Q: How do I escape the armbar when my opponent is crossing his ankes?

A: Crossing the ankles during the armbar is controversial, but is an effective way to shut down many of your opponent’s escapes. For example, the simple escape shown here doesn’t work if your opponent has his ankles crossed.

To escape an armbar where your opponent has crossed his ankles one good option is to fight (very hard) to get onto your knees and drop your weight down over him while protecting your arm by applying placing your arms into a rear naked choke position. Once you are above him then you can stabilize the position, crush him a little bit, and start to extricate your arm an inch at a time.

If he is crossing his ankles and also controlling your leg then you need to use your free leg to kick his arm off of your leg before getting your knees underneath you

It is a tough position to escape though…

The two-on-one armbar control has won a LOT of matches in BJJ, MMA, submission grappling, judo, sambo, etc. It is a tried and true approach, but unfortunately that also means that there are a LOT of counters to this type of armbar.

Prior to a few years ago, I’d seen some one-handed armbar variations where the top arm controlled the arm and the bottom hand controlled the near leg. I thought that these were simply interesting variations, and not really bread-and-butter material.

Then my my longtime training partner, Vlado Skrepnik, started attacking me with the one-handed armbar. I remember feeling really frustrated, because his control of my leg effectively killed most of my escape techniques. Most armbar counters rely on turning into your opponent, or turning away from your opponent and/or getting to your knees – all of which are nullified by his control of your leg. For example, completing this simple armbar escape, becomes virtually impossible until you free your leg from his grip, because you just can’t get your legs underneath you in base while he is holding your near knee.

About a year after after Vlado started using this style of armbar I came across a book by Eddie Bravo, and discovered that Eddie calls this position the “spider web” and uses it as the foundation of his armbar attacks. Maybe these guys were onto something, I thought, and decided to find out for myself.

Since that point I have experimented with this style of armbar, and generally I’ve been pretty happy with it. It really does make it much more difficult for your opponent to escape the armbar position. Furthermore if you don’t give up much control or power over his arm IF you use correct technique.

Below I’ll take you through a two variations of the initial position, and then show you a simple way to break your opponent’s grip when he locks his hands together to counter your armbar.

One-armed armbar, shallow grip

I am sitting up and leaning slightly towards his legs. Note how my bottom hand controls his leg by gripping behind the knee (with the gi you can grip cloth). My top arm is inserted DEEP on his arm (inner elbow to inner elbow) – in this case I am cupping my own thigh to keep things tight. I prefer crossing my feet in this armbar position, and having my bottom foot over my top foot feels the most natural to me.

One-armed armbar, deep grip

This variation is pretty similar except that I am lying down on my left side and my left arm is hooked much more deeply around his leg.

One-armed armbar counter and recounter

Here I am in the one-armed armbar position, but my opponent is blocking my armbar by clasping his hands together and preparing his escape. I have many options to counter his counter (what I call ‘re-counters’), but here is a simple, high-percentage option:

Maintaining my grips in exactly the same position I place the foot of my bottom leg on his far bicep. I push with my leg and pull with my lower back creating a tremendous pressure on his grip. If he needs more convincing to let go I ‘jackhammer’ my leg in a series of short, sharp stomps.

My opponent has released his grip, and I keep my foot on his bicep while falling back. The crook of my elbow starts sliding up his forearm towards his wrist, increasing the length of my lever and the amount of force I can generate on his arm.

I’ve now fallen all the way back, still maintaining my grip on his leg. Note how the crook of my arm is now at his wrist, which is much more secure than grabbing his wrist with my hand. He taps out!

I recently came across a very detailed breakdown of a little known technique called the ‘reverse omoplata’. As soon as I saw it I knew that I wanted it available on Grapplearts, so I went and sought permission from the author (Matt Kirtley) and now I can happily pass these techniques on to you:

• Step-by-step reverse omoplata
• Side ride arm trapping details
• Standing guard pass to reverse omoplata
• Double underhook guard pass to reverse omoplata
• Quicky under pass to reverse omoplata
• Comedy reverse omoplata from rear mount

Three other techniques by Eduardo and Matt include:

• A confusion of crucifixes
• Rolling crucifix
• Cattle catch neck crank

I know that some people looking at these techniques are going to think that this material is too advanced and too complicated for them to pull off, and they may be right. HOWEVER, even if you are never going to use the reverse omo plata yourself, there are still at least two good reasons to have a look at these techniques.

The first reason to think about these techniques is that someone might try to use the crucifix or the reverse omo plata on you, and the first step of an intelligent defense is awareness that a technique even exists.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, Matt’s approach to the reverse omo plata illustrates a very important point. Although some of the techniques might seem like minor variations of one another they show how you can use the same technique, getting to the same final position, when faced with a variety of different starting positions. When you are trying to master any technique it is critical to have multiple ways to arrive at that technique and to deal with different types of resistence.

The principle of finding different routes to the same technique is true whether you are trying to master the reverse omo plata, a pin escape, a choke, a kneebar, a sweep, or any other technique in the grappling arsenal. So pick a technique you want to get good at, and then try to figure out how you can apply that technique from many different starting points. For example, if you are trying to master a certain lapel choke try to figure out if that choke will work from sidemount, rearmount, scarf hold, north-south position, etc. This is a very useful exercise at many levels, and will put you on the road to mastering that technique.

There is a slightly wacky Kimura (chickenwing) defense that has saved my butt several times recently. I haven’t seen it described anywhere else, so I thought I’d share it with you this week. If you don’t know what this attack is you can see some examples in this Kimura article.

Suppose that your opponent has you in side control; he is on your right side and is attacking your left arm with a Kimura. He has the grip and has broken your other defenses – all he needs to do now to apply the lock is to slightly move your arm into a new position and you will be tapping. One last thing you can do to defend your arm is to bridge your hips up a little bit and bring your other arm (your right arm) behind your own back and clasp your hands together. Now you have the power of two arms fighting his two arms, and maybe, just maybe, you won’t get tapped out.

From this position several things can happen. Sometimes he struggles for a while, gets bored and tries something else. Sometimes you survive in this same stalemated position until the end of the match. Sometimes he figures out how to apply the Kimura anyhow and you tap; I never said it was a high-percentage defense, just something you can use when everything else has failed!

I have successfully used this defense from the bottom of side control, as well as both the bottom and the top of half guard. It would probably work in other positions as well. If it works for you, even once, then it was worth your while to read this tip.

OK, let’s talk about something really fundamental this week: armbars when you and your opponent have your backs on the floor (i.e. bellies to the sky).

Even if you are an advanced grappler it helps to review basic techniques. Not only does this ensure that you won’t make rookie mistakes on the mat, but it will definately help you when it comes to helping and teaching others.

What are some of the key points when you are performing a belly-up armbar? Here is what I think about:

1 – Are my hips close to his shoulder? I don’t want my hips to be so far away from his body that he can easily escape his elbow down to the floor.

2 – Are my legs pinching his arm(s)? This pinching reduces the strength and movement of his arm(s), further limiting his escape options.

3 – Is his thumb pointing up to the ceiling? This ensures that the alignment of his elbow is correct, meaning that I won’t be wasting energy bending his arm the wrong way.

If the answer to these 3 questions is ‘yes’ then you are ready to apply the armbar by keeping his hand on your chest and lifting your hips.

Of course there are many variations of the armbar, and some of these variations violate one or more of these rules. This doesn’t mean that these variations are incorrect, BUT before you go breaking the rules you need to know what the rules are!