30/01/2019 - Teaching | Closed Guard | Overhook Choke (from two-on-one grip break)

Teaching #832
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 30/01/2019

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What I call the overhook guard has a whole bunch of submissions and sweeps, but I just wanted to show how to get there for the moment, finishing off with a simple choke.

They will probably be grabbing your gi somewhere between your chest and stomach. Grab their sleeve with one hand, then reach your other hand underneath to hold your own wrist, making a figure-four. Wrench up with your figure-four to break their grip (you could also try raising your hips then dropping them as you wrench to increase the leverage, depending where they're holding you). Bring your knees to your chest and pull their sleeve behind your head.

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At the same time, swim inside and then around their arm with your other hand, so that you end up overhooking their arm. With the overhooking hand, reach through and grasp their opposite collar (if you can't reach it, grab what you can, but for setting up submissions, much better to have the far collar). Keep the elbow of your overhooking arm locked to your body, so they can't free their arm. This is a good controlling position, where you have a number of attacks: omoplata, armbar, triangle, chokes etc.

The simplest attack from here is to go for a choke. Bring your other hand over the top, grabbing around their shoulder or back. The exact position will depend on your forearm relative to their neck. You need to get that pressed in tightly to the side of their neck for the choke. Make sure your elbow doesn't drift across, keeping your arm at a shallow angle. Otherwise, you'll end up driving your arm into their windpipe, rather than the artery you want. Once your forearm is pressed against the right spot on their neck, finish the choke by pushing into that artery, pulling on the collar with your overhooking hand.

You've got a number of potential follow ups, which I go through in other lessons (e.g., sweeps, triangle set up, etc).

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Teaching Notes: I think this class went as planned, with the parts I expected to need emphasis. So I can do this the same way next time, again emphasising the angle of the arm and keeping that elbow pinned to the side. Also, a number of people were asking about the depth of the collar grip, which I think varies.

I gave the usual answer that it's always the same bit of the collar that applies that side of the choke, so where you grab is just to anchor and will vary depending on the person. Something to focus on when practicing next time though, to see if I can work out a rough measurement (e.g., collar bone, chest, etc).

26/10/2017 - Teaching | Closed Guard | Leg clamp sequence off an overhook

Teaching #716
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 26/10/2017

I had a go at teaching the leg clamp sequence from Aaron Milam's private, which went fairly well. I started off with the 'prayer' motion to get under the arms, straight into an underhook. You already shrimp out as you overhook, aiming to get your knee to their shoulder as efficiently as possible. That provides the main power in preventing their ability to posture back into you. You other foot is by their other hip. The point of the knee should be by their head, judging by Aaron's video, though I still don't feel I always have enough control, especially if they're bigger.

Still, with people about my size (as was the case with the people at tonight's class), it felt like a strong hold they couldn't easily escape. Once you knee is by their head, you can release your underhook and grab your knee with both hands instead. That makes for a powerful clamp. From there, you can go for several submission. Leaving one arm grabbing your knee, use your other hand (from your 'top' arm, as you'll be on your side) to grab their wrist. Push their arm up for a shoulder lock. Alternatively, grab their hand and pull it for a wristlock instead. If neither of those work, there is the omoplata here too.

If they manage to turn towards you, smoothly bring your other knee up past their far shoulder, flicking your leg out and over their arm, rotating into a triangle. Make sure you have head control as soon as possible. Either you're grabbing your shin (my preferred option), or you are straight away using a hand to grab their head. There's the chance to go for a pressing armbar here too, Joey Carta style.

The last one I'm confident about showing was a back take if they manage to pull their arm free and bring it in front of their face. You can then scoot in and grab their lat, pressing your elbow down to twist them. To increase that control either further, use your other hand to grab their sleeve and stiff arm it away. It should now be very tough for them to turn back towards you. From here, your bottom leg hooks up, while you bring your top foot to the ground. Move away, dragging them towards you, right into back control.

