Musings from the BJJ Gi #17, lesson 18; standing armlock & headlock escapes from side mount

So the indicator for the standing armlock is your opponent extending their arm to grab your shirt or push your chest area, you grab their pushing wrist with both of your hands, (the same type of grip you use when holding a burger up to take a bite), you take a 'pull step' back and pull their arm towards you, and then rotate your outer elbow over the top of their pushing arm as you turn 180 degrees and take a 'cutoff step', so that your back is now facing your opponent's direction, but you have their arm trapped between your armpit and hips. You crouch down so that your elbows meet your knees, and curl your torso slightly in order to apply the armlock to their elbow. This one is quite hard to paint a picture of using words, so I've included and image of Rener and Ryron demonstrating this armlock, Ryron is holding Rener in the finishing point of this move:

We practiced this one stationary first, and then practiced a moving version of it, where our opponent is walking forward and pushing us in the chest so that we're walking backwards. We were taking two steps back, and then on the third step we applied the armlock. I got the hang of the stepping and set up rhythm pretty well, but my application of that submission needs some work, as I never seemed to get it the same way twice.

This was the second set of headlock escapes from the side mount we have gone over, the first set was for if the opponent is too close and tight to get a frame in, and this set is for if there is enough room to get a frame in, a frame being kind of like a picture frame shape you make with your arms to use as a solid bracket to lever some space with. It has 3 variations; standard, scissor failure, and super lock.

The standard variation involves getting a frame in against their neck, and then sort of pushing them south while simultaneously scooting your hips and legs away from them. When they are low enough and your legs are far enough out, you bring your outer leg up and wrap it around their neck and push them towards the ground. They don't actually hit the ground though, they land on your other leg, and you then lock your feet together, hold their hip in place with your arms, and scissor your legs to create a choke submission. I'll attach an image here to show the end scissor position I mean:

The scissor failure variation, as the name suggests, is for if they successfully defend your scissor choke. This one basically involved you tucking their nearest arm under your armpit, and then sitting up and getting some top pressure onto them, beforetaking your top leg off their neck, moving it to the side, then lifting some of your body weight up by posting on that leg and your hands in order to quickly swing the bottom leg out so that you can pretty promptly get into side mount.

The super lock variation is very similar to the scissor failure, except that your opponent also keeps a hold of the headlock, and pulls you up with them when you scissor them down. You follow the same procedure as the scissor failure, but continue moving from side mount to modified mount, as they still have you in a headlock, and you can either begin striking them from modified mount in order to release it, and/or frame their neck and apply body weight/pressure to force them to release the headlock and set up and armbar,...but that's a different lesson!

Cheers,

• David