'Stag' Jiu Jitsu

Last Saturday was a particularly 'special' one. From my point of view, at least. I got married to the now Mrs Flaminginho (for the benefit of any confused readers, it's pronounced 'flamming-inyo,' Portuguese for 'Little Flamingo.' Pretty intimidating, eh?) on the following Monday, but at a small stag-do/bachelor party was how I spent the Saturday, rolling with my jiu jitsu buddies.

Once again training at the fantastic Ministry of Martial Arts with our instructor (Braulio Estima brown belt) Lee Catling, we covered the half guard, or more specifically, submitting your opponent whilst in his half guard.

Generally, when I find myself in someone's half guard, I immediately look to escape. But Lee explained to us that rather than just focusing on trying to gain a more dominant position, we could also get a variety of submissions from what on first impressions may be a less than fortunate situation.

Demonstrating on his 'uke,' Lee first showed the class that flattening out your opponent was first on the agenda. Your opponent will generally try to get an underhook on the same side as the leg they are trapping, whilst also posting up onto their elbow. Flatten out by pulling on said elbow, and then with your head against their opposite shoulder, push them down and stay 'heavy' on them now that they are flat on their back. Take care not to be to high on their body when pushing them down with your head, or you're liable to get rolled over and end up with them on top of you. We practised this basic technique several times with our partners to get used to the movement before taking things further.

Once Lee was confident that us students had that technique down, we tried a little something else. This time, rather than flattening out our partner, we were to get a 'whizzer' before they got a deep underhook. We would then grab hold of our opponent's opposite lapel with our 'whizzing' hand, so to speak, then with our other hand, grab the material high on the other side of his/her neck and take a cross choke.

After this, Lee showed us what to do should your opponent mange to get their trapped arm out of the whizzer. Drag the arm over, grab them close and flatten them out to trap said arm, and take a gable grip behind their head and squeeze tight for a shoulder crush. Lovely.

Another option is to feed the arm you used for the whizzer under his/her head, and your other hand over their head to take a gable grip and apply a d'Arce choke. Another variant of this would be to do it as a kind of arm triangle/Brabo choke. Yummy.

After this, Lee showed us what to do should your opponent have a deep half guard and is sat up high. Pull his/her gi loose on the same side as your trapped leg and feed it to your opposite hand behind his/her back and over his/her opposite shoulder whilst posting out wide with your free leg. Quickly take the hand that pulled loose the gi originally, feed it between your bodies with the PALM FACING UP and grab the loosened gi from the other hand. With that hand now free, grab the material of the wrapped lapel on the opposite side of his neck and bring your elbow down for the choke. DO NOT flatten him out! That way you can use your bodyweight/gravity you make the choke a lot tighter and with little effort. Make sure your partner still on his/her side, people!

There was another variation after this that Lee demonstrated, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is. I know, I'm such an exceptional blogger. But for any folks reading this that were present for the class, or are so spectacularly clever that they have other suggestions as to how else one might choke the granny out of one's enemy (yes, that word again [see last blog post]) from this position, then I'm all ears. Speaking of which, my ears are pretty swollen...


Anyway, until next time, have fun rolling and I hope to see you on the mats soon.

The Fat Flamingo