There was a sweep I was trying to remember too, when they posture into you, but I don't think I remember it quite right. I'll keep rewatching the Milam video. There is so much packed into that private he taught me, I barely past the first 6 minutes at this point! :)

14/07/2017 - Teaching | Closed Guard | Overhook Choke (from two-on-one grip break)

Teaching #687
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 14/07/2017

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The main topic I wanted to cover was breaking posture and grips, but this time how that can effectively become a guard in itself. What I call the overhook guard has a whole bunch of submissions and sweeps, but I just wanted to show how to get there for the moment.

They will probably be grabbing your gi somewhere between your chest and stomach. Grab their sleeve with one hand, then reach your other hand underneath to hold your own wrist, making a figure-four. Wrench up with your figure-four to break their grip (you could also try raising your hips then dropping them as you wrench to increase the leverage, depending where they're holding you). Bring your knees to your chest and pull their sleeve behind your head.

At the same time, swim inside and then around their arm with your other hand, so that you end up overhooking their arm. With the overhooking hand, reach through and grasp their opposite collar (if you can't reach it, grab what you can, but for setting up submissions, much better to have the far collar). Keep the elbow of your overhooking arm locked to your body, so they can't free their arm. This is a good controlling position, where you have a number of attacks: omoplata, armbar, triangle, chokes etc.

The simplest attack from here is to go for a choke. Bring your other hand over the top, grabbing around their shoulder or back. The exact position will depend on your forearm relative to their neck. You need to get that pressed in tightly to the side of their neck for the choke. Once that forearm is pressed against their neck, finish the choke by pushing into that neck, pulling on the collar with your overhooking hand.
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Teaching Notes: Next time, I'll keep emphasising that you don't want your elbow to drift across, as that will end up pressing your arm into their windpipe. Similarly, keep the angle of your arm shallow. One or two people found that tricky to do while also anchoring a hand on the back of the gi: the grip is useful for controlling posture, but it is possible to choke without anchoring the hand like that. However, you'd have to be very wary of them recovering their posture. Finally, don't let go of the sleeve you've pulled behind your head until you've locked in your overhook by grabbing their collar. Otherwise, it's like trying to swing to a new rope without still having a grip on the old one. ;)

08/08/2016 - Teaching | Closed Guard | Overhook Triangle (from two-on-one grip break)

Teaching #542
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 08/08/2016

If someone is in your closed guard, they will probably be grabbing your gi somewhere between your chest and stomach. This means you can grab their sleeve with one hand, then reach your other hand underneath to hold your own wrist, making a figure-four. Wrench up with your figure-four to break their grip (you could also try raising your hips then dropping them as you wrench to increase the leverage, depending where they're holding you). Bring your knees to your chest and pull their sleeve behind your head.

At the same time, swim inside and then around their arm with your other hand, so that you end up overhooking their arm. With the overhooking hand, reach through and grasp their opposite collar (if you can't reach it, grab what you can, but for setting up submissions, much better to have the far collar). Keep the elbow of your overhooking arm locked to your body, so they can't free their arm.

The overhook choke is a good option to try first, which anybody experienced will attempt to block. That's normally either by grabbing your second hand and pulling it close to their body to block, or they will stop the arm reaching by pressing your your arm to the mat.

In both scenarios, that presents you with an opportunity for a triangle. You just need to get your leg either inside or outside their arm. If they are blocking close to their body, you may have room to kick around their arm and into their neck. If they block by pushing your arm to the mat, bring your leg underneath it. To do that, it is easier if you can circle your blocked arm to grab their wrist or arm, then use that to wriggle your knee through. Again, you then want to kick your leg to their neck.

As soon as you have that leg by the neck, you need to control their head. This is the number one mistake beginners make: they forget to control the head, enabling their opponent to posture up and escape. Keep that head control all the way through, never giving them a chance to regain their posture.

Keep your other leg tight to their arm, getting your knee behind their shoulder and squeezing in. Don't give them space to pull their arm out. With your overhooking arm, switch to grabbing the shin you have over their neck instead, keeping it tight: any space and they will immediately pull out their arm.

