Submission Series: Omoplatas
Learning precise finishing details early on in your grappling career will pay dividends later, in the training room and on the competition mats. You will have more confidence in going for the finish and a deeper mechanical understanding. This series will examine what makes each submission work every time.
The omoplata is a versatile submission that has entries from many different guards, including closed guard, rubber guard, and spider guard. Sometimes it gets overlooked as an option because it requires precise positional control to stop the opponent rolling out and escaping.
With a little fine tuning though, it will be great weapon in your submission arsenal.
Bernardo Faria is a four time IBJJF Worlds champion and black belt who dedicated himself to mastering the fundamental of jiujitsu early on. The omoplata is one of his favorite submissions, and he has mastered using it an elite level.
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In this video, Faria attacks the submission from closed guard. He starts by taking a pistol grip on the sleeve of the arm he will end up attacking. Then he scoops his arm under the same side leg. With this in place, he opens his guard begins to start cutting an angle, towards the leg he has scooped. Faria needs to rotate himself 180 degrees to successfully attack the shoulder.
As he starts making this angle, Faria’s legs each have a job. The right foot plants on his opponent’s shoulder and using that as platform Faria hips up as much as he can. Forcing his opponent to carry all his weight will break their posture down. The left leg comes over the back and behind the armpit, knees pinched together. Now the opponent is broken down into a turtle position with an arm isolated.
Here is the moment many people lose the submission. Savvy opponents immediately try to escape by either jumping over to the attacker’s other side, or more commonly forward rolling out.
To secure this midway position, Faria grips their belt with his right hand, and the pant leg near the feet with his left. This gives him a control point at the hips, and one end at the legs. Basic physics concept: putting force at the end of a lever will have more effect then towards the middle. If the leg is a lever, controlling it at the very end will make it very difficult to move (this same concept shows up in sweeps, like the tripod and sickle sweeps) These control points make any movement hard for the opponent.
With escape cut off, Faria moves onto the finish. Using the belt grip to pull himself, he sits up an reaches his arm over the back until he grabs near the opposite armpit. This arm is now doing the job of stopping the opponent’s roll. If it is further down the back it provides les control and there is more opportunity to escape. Faria now starts to drag himself to his right. As he moves, the trapped arm moves with him, which drags the rest of the body behind it. And the opponent can only get stretched out so far before they end up belly down on the mat.
To finish the shoulder lock, Faria keeps his knees pinched tight around the arm and leans forward. He is trying to get his head over the shoulder on the opposite side. With the opponent facedown, arm totally isolated, they will have no choice but to tap out.
The omoplata is available from many other positions as well. Almost as time you have an overhook in guard you can enter into the omoplata easily. It combos with triangle and armbar attacks very, and learning to switch between the three will make your closed guard game dangerous and exhausting to deal with. Now that you’ve seen how to control the positions better, give it a go tonight at practice.
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