Tag: BJJ

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How To Do A Bow And Arrow Choke in BJJ

The bow and arrow choke in BJJ is an essential submission for every Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter to have in their quiver (pun intended). This choke submission from the back is very strong and is a great option for when an opponent is very good at defending the rear naked choke. Being able to switch submissions between the bow and arrow choke and rear naked will keep your opponent on the defense and prevent them from working on escaping your back control, keeping you in charge of the roll.

Start: Back control with seatbelt control

Step 1: With top-side hand, grip opponent’s opposite lapel with a thumb in grip

Step 2: Step feet over so that side with grip is on outside of opponent’s hip and other side is across their body

Step 3: Shoot free hand underneath opponent’s arm and fall onto your back, letting free foot float up toward opponent’s head

Step 4: Grip opponent’s pant leg with free hand and cross feet

Step 5: Pull with both hand while pushing down with both legs

Finish: Submission via bow and arrow choke

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How To Do A Berimbolo Sweep in BJJ

The berimbolo sweep is a complicated sweep that provides a way to take an opponent’s back from a relatively neutral position of an open guard, a position many BJJ practitioners find themselves in without many options beyond playing a guard game that they are skilled at. This video breaks down the berimbolo sweep, which is a powerful option to take the back from an open guard in BJJ.

Plus you get to go inverted and look like a ninja, which is awesome.

Stephan Kesting from GrappleArts also shows two great drills to train your body to do the berimbolo sweep. Even if you aren’t dead set on learning the berimbolo, these drills are a worthwhile addition to your drilling for BJJ (and as we all know, you have to drill to win!)

Start: Seated, facing a seated opponent (after guard pull or during scramble)

Step 1: Get De La Riva hook (wind foot around outside of opponent’s shin and inside their thigh) with one leg

Step 2: Grip opponent’s trapped ankle or pant leg with the same-side hand as your hook

Step 3: Grip their belt with your other-side hand at the hip with the De La Riva hook

Step 4: Pull your head towards opponent’s hip on side of hook, inverting and rolling onto your shoulders

Step 5: Step your free foot onto opponent’s belly

Step 6: Switch ankle grip to opponent’s free leg

Step 7: Use ankle grip and De La Riva to spin opponent over, completing your roll and sweeping them onto their side with their back to you

Step 8: Drive knee into opponent’s trapped knee to prevent them from turning into you

Step 9: Climb or scramble onto opponent’s back

Finish: Back control

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BJJ Drill: Armbar, Triangle, Omoplata Drill from Closed Guard

Drilling BJJ is one of the most essential ingredients to getting fast and good at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. While it’s obvious that drilling is essential to improving your BJJ game, how you should drill is not as obvious. Shrimping across the mat at the start of class will help train that movement, and repeating techniques until you have the movements memorized is an excellent way to make muscle memory, but there are other drills that may prove to be equally useful to your BJJ game.

This BJJ flow drill from MMA Leach is a great example of a drill that will help your BJJ game rise to the next level. This drill for the closed guard uses three essential BJJ closed guard techniques: the armbar from closed guard, the triangle from closed guard, and the omoplata from closed guard. This drill will help you to quickly react when your opponent defends your closed guard attack and chain together submissions to develop a comfortable, dangerous closed guard game.

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How To Do an Armbar From Closed Guard

The armbar from closed guard is one of the basic and most essential submissions in Brazilian jiu jitsu. The arm bar from guard is popular because even at the highest levels of grappling, it is effective because of how simple and quick it is. No matter how many tricks are up your opponent’s sleeve, you are still applying the immense force of your hips to the relatively weak power of their elbow. Even a very tough opponent will have a hard time bicep curling your entire body.

This attack particularly lends itself to street fighting and MMA since it is when, to an untrained eye or with an untrained person on bottom, the fighter on the ground is in the most danger. The reason the armbar has become an essential BJJ submission is that it allows a smaller fighter or one in a bad position to turn the tide of the fight and go from being on bottom and getting punched to breaking the other person’s arm. This submission is so essential to BJJ that it is part of the Gracie BJJ Blue Belt Test.

