Arm Bar + Triangle
Today I had a fun no-gi class at HBJJ. I remembered to bring a small hand towel which I used to wipe up the rivulets of sweat pouring from my head. The towel was drenched through within ten minutes. Gross. Shawn taught us a high single-leg takedown as well as variations of the arm bar and triangle. It was rad.
High single leg take down
Shawn gave the following tip that I found useful: If your stance is closed, go for the double. If your stance is open (i.e. your lead foot is left and your opponent’s lead foot is right) then it’s better to go for a high single. I think this is because if you go for a single on the far leg you’ll get stuck in a guillotine.
- From a closed stance, step into your opponent with your trailing foot and step back with your leading foot to square your opponent up and position him into an open stance.
- Scoop up the leg and crook your hand in the dimple below opponent’s knee
- Squat down with the side of your face on opponent’s centerline looking straight past his torso and make certain there is no “daylight” between his hip and your torso
- Push the captured knee backward through your legs, sort of like snapping a football from a squat
- Be heavy on opponent’s hip so they have no stability and have to hop around
- Step forward with your trailing leg
- Step backward with your leading leg
- Squat down while maintaining heavy downward pressure on opponent’s hip, so that he flops down
Armbar
Shawn taught us a cool grip for controlling your opponent’s posture. Basically you reach under and grab the bicep of the far arm. Then with your other hand you do a cross-face and grab your opponent’s trap. Shawn gave us some cool biomechanical tips:
- Flex your foot on the side you have draped across your opponent’s shoulders. This engages the hamstrings and makes you heavier on your opponent.
- During the setup, point your toes the way you want your hips to face
- With the leg closest to your opponent’s head, push down forcefully with your heel
- You don’t need to hip-up dramatically. The important thing is to force-vector downwards.
Triangle
I used to try to get triangles while rolling but I stopped trying because I could never lock one in. My legs are flexible but they’re both short and wide. Whenever I tried to lock a triangle, I wasn’t able to get the cross leg parallel to the ground, and therefore, wasn’t able to get my ankle into the crook of the straight leg. Usually I ended up getting stacked and then passed. I had written this submission off as a low-percentage move for me but Shawn straightened me out. Basically, if you have trouble getting a triangle because your legs are really thick you can engage the following biomechanics:
- Grab your shin on the cross-leg as close to your opponent’s head as possible (but don’t grab your foot because you can break it)
- Scoot backwards
- Plant your free leg on your opponent’s hip and drive him back so he’s stretched out and pulled backwards into the triangle.
By employing Shawn’s teachings I was able to get a good tight triangle for the first time in six months of training and I couldn’t believe how easy it was.