Push off their hip with your leg that was on the overhooking side. Use that to swivel, pulling your shin further towards you (making sure you are gripping your shin, never your foot, as that can hurt your ankle). Lock your other leg in, bringing it over your shin. You can now squeeze for the finish, or swivel further until you are looking at their ear. That means you can kick with your neck leg and clamp down with your locking leg, a stronger finish than the abductor squeeze if you're square on.
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Teaching Notes: I think this went fairly well, with the usual things to emphasise. As always, some people were forgetting to keep control of the head, while some others weren't quite tight enough. Those are things I'll continue to emphasise.

A photo posted by Artemis BJJ (@artemisbjj) on Aug 10, 2016 at 10:30pm PDT

Drilling this with Heidi (yep, she does indeed have awesome yoga skills: check out her Instagram, it's amazing) on Wednesday at Broadmead was handy too: once again, the truth of what Ryan Hall says about not worrying where their arm is was clear. You don't need to pull it across their body, though that isn't a bad thing to do. The reason I don't emphasise it is that beginners frequently over-focus on pulling the arm across, grabbing the arm when they should be grabbing the head.

05/08/2016 - Teaching | Closed Guard | Overhook Choke (from two-on-one grip break)

Teaching #541
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 05/08/2016

A photo posted by Artemis BJJ (@artemisbjj) on Aug 8, 2016 at 3:59am PDT

The main topic I wanted to cover was breaking posture and grips, but this time how that can effectively become a guard in itself. What I call the overhook guard has a whole bunch of submissions and sweeps, but I just wanted to show how to get there for the moment.

They will probably be grabbing your gi somewhere between your chest and stomach. Grab their sleeve with one hand, then reach your other hand underneath to hold your own wrist, making a figure-four. Wrench up with your figure-four to break their grip (you could also try raising your hips then dropping them as you wrench to increase the leverage, depending where they're holding you). Bring your knees to your chest and pull their sleeve behind your head.

At the same time, swim inside and then around their arm with your other hand, so that you end up overhooking their arm. With the overhooking hand, reach through and grasp their opposite collar (if you can't reach it, grab what you can, but for setting up submissions, much better to have the far collar). Keep the elbow of your overhooking arm locked to your body, so they can't free their arm. This is a good controlling position, where you have a number of attacks: omoplata, armbar, triangle, chokes etc.

The simplest attack from here is to go for a choke. Bring your other hand over the top, grabbing around their shoulder or back. The exact position will depend on your forearm relative to their neck. You need to get that pressed in tightly to the side of their neck for the choke. Once that forearm is pressed against their neck, finish the choke by pushing into that neck, pulling on the collar with your overhooking hand.
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Teaching Notes: The main thing is getting the forearm close to their neck. I tend to grip near the shoulderblade, but it will vary depending on the perosn. I also need to make sure people aren't angling their arm too much, or they end up pressing into the windpipe rather than the side of their neck. Another question I hadn't considered as much is getting a grip with the overhook, especially if you have shorter arms. I think for that, it becomes a matter of angle, like when you are looking for a standard palm up palm up choke.

I know there are lots of attacks from here, but I'll need to review them if I'm going to teach more than just the triangle. I'll probably stick with that for Monday, as we did it at Ana's seminar recently, but I'd like to fit in some others if I can. An armbar would be good, as then I can combine that with the stuff from Chris Haueter I'm intending to show either later this week or next week.

17/11/2011 - Teaching (Maintaining Closed Guard)

Teaching #028
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 17/11/2011

Last time, I think I tried to cram in way too much, so when I come to do the first and second cycle of my lesson plan again (in case you didn't realise, I'm on the second cycle at the moment), I'll split that out. So, tonight's lesson will probably end up being part of a third or even fourth cycle.

