Juji Gatame

After tonight and a year of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu I feel I am finally starting to really grasp the Juji Gatame or Arm-Lock; more specifically, from the Open & Closed Guard. Thanks to a very charitable and patient upper belt, I was able to troubleshoot what I had been having problems with when attempting to execute the submission. My grips were always there. I always made sure to break my opponent’s posture first. Everything seemed fine up until I tried slapping on my Juji, of course. As it turns out, it happened to be the same problem I had been having with other techniques that weren’t working for me. Timing. 

The steps to 1 version of the Juji Gatame from Full Guard are as follows:

1) Break opponent’s posture by breaking grip on your chest and dragging their arm across the center line of your chest.

2) Place your foot on your opponent’s hip and elevate your hips, trapping your opponent’s arm at the shoulder by squeezing inward, while simultaneously grabbing your opponents opposite side shoulder with your cross arm (Example: Your left arm grabs opponent’s left shoulder).

3) Slide up your opponents side with your other leg and clamp down with your calf across opponent’s upper back near the shoulder line, while simultaneously pivoting your body to the side of the clamp leg.

4) Keeping pressure on opponent’s back and at the shoulder, swing your leg on opponents hip over and onto his head.

5) Squeeze your knees together and push with your feet towards the floor like “fangs” while simultaneously elevating your hips with your opponent’s wrist in the crook of your arm with opponent’s thumb facing the ceiling.

My Timing was off between Step 1 and Step 2. I paused when making the transition from dragging my opponents arm across my chest and placing my foot on their hip allowing my opponent to bring his arm back across my centerline; making me unable to trap his arm, his shoulder, his back and eventually preventing the whole arm lock.

It’s amazing that something so small and seemingly miniscule could adversely affect the end result. Whether it is just trying to make plans for the weekend, composing a song or even attempting a Juji Gatame, I suppose Timing, is indeed, something to consider.