3 Submissions EVERY Black Belt Should Know...

Right now the BJJ Fanatics team are hot off the back of an incredible performance at ADCC and we have a great video here of Bernardo Faria, Craig Jones, and John Danaher breaking down the submissions game.

 

For a start we have John Danaher using the word “desiderata”. That’s right, not only will your submission game go up a level with us, but so will your vocab game! (Desiderata for those that don’t know means something desired or needed). 

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The desiderata in this case is that we should have a strong submission in our arsenal for the neck, the legs, and the arms. 

Once we have this range it means we can attack our opponents entire body. This completeness in our attacking game increases the threat level to our opponent considerably.

Fortunately for us we have three of the best out there to take us through each area. 

We start with Craig Jones taking us through a straight ankle lock.

When Craig started with the straight ankle lock he would try and apply pressure through the ankle in a linear fashion in the direction the ankle is already meant to go, but would try to pass it’s typical range of motion. This gave him little success, especially against bigger or stronger opponents. 

This prompted Craig to look deeper into the mechanics of the technique and instead of going in a linear path he discovered taking the foot sideways in a similar manner to a toe hold created much more pressure through the ankle. 

Craig begins with his thumb just below the Achilles tendon and wrapping his arm so that he can place his own palm underneath his pec.  Maintaining control with his two legs against his opponents single leg Craig then walks his elbow behind himself, increasing the pressure against the ankle with each degree of movement. 

As he walks his elbow behind himself Craig also brings his elbow closer and closer to his body and his opponents foot begins to turn in a similar manner to a toe hold. 

At this point Craig has brought his shoulder to the floor and we can see by the look on Bernardo’s face that it’s already becoming unpleasant. Craig adds to this pressure by looking over his own shoulder in a similar manner to an upa and raises his hips. The tap comes quickly here!

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As we can see an additional benefit of this submission is that Craig can fully complete it with only a single arm. This leaves our other arm free to defend against or control our opponent. Always nice to have an arm free!

We then have a North-South choke from starting in side control from Bernardo. 

Bernardo spent four years learning from the Godfather of guillotines Marcelo Garcia and took this opportunity to really develop his guillotine game to an incredible level. 

From side control Bernardo comes up to knee on belly and most of the time this will draw our opponents head off the floor. Having someone’s body weight driving into our abdomen will create this defensive reaction and we can exploit this to go directly to the North-South choke. 

Once his opponents’ head is off the floor Bernardo switches his base by taking his back knee next to his opponents bicep and the arm by his opponents head will wrap around their neck with his own palm down against the floor. 

From here Bernardo sinks his hips and body as low as he possibly can and connects his two hands. From here he simply pushes and the choke is fully locked on. Tap or nap. 

Last but definitely not least we have Mr John Danaher explaining some of the finer points of ude gatame, or the straight arm lock. 

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The straight arm lock is an excellent tool to have in the arsenal because it can be both used as a submission and a powerful way to maneuver and control our opponents movement. 

To begin with landing the ude gatame we need to have an underhook, and most skilled players will not simply allow us to get an underhook. They will have good elbow placement, and we need to know how to overcome this. 

John starts with a collar tie and rotating his other hand so that the pinkie knuckle is facing up and on the inside of the bicep. As John pulls with the collar tie this allows easier access to now rotate that hand through for a full underhook. Pretty smooth move!

From here we need to maintain head control long enough so that we can pull our opponent forward so that we are on our side and our opponents head is on or near the floor. Keeping one knee behind one of our opponents shoulders and the other knee in front of our opponents other shoulder gives us control here by trapping his head and arm between our knees. 

John then takes Craig’s arm upwards so that it sits in the crook of John’s neck and Craig’s elbow is pointing away from John’s chest. 

From here the battle becomes about head height. If our opponent is able to raise their head they are able to rotate and free their arm. We prevent this with our top knee.

Now we have this level of control over both our opponents posture and their limb we can look at the details of applying pressure into the elbow joint. We apply pressure into the elbow joint by taking our elbow to our opponents elbow and point forwards. 

If we point our elbow towards the ceiling here we create a gap whereby our opponent can regain posture and begin escaping. Point the elbow forwards. We then reinforce this by wrapping our palm and fingers around our elbow.

Breaking pressure now comes by taking our head towards his, and our hips away from his. Tight!

To celebrate the recent success at ADCC we’re offering a MASSIVE 30% discount for the athletes and coaches involved so have a look around and see what piece of the jigsaw will take your game to the next level or at BJJ Fanatics here!

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