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Arm-bar for the complete beginner

Today we worked on the arm-bar. Here's what I remember.

From the guard, keep the knees tight - cue bad joke about the German Guard (gudentight). You need to basically get yourself 90 degrees to your opponent to get a good arm-bar. That's a lot of movement, so you want to push him a little and move yourself a little.

Put one foot on the hip. Whichever foot goes on the hip is the side of the arm that will be arm-barred.

At the same time, make your body slightly U shaped. Bring the hips off the ground and the upper back off the ground. That way you have less surface area against the mat to move.

So, right foot on the hip, hips up, head up. Left leg squeezes and pushes opponent slightly towards the right as you spin slightly towards the left.

Right foot comes up and over their head, knees together and squeeze tight.

Reach over and get their left hand and arm-bar.

From there we worked on a transition, should they escape their arm which involved taking your right leg, wrapping over their right shoulder folding towards their hip. Lock your left knee over your right ankle. Roll towards your right come up and sit back a bit to get a lock.

Rolling advice from those who tapped me out - when you are on your back with opponent in mount, move as much as possible to get out of the position. The black belt I rolled with had a good style - no rushing, just taking good positions and applying chokes. I rolled with him last week as well and the advice he gave then was control of the head is vital. If you have your head free, you always have some movement available. Maybe not much, but some
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