Sometimes you just gotta have faith…

In the first few years of my BJJ career I was shown the armlock in the video above multiple times.  And I always thought it was hogwash; that any good opponent would simply twist out of it and I’d end up in a terrible position.

I was always polite about it, of course: when someone taught it to me I would practice it a few times.  The whole time, however, I’d be inwardly groaning about how this ‘stupid’ technique would never work on a quality opponent.

Of course I never used it in sparring, and consequently I  never tapped out anybody with it, not even the scrawniest beginner whitebelt.

Then one day I was competing in a local tournament…

I tried to throw my opponent with a throw called Tai Otoshi, and when that didn’t work I pulled guard.  I then swept my opponent using the omoplata log roll sweep, and got to the top. Once in side mount I noticed that his arm was in the exact position for this attack that I’d written off so many times.  Almost in slow motion I shifted my grips, moved my body, and applied the submission.  He tapped out right away, and I was kind of blown away.

But my trust in this submission didn’t last.

Before long I’d convinced myself that this was a one-time fluke.   A coincidence.

And so, once again, I never even attempted that armlock in sparring.

(Despite my success using it against a tough opponent, and despite my 5th degree black belt instructor telling me it was a good attack, deep down I still ‘knew’ that it wasn’t a legitimate attack).

So there I was, secure in my knowledge that this was an ineffective attack.

Let’s fast forward to the next tournament. In that tournament I ended up fighting a big, strong, aggressive guy.  When we got our grips on our feet I remember thinking, ‘holy crap, this dude is strong.’

Somehow I got him to the ground and secured side mount.

Once again I noticed that his arm was in exactly the correct position to attack with this same armlock.  Slowly, methodically (and with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu all over again) I applied it.  Once again, it worked and he tapped out!

I might be a slow learner, but I’m not completely stupid.  It’s pretty hard to write off two successful attacks in a row leading to two tournament victories against big, strong, motivated opponents. I had to admit that this technique worked.  And that I’d been a bit of bonehead for writing it off.

Obviously when you’re building your game you can’t concentrate on everything all at once.  There just isn’t enough time. And that means that you’ve got to ignore certain aspects of grappling while concentrating on other aspects of your game.

So after a certain point in your development you SHOULD focus on your best moves.  Train with a purpose and don’t dilute your game by trying to get good at absolutely every technique, every position and every strategy.

But at the same time keep an open mind…

Have you heard of the “70/20/10 rule” that has helped make Google a multi-billion dollar company?  Briefly, it goes like this:

• You dedicate about 70% of your time to your core business tasks
• You dedicate about 20% of your time to other projects that still relate to your core business
• You dedicate about 10% of your time to projects that don’t have anything to do with your core business.

I’m equating your bread and butter grappling game to Google’s core business tasks…

And I’m saying it’s worthwhile to spend about 10%  of your training time playing with different techniques and strategies that might seem really weird and wacky at first.  I’m officially giving you a ‘hall pass’ to occasionally creatively explore areas that have nothing to with your main game.

If one of the most successful companies in the world thinks that it’s OK for its employees to work on projects that usually lead to dead ends, then it’s OK for you to explore sweeps, submissions, escapes, reversals and other techniques that may seem exotic, impractical, or even foolish.

Being focused is a good thing. But keeping an open mind is good too!  Who knows, maybe that ‘stupid’ technique that would never work in a million bazillion years will save your butt someday…

Just like that stupid armlock that I ‘knew’ wouldn’t work saved my butt two tournaments in a row!

Click here for a video breakdown of this specific armlock, including the normal way it’s taught and a not-so-friendly, tournament-only version that puts incredible pressure on your opponent.

There were lots of exciting matchups, but THE fight of the night was the much-anticipated rematch between heavyweights Antônio Rodrigo Nogueira and Frank Mir.

This fight displayed the highest level grappling ever seen in the heavyweight division of the UFC!  As soon as the match ended I looked at my good friend and training partner Ritchie Yip and said ‘we’ve GOT to make a video breaking down this match for people.’

And that’s exactly what we did early Sunday morning.  Check out the video below for a blow-by-blow, and submission-by-submission analysis of Mir vs Nogueira at UFC 140, including the SHOCKING end of the fight.

