A year and a half worth of jiu jitsu…and finally a class on escaping the armlock and triangle choke. Huzzah!

Gina was teaching tonight. The armlock escape is pretty basic. Defend your arm with the rear naked choke grip, and hook your defending arm on the inside of their knee when they swing it around your head. Rotate so that you’re perpendicular to your opponent, so he can’t easily extend his hips. Post your leg up, with your knee on his butt, and then start working your arm out. Keep the pressure in, and stand up.

Usually, when you do this, your opponent will immediately transition to a triangle choke. So, we immediately transitioned to the triangle choke escape. The most imporant part is the keeping your posture. If you’re being triangled, and you loose that, you’re pretty much done. So head-shouders-hips all in a straight up and down line. Clasp your hands so he can’t double attack with the armlock, rotate towards your trapped arm until you’re perpendicular again, and put a knee on his shoulder. Slide your clasped hands up and break his knees open, and then underhook his head and pass.

All in all, good stuff. I was pretty beat after the sweeps from the other night, so this was a good low-key class to recuperate a little bit.

Afterwards, I paired up with Dave for a couple of rolls. The first, I pulled half guard, he passed immediately, sat on my head and kimura’d me. The I remembered that my new motto is “Always be on top” So, for our second roll, I was a bit more aggressive at the start. He dove for a leg, but I sprawled out, and snuck my arm in, going for a D’arce choke. I couldn’t get it all the way across his neck, so I pushed in on him, then pulled his arms out from underneath him, and switched to the side with my knee between his elbow and knee. I worked the power half for a bit, got it, and rolled him over to take his back. And yet again, I couldn’t get the choke, I tried to switch to mount as he was escaping, but lost it, and ended up in guard. Tim was watching and commented that I had a golden opportunity to armlock him in the transition, but I didn’t see it.

Tim was looking to warm up, so we went a couple of times. The first was quick. The second, I lasted a good long while, and even pulled off the running escape from an armlock. Still tapped later, but any roll against Tim that lasts longer than a minute is a win for me.

Last up was Cop Tom. Three rolls, exactly the same. Pull guard (where was my motto!?), get passed, sat on, kimura’d.

I think I need to duct tape my elbows to my torso. Having t-rex arms would prevent alot of my problems!