Juji Gatame Perspective

Last night, it was a pleasure to watch the Invicta FC fight card. It was streamed online. - a simple HDMI cable was needed so we could watch on my HD TV. Invicta features professional women fighting under MMA rules.

A few of my favorite moments:
Best submission - Rose Namajunas with a flying armbar 12 seconds into her match.
Best nickname - "Killer Bunny" Katja Kankaanpaa.
Best strike - Michelle Waterson with a roundhouse kick to side kick combo.

Back on topic:
One of my guests, a BJJ student, offered some insight on some armbar attempts we saw over the course of the evening that inspired this post.

There were many armbar attempts last night. A few were successful. Some were not. The ones that were successful resembled Judo style juji gatame more than the others. Although I could give a detailed analysis of that statement, that is not the point.

I read recently in Dr. Anna Maria DeMars' book, "Winning on the Ground." DeMars' opinion is that we do not see more people escaping armbars because people are not practicing armbar escapes. I think this is partly true.

Since the inception of the UFC, the predominant grappling system used, that trains in submission holds, is BJJ. That is fine in and of itself, but there is a fact to ponder. In the early years of UFC, BJJ stylists were very successful in their armbar attempts. After a few years, people became familiar with how to escape those attempts, so armbar wins declined in number.

One noted BJJ instructor, Pedro Carvalho, even states on one of his DVD instructionals that he would not go for an armbar in a no-gi situation from mount because there are too many ways to escape. Basically, he suggests that attempting an armbar from mount is just a good way to lose a superior position.

Judo armbar attempts are substantially similar, except we lock the position in a bit differently, and definitely tighter. For example, the spider web (armbar position) in my dojo, is predicated around pulling the far arm towards you, then crossing the feet behind their shoulder. This makes escape extremely difficult. It also gives us "1.5 arms free" to peel the arm out and finish.

Simply speaking, there are fewer weak links in the chain.

So I think part of the reason we do not see more people escaping Rousey's armbars is because most people do not train to escape the spider web position. That said, we see plenty of armbar escapes on BJJ style armbars.

For me, I'll keep training the Judo style juji gatame attempts. It is a predictable pattern that yields much success in gi and no-gi situations.


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