Fundamentals – Sunday 18th November
The focus for tonight was controlling the mount position and working some basic finishes from there. We also looked at transitioning from the mount to side-mount and back control.
Mount
Started off with one person taking mount.
- Lean your weight forward and place your hands out wide – this lessens the effect of the person underneath bridging their hips
The person underneath then bucks and bridges to destabilise the person on top. If they attempt to throw you forward (over their head):
- Lock your feet together and base out wide on either side with your hands
If they throw you to the side:
- Post with the arm on the side they’re throwing you
- Hook their neck with your other hand to slow the momentum
Arm-bar from Mount
In this scenario, we’re exploiting a natural reaction to having a hairy, smelly chest in close proximity to the face – pushing the weight off with both hands.
One person takes mount
- Lean forward and smother your opponent with your chest
- Ease the smothering a bit to enable your opponent to push your weight off, extending their arms
- Pick an arm you’d like to armbar
- Bring your arm on the same side around the top of that arm
- Bring your other arm between their arms
- Press both of your palms to their chest, letting them take your weight
Keeping your weight applied to your opponent’s chest
- Hop up to your feet – foot on the attacking side next to their ear, the other one close to the far hip
- Step over their head with the attacking side foot
- Claim their arm, either with both arms or one arm grabbing the arm, the other their near leg
- Slide down their arm to sit on the floor
- Squeeze your knees to trap their arm
- Weld their little finger to your chest, ensuring their elbow is turned the correct way
- Lie back – SLOWLY – to apply pressure to the elbow joint until they tap
Key points:
Hip penetration – get your hips as close to their shoulder as you can as you slide down the arm. This means that:
a) They have a lot more work to do to extricate their arm
b) Your hips are in an optimal position to apply pressure to the elbow joint, rather than going hell for leather to try and break their forearm.
If you don’t end up with your hips in close, keep the arm secure and just scoot your hips closer. Then lie back for the finish.
Squeeze the knees! You need to trap that arm and keep it on the correct angle to ensure the tap
Knees bent -Particularly with the knee closest to their head, you want that knee bent and the heel pulled in against their neck. This enables you to drive high with the hips if necessary to apply additional pressure to the elbow joint.
As you become more confident, you can dispense with the initial jump to the feet and just swing your legs straight round for the armbar.
NB: If you lose control and fall back prematurely, let your partner’s arm go!
Figure-Four from Mount
Once again, one person takes mount. This time your opponent knows that extending their arms is bad news, so they’re keeping their arms in tight.
- Take an upright posture
- Take your torso slightly off-centre, away from the arm you’re going to attack
- Turn your shoulders to face about 45 degrees toward the arm you’re about to attack
- Keeping your arms locked straight, grab your opponent’s wrist with both hands next to each other, palms down
- Use the weight of your body and your ‘big fat head’ to drive their arm to the mat
With the arm nearest their head:
- Keep the grip on their wrist
- Drop your elbow to the mat so your forearm is at 90 degrees to their body
- Roll the hand gripping their wrist forward a little – if necessary – to put the back of their hand flat on the mat
With your other arm:
- Reach underneath their tricep to grab your own wrist
With your ‘figure-four’ grip, you can now:
- Slide their arm down toward their feet
- ‘Paintbrush’ the back of the hand along the mat as you…
- Raise their elbow toward the ceiling for the tap
Key point:
Make sure you preserve a 90 degree angle between your opponent’s forearm and shoulder
Side-Mount to Back Control to Rear Naked Choke
In this scenario, we’ve attempted the figure four from mount, getting as far as pushing their right arm to the mat.
To defend the figure-4, the person underneath tries to turn onto their right side and grabs their right arm with their left.
So we:
- Provide the space for our partner to turn onto their side
As they turn
- Slide one knee up behind their head and bring the other heel into their stomach, foot flat on the mat
- Bring your right arm behind their head and your left arm in front of their body to control their arms
- Keep your weight quite low and your chest connected to their back
Your goal now is to get them lying on their front, so you can apply the rear naked choke
- Drive your left shoulder and chest into their left shoulder*
- Pull your left heel back toward you and drive your hips forward
* Drive at about a 45 degree angle toward their head. Pushing sideways is harder work because of the ability of their forearm to act as a frame.
The net effect of these movements is to turn your opponent so they are face down on the mat, with you on their back
In other words – Back Control
If they’re on their knees:
- Put your hooks (feet) in between their thighs
- Bring one hand under their armpit to grab their foreram
- Lever your elbow forward and drive your hips forward to flatten them to the ground
If they’re already flat on their belly, proceed with the:
Rear Naked Choke*
- Right hand slides in front of their throat – if you kept your grip from side mount this is already done
- Grab as high on your left shoulder as you can with your right hand
- Your right arm now forms a ‘V’ with their throat in the middle
- Bring the blade of your left hand behind their neck
- Squeeze your elbows together
- Drive your chest forward
Phew – Ok, some of that was hard to explain and therefore probably hard to visualise, so just ask Geoff or one of the blue belts if you need some extra pointers on any of this stuff.
*I’m fully clothed, will this still work?
Yes. The ‘naked’ refers to the fact you’re not using the gi or any other clothing to effect the choke.
