Our second day of taking the back and I’m definitely feeling the pressure of these short blocks. Moving from position to position at this pace feels like I can never take the time to fully dive into anything. After this block we have covered all of the main positions in Jiu jitsu, so it will be nice to go back and deep dive into them for round two. The idea that we can accomplish anything of any value in two classes is crazy and for me, taking the back really highlights that. On Monday we covered a very basic chair sit, which I love because it follows my trend of learning something from the topside position then repeating it from the bottom. This is such an easier way to see a technique. So for day 2 we talked about Arm drags from guard. This should look and feel almost the same as our chair sit from day 1. So the class begins, as always, by jumping right into a game.

Game 1: Starting from a deep arm drag. Bottom player is the active player for 3 minutes. They will start with an inside spiral grip on top players arm with their second arm around the back and grabbing the top players lat. From this position we have already accomplished the most difficult part of the arm drag. Guard player must complete the back take or end up in a topside position to end the rep. Top player must eliminate the threat of the back take by reclaiming their arm to end the rep.

Discussion: The most important thing about this position, the one thing that is make or break for an arm drag is head position. The grappler with the higher head will almost always win this position. It doesn’t matter how perfect my arm position is, if my head is lower than my opponent then I will almost never make it to their back. So this has to be the main focus. We use our arms to win the angle, this is important, but we will lose all of that if we don’t lead with our head. Once we get our head on the back of our opponents head we have secured the position. From there all of our pressure goes down through our head onto our opponents head. If at any point we release that pressure and our opponent is able to circle their head on top of ours we will lose the back take and have to move onto secondary attacks. Keep this in mind, all of the other things we are doing, the arm drag, the work with our legs, all of it is lead by our head control. For the second game we make things harder for the bottom player by taking away that head control and forcing them to find it. This should make the game significantly harder.

Game 2: Bottom (active) player starts with their arms in the arm drag position. They do not get a strong head position and they do not get the lat grip. Same ways to end the rep. Bottom player must secure the back or end up on top in some configuration. Bottom player simply has to eliminate the threat of the back take.

Conclusion: What a mess, haha. These two classes really highlight the need for longer blocks. Even though the chair sit and the arm drag are very basic concepts they take weeks to become effective. Throughout these two days most reps were ended with the non active player winning. Our success as the offensive player should have been very low. In my opinion, there is nothing more important than getting to someone’s back. Every match should start with high five knuckles and end with me on your back, thats my only goal. If I submit you along the way thats great, but I’m always hunting the back. So we need to spend more time with this. I think after this block we will stick with this idea and do a full second month of back focused classes. For week 15 we will slow things down and do more technique based classes since we will be focusing on submissions from the back. I always like to show submissions in slow controlled reps as opposed to games simply to reduce the risk of injury. So this will be a nice change of pace. Lea will be leading these classes and she does such a great job of breaking things down slowing and precisely for the students. This will be a fun week with lots of sore throats.