Before I got into the meat, I wanted to quickly emphasise a simple tip that is worth keeping in mind. When you're in closed guard, you don't have to put your hips on the floor. Try raising them up instead and scooting in closer to your opponent. Previously, the space was in front of them, and therefore potentially could help them open up your legs and pass. Now, it's behind them, which potentially helps your ability to create angles and lessens the pressure on your legs. There's good coverage of that on Andre Anderson's excellent closed guard DVD.

The main topic I wanted to cover was again breaking posture and grips, but this time how that can effectively become a guard in itself. What I call either the armwrap or overhook guard has a whole bunch of submissions and sweeps, but I just wanted to show how to get there for the moment.

They will probably be grabbing your gi somewhere between your chest and stomach. Grab their sleeve with one hand, then reach your other hand underneath to hold your own wrist, making a figure-four. Wrench up with your figure-four to break their grip (you could also try raising your hips then dropping them as you wrench to increase the leverage, depending where they're holding you). Bring your knees to your chest and pull their sleeve behind your head.

At the same time, swim around their arm with your other hand, so that you end up overhooking that arm. With the overhooking hand, reach through and grasp their opposite collar (if you can't reach it, grab what you can, but for setting up submissions, much better to have the far collar). Keep the elbow of your overhooking arm locked to your body, so they can't free their arm. This is a good controlling position, where you have a number of attacks: omoplata, armbar, triangle, chokes etc.

There are also sweeps and at least one back take from here, which I'll probably show in a couple of weeks time. There are also various ways of manipulating their arm depending on how you break the grip. The overhook is what I would call the 'inside' grip break, because the hand grabbing the sleeve is 'inside'. You can also use what you might call an 'outside' figure 4 grip, because this time your sleeve grabbing hand is on the outside of their arm.

So, for that outside figure four, grab their sleeve on the outside. Wrap your other hand underneath from the inside, sliding their hand under to grab your sleeve grab wrist, which secures a figure four. This time, after you thrust upwards to break the grip, you aren't going to pull their arm behind your head. Instead, switch your bottom hand to their sleeve and yank it across your body. Your other hand can go to their elbow, or if you prefer you could move into some other technique. For example, you might bring your knees in and wrap over their back to trap the arm, then go for a flower sweep. Play around with it.

I thought those were fairly simple, so instead of the usual four minutes each followed by three minutes of progressive resistance, I had everyone drill each option for two minutes each, then two minutes of progressive resistance. Once we had covered both, I did a step up from progressive resistance, where the rules were the person on the bottom was only looking for that grip break and to break posture, while the person on top only wanted to stand up. My intention was that it would both help test the techniques against more resistance, and also give the person on top a chance to work their posture in guard without having to worry about sweeps and submissions. I'm not sure how well it worked, so as ever, feel free to leave me feedback. :)

Another way of using the arms is to overwrap your partner with both of them, which Saulo simply calls the closed guard overwrap in Jiu Jitsu University (p103, if you're interested). It is relatively simple: you just circle one hand under theirs, then sit up. At the same time, shoot that arm through, while also bringing your other arm around their head. Link your arms and drop back down. Saulo uses this to initiate a back take, which we'll cover later. For now, just step one foot the mat and shrimp to that side (being careful to still keep your knee tight to their body and the other foot controlling their hip: if either of those are too loose, your partner may simply push your leg down and pass).

You can use your legs in a similar way. Instead of wrapping around their upper back with your arms, walk your feet up their back, then re-cross your ankles. This puts you in what is called high guard, which again has various attacks associated with it. Again, there are dangers with that. A training partner of mine at RGA Bucks, Howard, used to immediately stand up and drive his knee into my tailbone whenever I went to high guard. So, watch out for that guard break, as the high guard can make you vulnerable.

Again, I split those into two minutes without resistance and two minutes with, before moving on to a few rounds of specific sparring from guard. I'm not sure how helpful the last three grips were, so may look to mix and match when I cycle round to this part of the curriculum next time. Still experimenting, so I may well split out the first cycle into the second in future.