of the choke.

For me that is basically Triangle, without going into a detailed description of every setup I know that is!

My coach, Adam Newton, awarded me my first purple stripe today... woo hoo!

My 3 current themes

Been a while between updates, family strain is the main cause of this, but that is “part of the fun” as my Dad used to say so I can’t complain. In my personal game the biggest things that have been happening a lot recently are; Triangles, X-Guard and Can-Openers. I’ll write a bit about each of them and their impact on my game in the near future, but for know a general overview of what I have been doing with them.

Triangles - really all I am doing is just trying to get triangles, but I have been experimenting with different setups and different ways to finish, particularly in light of some comps starting to outlaw pulling down on the head.

X-Guard - I have been playing with 2 or 3 sweeps from half guard, but the main thing I have been doing is transitioning from a tight crushing half guard to X-Guard as an option to keep my opponent off balance.

Can-Openers - This is is a topic that I covered with John Will on my recent training visit, there were about 3 different ways that we covered for clearing the arms away from the body when opponent is defending tightly under side control.

In other news, between recent National and State tournments, quite a few members of our club have either placed or done really well. In particular there have been a few golds and some silver and bronzes as well. In a recent statewide submission grappling tournament quite a few from our club placed including a fantastic win for Heavy weight Second Place with a cutting arm bar from guard, a really great effort.

Any check back soon for updates on Triangles, X-Guard and Can-Openers.