Last night I was rolling with a new guy. So new, in fact, that he didn’t have a gi. He was a fairly athletic guy, maybe 170-180 or so, with a little wrestling background. I tried to show him a little bit about passing the guard, holding down the biceps, standing up and then sitting down into a combat base, but I’m not sure how much good I did. After a few minutes, I said, “well let’s just wrestle around for the workout.”
I mostly tried to keep him at bay with my guard. He was a little “energetic” as most new guys are, and his hands were waving around like crazy—which had me a little preoccupied with the possibility of getting poked in me bad eye. I put him in half guard, switched to full, and let him roll around a little. At one point Mamazinho was urging me on, to sweep him probably, but I was tentative about being aggressive—fearing that he might get even more “energetic” and that then I’d really be wondering where his hands were.
I found myself stacked, with the new guy holding my shoulders down by gripping the corners of my gi jacket. I had a hard time getting out of this position—I think I went for the armbar a little late and somewhat sloppily that led to a scramble and me putting him back into guard. At some point I also remember him working hard for a keylock that wasn’t especially tight, but had me working to defend it.
Errata 1. If a guy is pinning your shoulders down in your guard, then your counter isn’t too much different from when a guy tries to can opener you from inside your guard or tries to choke you from inside your guard: ARMBAR.
It’s a little easier with the can opener and choke because his arms are close to your head already, making it easier to trap an arm and pivot around for the armbar. If the guy is pinning your shoulders like last night, then you want to move your head over close to one of his wrists, trap that arm, and move into the pivot. The key detail here is to move your head close to one of the arms. If he’s pinning your shoulders down, then it should be even easier to trap the arm because his own bodyweight will help keep his arm in place.
Errata 2. This happened with the new guy Kevin during side control specifics. I’ve got a good sweep from the keylock defense. But the trick to really make it work is to get the guy to extend himself over my body, to get his weight over on the side of the submission attempt, before rolling him over to that side. This is especially a big deal with guys like Kevin, who is no taller than me but probably weighs close to 200 pounds. You can’t just pull that kind of weight—or at least you shouldn’t have to in jiu jitsu. You’ve got to find the leverage, get him further over the fulcrum than he should be for good balance.
I think the way to do this is to straighten out the arm. Maybe not so much that the guy gives up on the keylock altogether. But enough to make him chase it a little bit by reaching over your body and overextending himself. That should help get his center of gravity over your center of gravity, making it much easier to reach behind the inside armpit and, elbow escaping away from the submission, rolling the guy over your outside shoulder.
