Fall 2019 Introduction to Wrestling and Notes on the Figure Four

In the Fall 2019 Goshin Jitsu Mixed-Martial Arts introduction to wrestling we started with the pummel. The pummel exchanges overunder positions with your partner, you switch sides by slapping your chest on the overhook side and swim through, under their arm pit. Your partner does the same      thing on the other side to switch the over under. Your lead foot is on the underhook side. One of  the keys in the pummel is to make your opponent carry your weight, pull on their underhook arm to disrupt their posture. We worked on repositioning our opponent with the pummel. The way to do this is to drop step a quarter turn with  your underhook side, pulling with the underhook as you push with your head. Their foot should make a loud thud demonstrating that you have shifted their weight to one of their legs. You can then easily pick up the other leg for a takedown.

Next we worked on using the head and arm tie to do the same thing. The head and arm tie means you have gripped their neck with one hand and are controlling the other arm inside their biceps Drop step away from the arm tie as you try to make them kiss their bicep by pushing their head toward their arm. They should pop up, as they do the head tie hand pushes their shoulder as you grab behind their knee of their lead leg.

The figure four is a solid submission grip. If they have a joint you can twist it enough for a submission with the increased leverage of the grip. Today we did pattern recognition for the Americana and kimura. We did the “surrendering gorilla” basically doing sit-ups in the closed guard and getting “batting practice” looking for figure four set-ups. We did the “figure four clock face” (or Every 60°) where from the side mount you look for Americana, straight arm lock, and kimura on one arm depending on the angle of their arm.

I often have trouble with opponents “pulling through” when I attack with the kimura. They simply pull their arm toward their opposite shoulder, trapping my  overhook and putting me in a reverse kimura. I have two tactics for mitigating this:

First, from the closed guard or half guard  I straight arm their wrist backward, behind the plane of their body. Then, I pivot my body to their arm, and secure the overhand grip. Now i force the bend in their arm and pull their elbow to my chin. To finish I attempt to place their hand behind their head.

The second way I attack from the closed guard is to create a shin shield on the inside of their elbow. I keep a solid grip on their wrist and then reach over their arm to secure the figure four grip. Only once I have a solid grip and have broken them down do I slide my knee out a finish the submission.