Guard Theory

Defensive Concepts Foundational · Gi and no-gi

Keeping the elbow in against the armbar

Armbar defence runs in stages, from keeping the elbow in before the legs arrive to turning the thumb and stacking once they have, and each later stage has less to work with than the one before.

Position and problem

Your arm is across someone's chest in closed guard, or you are posting a hand on their chest from inside their guard, or they are mounted on you and you are pushing on them to make space. Then a leg comes over your head, their hips swing toward your shoulder, and your wrist is at their chest. Defence that begins at that point is usually a pull on an arm already held at both ends, and it tends to line the elbow up for the finish instead of taking it away. An armbar is built in steps, the arm isolated, the hips brought to the shoulder, the leg over, the arm extended, and the defence is strongest when it starts at the first of them rather than the last.

Objective

Keep your elbows inside and close to your body so the arm is not isolated, and if it is, stop their hips from reaching your shoulder, protect the bend in the elbow, and escape by moving your elbow off the line of their hips.

Core concept

An armbar is finished when your arm is away from your body, the attacker's hips are tight against your shoulder, and your elbow points at their hips so it can be straightened over them. Each defence removes one of those conditions. Before any of it, keep the elbows in. An elbow tucked to your ribs is part of your body and hard to isolate, while an arm extended to push on a chest or post on a belly is already separated and offered. Once the arm is caught, the contest moves to the distance between their hips and your shoulder. The attacker has to bring the hips tight against the shoulder to finish, so posture, a knee driven into their hip, or your weight pressing forward into them keeps that gap open and the lever too short to work. If the leg comes over anyway, bend the arm and hold it bent, usually by clasping your hands together or gripping your own clothing or arm. A clasp buys time but not an escape: it delays the extension while you work on the position, and an attacker who keeps the hips tight will usually break it. The escapes proper all take the point of the elbow off their hips: by rotating the arm, by drawing the bent elbow home to your ribs, or by carrying your weight over their hips where the position lets you stack. The late escape usually called the hitchhiker turns the thumb and rotates the arm and body around so the elbow no longer faces the hips, and it is a last resort from a position where the arm is already nearly straight. From mount and from guard the order is the same; what changes is which of your resources is available, since under an attacker still sitting in mount you cannot stack, and from inside the guard, or once they fall back from mount, you can.

Key mechanics

  1. Keep both elbows pinned in at your sides when you are in someone's guard or under mount. An elbow inside is part of your body, and it is the arm that goes out to push or post that gets taken.
  2. Stop their hips from reaching your shoulder. Posture up, drive a knee into their hip or bring your weight forward so the distance between their hips and your shoulder stays too long to finish.
  3. Bend the arm and hold it bent once the leg crosses your head. A clasp of your hands or a grip on your own arm slows the extension while you work on the position.
  4. Roll the thumb over so the point of the elbow leaves their hip line. The lever only works with the elbow facing the fulcrum, and a joint turned off it has nothing to straighten against.
  5. Drag the elbow back toward your ribs as soon as it bends. An elbow pulled in to your body is very hard to extend, however tight the rest of the position is.
  6. Stack with your spine upright, so your weight goes over their hips; bent at the waist, it lands on their legs instead.
  7. Tap before the arm is straight and held. Once the elbow is fully extended over their hips, the escapes have nothing left to work with and the joint has no warning left to give.

Common errors

  • Pushing on the chest or posting on the belly with a straight arm, which offers the attacker an isolated arm before any leg has moved.
  • Pulling the arm straight back out of the lock, which lines the elbow up with their hips and helps extend it.
  • Relying on the clasp as the whole defence, so the grip holds until it breaks and the arm straightens with nothing else prepared.
  • Stacking while bent at the waist, which loads their legs instead of their hips.
  • Waiting for a late escape once the arm is already straight, when the moment for defending it has passed.

Safety

An armbar loads the elbow at the end of its range, and a straight elbow has almost no range left between discomfort and damage. Tap while the arm is still bent or turning, and do not wait until it is extended over their hips to try a late escape; a hitchhiker that fails can add rotation to a joint that is already at its limit. When stacking, the attacker's head and upper back are underneath you, so lean in gradually and ease off the moment their weight is on the neck rather than the shoulders. Lifting someone who has your arm and slamming them to the mat to break the hold endangers their head and neck and your own trapped elbow, so in training the arm is given up rather than lifted out. The attacker working against a clasp should break it gradually rather than wrenching it open with a sudden jerk, because the extension that follows a broken grip arrives fast.

Training progression

  1. Static: kneel inside closed guard with the elbows tucked and the hands on their belt line. Partner tries to find an arm to take; you notice which positions leave an arm offered.
  2. Cooperative: partner takes an arm and swings the hips toward your shoulder slowly. Posture up and drive a knee into their hip to keep the distance, then reset.
  3. Cooperative: partner brings the leg over. Clasp the hands, turn the thumb and drag the elbow toward your ribs, working slowly enough to feel the elbow come off their hip line.
  4. Constrained: start with the arm caught and the leg over. Partner may only finish with the hips; you may only clasp, turn and stack. Reset after each tap or escape.
  5. Positional: begin in closed guard or mount with the attacker hunting the armbar at full resistance. Reset on a tap, an escape or a pass.
  6. Live rounds: whenever an arm is caught, start with the earliest defence still open to you rather than going straight to the clasp.

Written material cannot correct your positioning, feel your pressure or stop a submission in time. Everything here is intended to make training with a qualified coach more useful, never to replace it.

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