August 19th, 2008 by jgatienza
Armbar from the mount: you are on top of your opponent and he is defending with both his arms close to his body. Simply loosen your grip with your knees and scootch back a little and use your shoulders to get under his right elbow and drive it upward, take your left arm and wrap it around his right arm and use your left hand as base. Place your left knee directly behind his head, lean towards his hip, slide your left and to his wrist, windshield wipe your right foot below his left shoulder and swing your left leg over his head, squeeze your knees together.
Defending the armbar from mount: when your opponent is setting up the armbar and his weight is on your body, you can simply roll him over onto his back.
Opponent defends the armbar and you counter by taking his back: your opponent tries to roll you on your back, you simply take his back, get your hooks in, grab his collar for a choke or set it up for a rear naked choke.
Defending when someone has your back: your opponent may be controlling your left arm, simply straighten your arm in a downward motion and that will break the hold. If your opponent has an arm wrapped around your neck, take both your hands and grab his wrist, pull it over to the left side of your head, apply pressure with your head against his triceps, this will be uncomfortable on his elbows. Using your legs push up and put your left shoulder to the mat, your weight should be over his left leg, simply raise both your legs over it and get into side control.
Rolling review: I went up against a taller opponent, I was able to get past his legs and into side control, I kept him in side control most of the time, several times he almost had me in half guard, but I would switch my hips to block his legs or use my arms to control his legs. By the time the bell rang I was in the north south position, trying to set up a kimura or an armbar.
One more quick roll before work. I rolled with an opponent that was more my size. We started off trying to get a good grip. I grabbed his collar and pressed my wrist into his throat, but before that we were trying to control each other by using our heads. I didn’t feel like he was going to make a move so I pressed him and managed to get him off balance. He got into a turtle, I reached deep for his collar and went for a collar choke, it didn’t work, he managed to squirm out of it and reverse it. This time he was on top of me going for a collar choke I remained calm and breathed, I bumped him off and fell into his guard. He had a good closed guard, I had to rest a little, he kept attacking and breaking down my posture, I loosened my collar at one point so that his choke wouldn’t be so tight. I managed to get my left hand around his leg, I was trying to bait him to go for a triangle, it didn’t work, but since I had my left arm free, I was able to swing his leg over to my right shoulder and go for a squeeling pig, close but no cigar, he squirmed out of it and I believe I was back in side control. Timer went off and about frickin’ time.
My opponent told me that I should think more about positioning first rather than submission. Which makes sense, if I can get into a good position, I would be in a better position to attack.
armbar, choke, collar choke, guard, mount, north south position, side control, turtle