A few years ago my friend Matt Kirtley sent me a breakdown of the rolling reverse omoplata.

This advanced technique looks pretty fancy but I can vouch for it because I’ve used it on some very saavy training partners.

But be warned: it’s a VERY powerful submission.  It comes on pretty quickly and I’ve seen several people hurt by it, so use it with caution.

If you can’t control your roll then please don’t use it.  Maybe just go through it once or twice in slow motion so that you learn to recognize it when it’s being set up on you.

I leave the decision about what to do with this technique up to you…

But regardless of whether you decide to make it part of your arsenal, here’s a step-by-step breakdown of the reverse omoplata technique.

(If you want more applications and variations of the reverse omo plata then make sure you check out the links at the bottom of that page, because they take you to some other really cool techniques).

Now here comes the cool part!

I was watching the 2011 Sambo World Championships Finals, and guess which technique popped up?

That’s right!  The reverse, rolling omo plata applied with exactly the same leg movements and slightly different grips actually decided the final match between these two highly skilled and very athletic grapplers:

You can see the relatively short match below:

It happens all the time.  In fact, I’m not immune either.  There have been lots of submissions where I initially thought, “oh man, this will never work for me!”

But take heart!  Usually there are just one or two critical details that need to be fixed before you experience that magical quantum leap in your ability to finish people with that submission!

For example, the North-South choke was a problem for me for the longest time.  At least 3 different people broke it down for me in painstaking detail, but it still wouldn’t work…

I’d get to the North-South choke position, I’d wrap the head with my arm, turn his face with my ribs, and shimmy backwards.  But no matter how much I shimmied or how hard I squeezed, I rarely finished the choke on skilled or tough opponents.

But eventually I figured out the detail which made all the difference in the world for me. In the end, that final key detail was all about positioning my arm correctly in relation to his neck.

What I had to do was get the center of my armpit directly above his Adam’s apple before shimmying and squeezing.  With this ‘secret sauce’ my North South choke finally became a serious threat.

Now there are a only a limited number of things you can think about when you’re trying to tap somebody out in the heat of the battle.

So try to focus only on a few key details, rather than trying to make sure everything is absolutely perfect.

But keep these one, two or three critical things in the forefront of your mind when you’re using the submission: they are the cruxes of the move!

In the North South choke, as I maneuver into the final position I’m literally reminding myself, “armpit over the Adam’s apple, armpit over the Adam’s apple…’

Most submissions have at least one crux detail you need to work on before you can start tapping people out.

Now your crux details may not be my details: maybe you’re already doing everything correctly that I was doing wrong, or maybe you’re making entirely different mistakes…

Nevertheless, examples are always useful, so here are some crux details that have really helped my BJJ career:

• North South Choke: center your armpit directly over the Adam’s apple, the middle of your opponent’s throat (click here for a video of Marcelo Garcia teaching me the North South Choke),

• Clock Choke: slide the side of your ribscage onto the back of your opponent’s neck,

• Rear Naked Choke: line up the elbow of your choking arm directly with the tip of your opponent’s  chin (here’s a video on finishing the RNC and here’s some ideas if your opponent is keeping his chin down)

• Armbar: glue his little finger to your chest chest, so his thumb points away from you (also see this blog post about the three armbar fundamentals),

• Straight Ankle Lock: put your forearm or wrist on top of the little wrinkles where his heel meets his Achilles tendon (click here for a breakdown of the ankle lock)

• Toehold: make sure that the little-finger edge of your hand is lined up with the tips of his toes, no less, no more (cool pic of a toehold in action here)

• Cross Collar Choke:  get your first hand in super deep; even if you can’t actually do it, aim for getting all the way to the seam at the back of his gi (photos of deep vs shallow cross collar grips here),

• Kneebar: squeeze your knees together, squeeze your knees together, squeeze your knees together (want to develop effective kneebars?  Read this article about Kneebar Mastery)

The funny thing is that two different people can use different sets of instructions to express the same detail…

Consider the ‘Clock Choke,’ a great attack to use against a turtled opponent wearing a gi.

When my BJJ coach Marcus Soares teaches this choke he often tells people to “put your head onto the ground” just before finalizing the choke.

