Saturday, September 20, 2008

Drilling Saturday...

Note: how sad, on a Saturday night, I come home from a BBQ with friends and still think about bjj.

Anyway...

I love how teaching someone else can cement something in your mind, or reveal weaknesses in what you thought you knew. Today my kajukenbo brownbelt friend wanted to drill armbars and triangles from the guard. It would be more accurate to say he wanted me to learn what I need to learn by pretending to teach them to him, as definitely I was learning how to do them by the process of teaching him. The armbar is familiar, and it helps that I've been picking up bits and pieces of it from everywhere. But the triangle was my sticky wicket, because I just had a hard time figuring out what to do with the other arm! By the "other" arm I mean the one that isn't in front of their head, the one that isn't between my legs. The bent leg is on top of that shoulder, and if you start in guard, I haven't really grasped how you get from guard to having your leg next to their neck. The version of the triangle from guard on Submissions101, my go-to resource lately, isn't terribly helpful because they just stuff the offending arm down and behind the leg that goes up and over the back. That's not easy if you're not super-strong in the upper body.

3 comments:

slideyfoot said...

Yeah, Submissions101 isn't normally the best option if you're looking for an in-depth instructional video.

Roy Dean does indeed cover the triangle on Blue Belt Requirements, and you could also check out the Abhaya vid (also has one showing it off the armbar).

In fact, I'd generally recommend Abhaya as the best first port-of-call when looking for online videos.

Lynntropy said...

I know this is a super old post, but I'm catching up in bits and pieces. I suspect later you probably get back to this, but your question about what to do with the other arm is exactly what has been bugging me since day one. A depressing number of videos just start with their arm already out. I haven't seen a video that wants to approach how to handle getting that arm out to get your knee around their neck.
Still readin'......

Georgette said...

Lynn, shoot me a comment with your email address in it; I won't approve it so it won't go public, but I'm pretty sure I don't cover the "other arm" issue in a later posting (my instructor requested that I put all the technique details on a blog only accessible to students from our academy). I don't pretend to be an expert but I'd be happy to tell you the various things I do with the other arm these days.