Start: Closed guard

Step 1: Get a two-on-one grip on opponent’s arm

Step 2: Get wrist grip with same-side arm and reach over to get cross grip behind opponent’s tricep

Step 3: On side of opponent’s trapped foot, step your foot onto their hip and squeeze knee into opponent’s shoulder, giving up tricep grip

Step 4: Reach free hand across to opponent’s opposite shoulder

Step 5: Lift free leg up towards opponent’s head and pivot your hips and head to that side

Step 6: Drop free leg down to break down opponent’s posture 

Step 7: Pass bottom-side leg over opponent’s head

Step 8: Ensure that opponent’s thumb is pointed up towards sky and pinkie is pointed down to your body and bridge your hips up toward sky

End: Submission via armbar

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How To Do an Omoplata From Closed Guard

The omoplata is one of the coolest moves in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. With this submission you use your hips to attack your opponent’s shoulder, using one of the most powerful areas of your  body against a much weaker part of theirs. When executed perfectly, the Omoplata uses pure body mechanics and does not require you to be stronger than your opponent, which is one of the fundamentals of BJJ.

The omoplata from guard is also very fun because you spin around and look like a ninja.

Start: Closed guard

Step 1: Get an overhook with one arm over one of opponent’s arms

Step 2: Move onto opposite hip and step that foot onto opponent’s hip so that arm with overhook is higher

Step 3: Reach top-side leg up and grab it with free hand

Step 4: Slide top-side leg over and in front of opponent’s head

Step 5: Figure-four legs to trap shoulder and grab opponent’s belt to prevent them rolling out of the submission

Step 6: Use grip on belt to sit up and hug across opponent’s back/hips

Step 7: Stretch legs out to flatten opponent down to mat

Step 8:  Post outside free leg and push hips towards opponent

End: Submission via omoplata

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How To Do a Flying Triangle in BJJ

The triangle choke is one of the most easily recognizable choke submissions in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and for good reason. The triangle takes what looks like a bad position from the outside (being on the bottom in a fight), ties your body in knots, and the other guy ends up choking.

There’s just one problem with the triangle choke: you have to be on the bottom to do it.

UNLESS you jump and wrap your legs around your opponent’s head and choke them while they’re standing.

When that happens, you really are doing ninja stuff and it’s not only fast and effective but really cool.

Start: Standing with mutual neck tie controls

Step 1: Jump and pull opponent’s neck down

Step 2: Slide the same-side leg as your neck tie perpendicular over opponent’s head, replacing the grip

Step 3: Cross legs

Step 4: Grip behind opponent’s leg with hand that was gripping behind opponent’s neck to prevent a slam

Step 5: Figure-four free leg over choking leg

Step 6: Pull opponent’s head down and turn body towards arm that has leg grip

End: Submission via flying triangle

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How To Do a Standing Guillotine in BJJ

The guillotine is one of the best chokes in BJJ. The simple and quick, the guillotine choke is also versatile; it can be applied in gi BJJ or no-gi BJJ, MMA, street fights, and really anytime you need to submit someone with a choke.

The standing guillotine is a great Brazilian Jiu Jitsu move because it is an attack that you can use at the beginning if your opponent is a better wrestler than you and you can’t take them down. The standing guillotine can end a BJJ match as soon as it starts and what’s even better is that it doesn’t sacrifice position for the submission (like a flying triangle would).

In this video, Stasis Jiu Jitsu breaks down the standing guillotine with common mistakes, tips, and a painful variation at the end.

Start: Standing

Step 1: Get collar tie by grabbing the back of opponent’s neck where their head meets the neck, locking elbow in tight

Step 2: Pull opponent’s head down and toward your armpit, giving up collar tie

Step 3: Hook armpit over opponent’s head

Step 4: Slide hand all the way through past opponent’s chin with your palm towards opponent’s chin

Step 5: Grip the back of your choking hand with your free hand, collapse your elbows in toward the choke, and block opponent’s escape with your chin on their back.

