Mizblog

I came in 15 minutes early to find workers in reflective outfits climbing ladders to work in the overhead of the building space. They were removing the sprinkler drops. The next thing I saw was that Tom and Greg were the only other two guys there for class. To remind you, these are the two who destroyed me for 1.5 hours on Saturday. Great.

We started early and got straight into the step over arm bar from side control. No warm up, no instruction, just go. I let Phil go first because I’d never done these before. So the key here is you get the guy’s arm isolated over your shoulder. You cup the elbow and pull it up, planting your own elbow on his midsection and turning him on his side (he’ll want to relieve the pressure) so you keep the pressure on him by extending both your feet (you don’t need your knee to control his hip on the near side if you’ve got his arm trapped and your weight’s on his midsection). Step your foot way above his head, turn toward a sort of north-south position with the arm trapped, then step that foot under his butt, at the same time grabbing his pants at the knee, at the same time hooking your other foot over his neck, at the same time as you lean your under-butt foot over to squeeze his trapped arm. Lots of stuff has to come together there at the end.

The Americana was next. This time he’s got a cross face, but you again cup that elbow and put your own elbow on his midsection to pressure him. Extend your feet away and roll side to side on his chest. As you lean toward his waist, lift your head a little and bring your other hand across wrist-to-wrist, pushing his forearm across while you’re cupping his elbow. This gives you the Americana grip. You don’t even have to hold onto his wrist if you’ve got that wrist blade on him. Roll your chest toward his head as you push his arm flat to the mat, then finish normal if he hasn’t tapped already.

The straight arm bar is something you get when they’re wrapping their arm around you. Again, you grip the elbow, but this time you roll your hips to face toward their head, and it’s like you’re sliding for kesa gatame, but instead you step your foot over their head and pull it away from their isolated arm. Monkey grip your hands behind their elbow and crunch their joint backward for the tap. If that’s not quite there, you can set the Americana trap. Put your arms in a figure 4 with your cross arm palm open near your face, ready to catch their wrist as they try to save their arm from the straight arm bar by moving it around your head to frame again. It just slips right into the Americana, which you finish as before from side control (i.e., step back from the head overstep back to side control.)

Next we learned how to set up the arm triangle. With them framing, you have an underhook, which you can use to separate their arm and creep it up toward their head. With this pressure and distraction, you can press your knee across to mount. Keep heavy pressure on the mount – knees wide and hips low. Use your cross face grip to grab their upper arm, so that you can use your underhooking arm to tuck it into the sweet spot next to your head. From this position, you can finish by squeezing your arm and pushing their arm with your head, maintaining forward and downward pressure from mount. If you can’t finish from here, you can dismount to the side of their trapped arm and do the same thing but getting your body low as you squeeze. Works pretty good.

We did some very short rolls, armed with these techniques, starting from side control. I went with Andrew a bunch of times. I started on top, and tried to get a paper cutter choke, but he survived and got to guard, where I transitioned to a triangle, then to a kimura, but he escaped. It felt good to know things to try as the position evolved. More of that, please!

I rolled with Christian, and he taught me to address the cross collar grab immediately. Don’t leave it hanging there because it’s just waiting to choke you. I told him Saranya’s wrist is better but now she is suffering from a lice infestation.

Next roll was with Greggo. I set up an arm bar, he escaped, and tapped me out. He liked my pressure.

I had a slow roll with Chris, because his back was hurting. Mostly just reviewing techniques.

Last few minutes I rolled again with Andrew. He almost got me in a triangle, and I barely got out because he was tired. He said if I’d stacked him more, he would have had to let go earlier.