How I do the armbar from the guard [BJJ]

[Rene Ritchie]

I've been grappling for 10 years, though with frequent injuries so that training time is inconsistent. That's also forced me to figure out very specific ways to achieve a lot with a little. I've been teaching a lot lately, and figured I might as well share what I'm figuring out here as well. I'm not very good, but I put a lot of thought into what I do, and I've been learning and teaching MA in general for 20 years, so it's something I'm really interested in. Any recommendations for improvements hugely appreciated.

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Here's how I do the armbar from the closed guard in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Assumes I'm attacking my opponent's right arm.

1. Grab their right wrist with my left hand, squeezing your middle and ring finger just above the bones of their wrist
2. Reach across and cup their right tricep with your right arm, so they can't pull their arm back. Keep your elbow down for leverage.
3. Lift your hips and as they come back down, pull their left elbow to your right hip bone and lock their arm there. Also, curl your head up off the ground so they start carrying your body weight.
4. Let go of their right wrist with your left hand and reach up and hook their left trap/shoulder. Flare your elbow into their jaw. (That slows their ability to pull away or drive into you.)
5. Put your left foot on their right hip and squeeze your right knee into their right arm. (That slows their ability to drive into you and makes it harder to pull their arm out.)
6. Kick your right leg up under their left armpit and try to bring your right heel to the back of their head. (That slows their ability to stand up and turns you perpendicular.)
7. Let go of their left trap/shoulder, put the palm of your left hand on their left ear, and push their head away from you.
8. Scrape your left leg up over their face and onto their head, just above their ear. (That disconnects their body alignment at the neck and prevents them driving/stacking or standing.)
9. Make sure your body is properly aligned down the spine.
10. Pull down on their right arm and lift your hips to finish the armbar.

I like this method because it's a) super tight which means it takes very little time to finish, b) minimizes their ability to counter, c) has other techniques you can flow instantly into should they resist at any point. (I'll go over the counters-to-counters in the replies).

(In general I believe in incredibly simple, incredibly structure/mechanics based BJJ. Attributes should be a bonus, not a dependency )

 

[bamf-hacker]

Thanks Rene... My wife is not going to be happy with me later on

 

[Rene Ritchie]

Thanks Rene... My wife is not going to be happy with me later on

Haha! Unless she gets better at it than you!

 

[Rene Ritchie]

Lift your hips and as they come back down, pull their left elbow to your right hip bone and lock their arm there. Also, curl your head up off the ground so they start carrying your body weight.

So, if they flare their right elbow and drop weight on it to try and stop the angle for the armbar and prevent you hipping up to move their arm, instead:

1. Open your guard.
2. Put your left foot on the ground.
3. Step a bit to the left.
4. Hip out to the left and turn on your right side (hook with your right leg around their left hip).
5. As their elbow starts to drop (no longer has your body to rest on), pull it to your right hip.
6. Proceed to step 4, above.

 

[Rene Ritchie]

Let go of their right wrist with your left hand and reach up and hook their left trap/shoulder. Flare your elbow into their jaw. (That slows their ability to pull away or drive into you.)

If they try to drive into you anyway:

1. Keep flaring your left forearm into the left side of their jaw so their head goes next to you, not over you.
2. With your right arm, hook under their left leg (or just grab their pants if they're wearing Gi) and left their leg/hip into the air.
3. With your left hand, pull down on their shoulder. (You basically want them in a shoulder roll position.)
4. Scissor your right leg up under their left armpit and your left leg into their right leg.
5. Reverse them with a flower sweep.

Because they're driving into you, they're creating momentum, you're just redirecting it so their weight isn't over your center of gravity. Then pulling their head down and lifting their hip up, like a judo throw, makes it relatively easy to invert them.

Once they're inverted, keep your chest close on their tricep, roll them way from you, and you're setup for the tight armbar from the mount...

 

[Rene Ritchie]

If you don't think you can get the leg over their head immediately, or if they bend their elbow to try and make the armbar harder, you can go to the high-guard/pitstop first.

1. Take your left leg off their right hip and scrape it up across their right arm until it's on top of their right shoulder.
2. Hook it over your right leg and pull down with both heels (don't hook your right leg over left because you'll be wasting a lot of pull)
3. Squeeze your knees together.

From there there's a bunch of things you can do to either resume the armbar attack, or switch to something else.

 

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Can you please post an instagram video or vine of this? Thanks!

 

[bamf-hacker]

Can you please post an instagram video or vine of this? Thanks!

Yeah that

 

[Rene Ritchie]

Can you please post an instagram video or vine of this? Thanks!

Haha, not sure I could show all of it in 6-15 seconds, but I'll figure something out!

 

[Rene Ritchie]

YouTube video added!

 

[assadbhai]

Nice to see you are a brown belt Rene! Where do you train?

I'm a blue belt here in the UK.