Sneaky Armbar From Scarf Hold

GrappleArts.com has quickly become one of my favorite Jiu-Jitsu websites. The personalities over there mesh very well with my own. They are technical, don’t appreciate brute strength and they seem quite intelligent. All things I strive for. So when they have a new video of a technique, I take notice.

Today’s technique is pretty good. It’s a sneaky armbar from scarf hold. When I began watching this one, I thought I already knew it. I was saying to myself, “Man, we went over this in the first week of class.” But that wasn’t the case. It’s totally new and I must, say, it’s sneaky indeed.

Emily Kwok demonstrates this technique, which is nice because as much as I’ve come to appreciate GprappleArts, I’ve come to appreciate Emily Kwok’s teaching style.

I read through some of the comments below this video and sensed a general “unrealistic” vibe coming from those who watched it. I get caught in this trap sometimes myself. I say, “This will never work during a live match.” Well, as it turns out, every technique we learn isn’t necessarily supposed to go exactly as planned during a live match. As you progress, you can mesh bits and pieces of complete techniques together and create something that works for you.

More importantly though, when we learn techniques, we aren’t always learning them to use ourselves. We are learning them as more of a predictive tool against those who know the same techniques. If we don’t know anything, how are we supposed to know what to defend against?