I was watching the latest video from Pedigo Submission Fighting, on their UK tour, and saw a nasty armbar from closed guard that’s worth a break down.
This time it’s Jorge Valladares (I think? Correct me if I’m wrong, there) with a nasty little armbar from closed guard, barely visible before it happens..
It shows up at 0:48:10 in the video below.
How did he locked up the armbar from closed guard? What lead to the submission?
He offers his partner a choice: Your arm, or your posture
As he regains guard, his partner (Uke) is closed up, so he looks to get a grip on the wrist and work it across the body. I’m assuming that’s just to set things in motion and he’s never expecting to get that arm across.
He takes away the newly created open space
As he attacks his opponent’s wrist, his opponent reacts by posturing up to a sitting position.
Jorge takes advantage of this by moving his body into the open space created by his opponent posturing up.
He does this by circling his arm out along the mat, allowing him to prop up to an elbow
He continues reaching under his own body and gets a grip on his opponent’s opposite hip
Here’s where he gets sneaky, he’s pinching his knees together to create a structure between his and his opponent’s body that allows him to continue that elbow through, underneath his body, and he reaches behind his own back, under his own body and gets a grip on his opponent’s opposite hip.
Use that grip to spin yourself and get your hips out, opening your opponent’s elbow
With that grip, you start pulling, in turn spinning your hips out perpendicular to your opponent’s.
Using this arm to pull/spin yourself out of there is what makes it such a beautiful entry.
Adjust your top leg to block their head and apply the armbar from closed guard
Once the range of motion in their arm runs out, you get a natural moment to block their head and seal their fate, as which point you can focus on attacking the arm.
It’s beautiful.
Frame-by-frame break down of this armbar from closed guard, if you’re having trouble envisioning the movements
I can hear some of you out there scratching your head, saying, “Hold up… wait… what?!”
So in anticipating, let’s take a look at it broken down into a couple frames…
What makes this armbar from closed guard effective?
For those who haven’t seen this attack much, it goes from them in a fairly solid position – postured up, on top, in someone’s guard – and at most you might see them slide their arm underneath themselves, into a position you haven’t seen before.
The ability to get your hips out, perpendicular is paramount to having a great offensive closed guard, and by using your arm (out of view from your opponent’s prying eyes) to pull yourself around makes the attack come on quite quickly as you see in the video.
From there, their hips are already on the move and their hips vs. your arm is a losing battle for your arm, any day of the week, so that puppy is getting isolated and as it does, the legs slipping over your head, and before you know it you’re tapping or your elbow’s popping out.
I find myself constantly failing on hip bump sweeps against bigger guys, and I could see this reach-under attack being a good, aggressive follow up armbar attack to that, to change the pace.
🥋 Shout out to Heath and the guys over at Pedigo Submission Fighting.
These guys are making great content that’s a joy to consume. I’ll happily fall into their algorithm any day.
What do you think… Could you see this working in your gym? Any chance you’ll take this and try it out?
Let me know in the comments. Oss.