17 June 2019

17/06/2019 - Teaching | Closed Guard | Armbar (Step on the Hip, plus Cross & Clamp)

Teaching #880
Artemis BJJ (Easton Road), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 17/06/2019



For this fundamental attack from the guard, you first need to get control of their arm. There are numerous ways to do this, but in the interests of keeping things simple for drilling, a straightforward option is to grab their opposite tricep with your hand, then pull that across your body. You're then going to put your same side foot on their hip, clamping the knee of that leg behind their shoulder (essentially you're trying to take away their space, as well as blocking them from easily pulling their arm backwards).

If they're wearing a gi, grab their opposite collar with your free hand (keeping a firm hold of their arm with your other hand) and pull them down. If it's nogi, grab their head. Next, kick your free leg into their armpit, aiming to further break their posture and get your leg across their back. You're also going to use that to swivel your own body away from their trapped arm and get a better angle. From here, you can then push their head out of the way with your head/collar grip.



That should make it easier to bring your hip-pushing leg over their head. Slide the arm you're using to control their arm up towards their wrist. At this point, you can switch to grasping their wrist with your hand if necessary. Squeeze your knees together, lift your hips and pull down gradually on their wrist for the tap.

A common problem is that your partner will 'stack' you up onto your shoulders, making it difficult (though not impossible) to finish the technique. This is a common problem with the triangle too. To prevent that situation, push with your legs, as well as really knocking your partner's posture when you kick across with the armpit leg. You can also 'walk' back on your shoulders to recover a more extended position if they are squashing you. Finally, angling the leg you have by their head can help (like on Adam Adshead's old DVD), as that makes it tougher for them to push into you.

For a fun additional option, I also like to show the cross and clamp armbar when there are more advanced students in the class. From a double sleeve grip, you are aiming to cross their arms over. Sometimes you may be able to just pull them over, but you can also get them to help you by pulling their arms apart. The natural reaction is to resist by bringing the arms together, which is when you can switch directions to cross them over.

Fling your legs up high, right up over their shoulders. Lock that in place, squeezing hard. You need to have the pressure above their elbows in order to get the necessary leverage. When you have that squeezed in, you can simply pick an arm and pull on the wrist, in the direction their elbow is pointing. Be careful on this, as they won't be able to tap easily: listen out for them saying 'tap', or using something else like their foot.


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Teaching Notes: Make sure people don't cross their feet, emphasising that tends to relax the leg muscles making it easy to dislodge the legs. Highlight that you should be looking at your knees. Having the cross and clamp to throw in is useful, if there are more advanced people there, so I did that again today. Also because I wanted to get it on video. ;)

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