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!