Fast forward to about 1.30 into this clip and watch Xande put on the arm bar. Notice how he jams his foot directly under the shoulder and his knee’s naturally fall out towards the persons leg. You often hear people say squeeze your knees. With that foot jammed in, you can’t do that correctly. You can’t effectively squeeze your knees together because that inside legs angle which is critical for control is wrong.
This is why this sweep looks so easy off of a very poor knee in arm bar attempt. If Xande instead had his foot embedded closer to the hip and was then squeezing his knees then the escape would have been much more difficult as the angle of his shin would come across the ribs into the armpit. The inside knee allows you to control the person, but to do that you need the right angle so you control their hip and ribs. The top leg across their face is actually less important than the one behind.
Don’t believe me? Well would you believe Rickson Gracie showing it through demonstration?
The audio is poor but the demonstration is clear. If you get the knee angle wrong they can escape easily. What I like about this series of video’s is the simplicity in the technique, it’s pure and not fancy. I tried this particular issue last night in live full resistance wrestles against equal size and level partners. I was able to easily hold the bigger person down and nullify his escapes.
I’ve used this series as the blue print for rebuilding my game, I might not know all the technical details but most importantly I’m trying to flow. Rickson makes it very clear numerous times – you always have another option to go to if they try to block something. It’s working amazingly well. Some of the senior guys in class have commented on how my Jiu-Jitsu has skyrocketed in the last month. To me, I have one person to thank and that is Rickson Gracie – never met the man but this one series has transformed my entire game.
As for Damien Maia and Xande Ribiero concealing fundamental techniques that they know from others that have paid to attend tuition from them. I don’t have much time for people that hide and deceive critical basic technical details from their students. To me that’s the same as committing fraud or at the very least lying. Two traits that are very unbecoming of a Martial Artist.
I don’t want to learn some fancy pass that will only work against a poor quality arm bar. I’m sure that it works. Personally if I was at that seminar I would have preferred to be shown the correct way to keep people in control with the Knee-In Arm bar or what to do when you are caught in a technically correct Knee-In arm bar.
When in doubt, ask this question: “What would Rickson do?”
Happy rolling.
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