Step 6: Step in and pull hands up towards neck

Finish: Submission via guillotine choke

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How To Do a High Elbow Guillotine in BJJ

The guillotine choke is an incredibly powerful choke that is both easy to do and hard to escape, making it one of the most popular choke submissions in BJJ, MMA, and real world street fighting. The high elbow guillotine is one of the many different guillotine variations for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu that is available when you have access to your opponent’s head and neck but have not secured control of their arm. For variations with the arm secured, see the arm in guillotine or D’Arce choke.

This great video by John Danaher has a lot of details for getting the guillotine from half guard, but the high elbow guillotine can be reached from several positions.

Start: headlock position with opponent’s neck exposed

Step 1: Grip opponent’s chin with strangle hand (non-high elbow side hand) over their head and neck

Step 2: Slide support hand in between opponent’s shoulder and head alongside their neck and grip your strangle hand with your support hand palm on the back of your strangle hand

Step 3: Push your strangle side shoulder forward into your opponent’s creating space for the guillotine submission

Step 4: Bring your support side elbow back to your body to prevent opponent from securing control over it while shifting your head over toward strangle side

Step 5: Drag both hand up and to support side inside opponent’s clavicle, then turn support side elbow forward and onto opponent’s back

Step 6: Secure opponent’s body and rotate towards strangle side, raising support side elbow towards sky

End: Submission via guillotine

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How To Do An Americana From Side Control in BJJ

The Americana is a very effective submission that every Brazilian Jiu Jitsu fighter should know. It can be seen used effectively at all levels of BJJ, as well as in other grappling sports, MMA, and is very effective in practical use like street fights. Because it is such a useful technique in BJJ, the Americana has become one of the staples of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and is even a part of the Gracie BJJ Blue Belt test. This is also one of the submissions that works the same way in no go BJJ as it does in go BJJ, like the rear naked choke.

The Americana (sometimes called the keylock, figure-four armlock, or paintbrush) is executed by bending your opponent’s arm at 90 degrees like they are celebrating a touchdown, then bending the wrist backwards to put immense pressure on their shoulder, resulting in a tap. 

This video shows how to attain the americana from side control, a position many BJJ fighters find themselves in often. René A. Dreifuss shows the details of this technique and breaks the submission down to three steps you should focus on: accordion, motorcycle, down.

Start: Side control

Step 1: Separate opponent’s far-side arm from opponent’s body, using your head if they pus against it with that arm

Step 2: Grip opponent’s wrist with your top-side hand, keeping fingers and thumb on the same side of the grip

Step 3: Slide your bottom-side arm underneath opponent’s and grip your own wrist in same monkey grip, keeping your arm parallel with his forearm

Step 4: Pull opponent’s arm in towards you like an accordion

Step 5: Twist your wrists down toward the mat like you’re decelerating on a motorcycle

Step 6: Push opponent’s hand down towards their feet

End: Submission via Americana

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How To Do A Rear Naked Choke (RNC) in BJJ

The rear naked choke or RNC is one of the most simple and effective chokes in BJJ. It’s also a natural, intuitive technique, unlike many in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Despite the intuitive nature and the fact that most people off the street understand the basic mechanics of the technique, there are details to the position that can mean the difference between straining your strength against your opponent’s skeleton and sinking in the RNC and getting the submission quickly.

Bas Rutten is one of the original stars of mixed martial arts and famously brought technique together with real world effectiveness to create a functional but effective style that can translate well to any situation.

Start: Back

Step1: With your hand flat, slide it under opponent’s chin, starting at the back

Step 2: Slide hand through opponent’s neck until it reaches behind opponent’s other trap 

Step 3: With your flat, underside hand, grab your topside bicep, push opponent’s head forward with topside hand

Step 4: squeeze arm together and pull shoulders back

Finish: Submission via RNC 

The rear naked choke is an essential BJJ submission and this technique is featured in the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu How To Get a Blue Belt in BJJ guide.