But when I use the same move I don’t put my head on the ground.  Instead I think about sliding the side of my ribcage onto the back of his neck.  This is where an executioner’s axe would come down! (Can you tell that I’ve been reading too much Game of Thrones?)

So, ribs on the neck vs. head on the ground: who’s right?

Well he’s a 7th degree black belt who specialized in clock chokes!  So if you do it his way you’re going to be OK for sure.  But I still like to think that we’re both right…

Both ways of doing it end up sliding your weight off of your opponent’s body and pinning your his head on to the mat.  That’s the real key, and the reason why you’re moving all around.

For whatever reason, though, it’s just faster and easier for me to tell myself, “ribs on neck, ribs on neck…”

You can take two different routes to the same destination.  You can also have two different wordings to finalize the submission.

Ultimately it comes down to personal preference and whatever works for you. So go forth and find some simple words to describe the crux details for your own submissions!

(What I didn’t say on that post is that the topic of getting out of submissions is really near and dear to my heart just now, because it ties in well with a really cool product I’m getting ready to release.  But more about that another day…)

Anyway, here’s something that a lot of people don’t realize about countering or defending submissions:  there are at least three distinct timings you can use

1, You can shut down a submission early, or preemptively.  Let’s say that you’re using your guard and your opponent starts going for an ankle lock.  He encircles your ankle with his arm, and you can see what’s coming, but he hasn’t  You rotate your leg (the right way, of course) and your foot pops out before you’re ever in any real danger.

This is an early escape, BEFORE he applies the lock.  If you have a choice then shutting down a submission early, before it ever really gets started, is definitely the best way to go!

2, You can escape as your opponent is applying the submission. Back to the ankle lock: let’s say that he’s locked it on and is falling backwards.  If you can ‘hitch a ride’ and get to the top as he falls back and then squish him like a bug, then you’ve just countered it DURING the attack.

Escaping submissions as they’re being applied is the most under-utilized timing, but it can be very useful.  It’s just so much easier to do it now rather than during the next stage (i.e. when it’s fully locked on).

3, Finally  you can do a late, or AFTER THE FACT escape.  These aren’t as easy or as high percentage as escaping before or during, but you still need to know them.

Back to the ankle lock for sec; let’s say that he falls all the way back into a good position, gets on his side, starts arching, etc.  At this point you might be trying to uncross his legs and escape your hips out sideways, or (if it’s legal) apply a heel hook to one of his legs, etc.  Last minute, hail mary type of stuff

So there you go; I’ve just tripled what you need to know!  You might’ve thought you only needed one good counter to the triangle choke, the spinning armbar or the inside-out, upside-down, cross-collar Jehoshaphat choke.  But now you know that you actually need to learn THREE defenses, early, middle and late.

I was finishing up drilling some new guard passes when someone came up to me and said “I’m a big fan, I read your newsletters and I have both your apps…”

First of all, I want to tell you that it’s always nice when readers come up and introduce themselves.  So please come over and say ‘hi’ if we’re ever walking down the same street together.

But it was also a wake-up call for me that I haven’t been doing my marketing well…

You see, this was the third time in two days that someone has come up to me and told me that they love both my apps.

There’s only one small problem…

I don’t have two apps: there are actually THREE Grapplearts apps not two!!!

Here’s what I’ve got for your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch:

1) Grapplearts Submissions.Learn how to do the most powerful submissions in grappling, including the key details that allow you to tap out bigger, stronger opponents.

2) Grapplearts Sweeps. Covers 29 powerful sweeps from closed guard, open guard, half guard, spider guard, butterfly guard and X guard to get you from the bottom to the top in any grappling match.

3) Grapplearts Pin Escapes. Easily escape bad positions and get back in control of a match…

If you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you should totally pick up these three apps.  There’s an entire DVD’s worth of information on each app and using the indexing system you can get access to the exact technique you need anytime.

(Well, maybe looking techniques up while sparring would be a little awkward, but you can still can look up what you should have done in the locker room afterwards…)

Seriously, at $3.99 each these apps are a great value.  Get one, get ‘em all!

Now if you’ve ever trained with Erik, you’ll know he’s an encyclopedia of submissions.  He can show you an incredible number of rapid-fire leglocks, chokes, armlocks, wristlocks, neckcranks and kneebars.

So I was surprised when he started talking about how he’s started limiting his game and reducing the number of submissions that he uses on a day-to-day basis.

His point was that in his sparring he’s sticking to the submissions that are high percentage for him.  It’s important to understand that this is for his personal go-to moves: he’ll still teach all the moves he knows, because what’s low percentage for him might be the perfect move for someone else!

So I pushed him for examples and he spoke about two particular series of attacks – the first starting from the front headlock position, and the second from side control.

When trained with Erik in Seattle at the beginning of this month I ended up filming both sequences!  If you’re curious as to the high-percentage submissions from the front headlock, then watch the video below

In the above video Erik shows the ‘Grovit’ facelock/neckcrank, but the angle of the camera isn’t very good.  So here is Catch Wrestling legend Billy Robinson breaking down the Grovit for you in some additional detail.

I hope to get to the side mount series out to you next week!

Today I’d like to tell you about my brand new application for the iPhone and the second generation iPod Touch. It’s called “Grapplearts Submissions“, and it’s the very first tool of it’s kind for learning BJJ, submission grappling or MMA techniques.

(We’re still tweaking the application to work properly with first generation iPod Touch, so if you have one of these stay tuned and I hope to have good news for you soon)

This application is designed so that you can learn grappling anywhere.

The idea is that you can learn the armbar from mount while riding the bus, or remind yourself of the key points for the triangle choke while waiting in line! Now you can bring your techniques with you to class and drill them with your friends!

Click here to see the application page on iTunes (if you have iTunes installed on your computer), or click here for the info page on Grapplearts.com.

This application is designed to be used on your iPhone or second generation iPod Touch. There are 31 different armlock, leglock and choke entries, AND we show you the details that make those submissions work. In addition, we plan to add other techniques to future updates, which you’ll get free!

A quick note: this is a big application because it has LOTS of video instruction. That’s why you need a wifi network if you want to download it to your iphone directly.

If you don’t have a wifi network then just use iTunes to download the app (search for “Grapplearts Submissions” in the iTunes store). Then synch your phone, just like you do for your music, calenders, etc.

About the price: my co-developers begged, whined and pleaded until I agreed to initially release it at at the nominal cost $0.99 (for the first week only). I personally think that this low price is a mistake, but compromise is the soul of partnership…

After March 27th I’ll raise the price for sure.

So here’s how to get the application, and some links to more information about it:

• Click here to open iTunes to the application page (if you have iTunes already installed)
• Or you can open iTunes manually and search for “Grapplearts Submissions” in the iTunes store
• Download iTunes for free
• Visit the iPhone page on Grapplearts for screen shots and a detailed list of contents
• Go to the Grapplearts Submission Application on Facebook (become a Grapplearts fan!)
• Click here to see a demonstration of the application on Youtube

Finally, if you DON’T have an iPhone or an iPod Touch then I’d still be eternally grateful if you could help get the word out to the grapplers and MMA enthusiasts you know who DO have these tools.

This new video will be in a different format from my other DVDs. Basically it’s a reference tool so you can quickly look up the steps and the key points for the most important no-gi submissions. Think of it as the Cole’s Notes for chokes and joint locks.

Featured on “Step-by-Step Submissions” are 31 setups for 10 different submissions. Each setup is first broken down into the correct sequence and then shown at ‘action speed.’ I also go into the key details that ‘make or break’ each choke or lock.

So here’s the deal:

This DVD is in the final stages of editing. If everything goes according to plan I should be able to start shipping it out in about 3 to 4 weeks.

Everyone who has already bought the Package gets this new DVD shipped to them for free as soon as it’s ready. No shipping, no postage, no nothing.

Everyone who buys the Package between now and when the new DVD is released will get everything else shipped to them right away (i.e. no waiting), and then I’ll also send you “Step-by-Step Submissions DVD” as soon as it’s done. Again, the shipping is on me.

Check out the Roadmap for BJJ Package here!

BTW – I think that the addition of yet another DVD takes an already great product and makes it a fantastic product, but of course I’m a little biased