How to situational spar and learn/teach arm saddle?
I am doing a set of lessons that connects sitting guard and supine guard. First we situational spar sitting guard and if attacker gets passed of can force supine guard, we reset. Guard player wins, if they get some king of guard or force attacker to mat. (Do not have to finish a sweep.)
Supine guard will be played afterwards. Arm saddle looks to be a good option for guard player.
Is there a situational sparring that would make learning and repeating arm saddle natural. Maybe a situation where arm saddle is very available? Lets say, passers is allowed to only pass supine guard from under or over (knee slide, head quarders, stage pass..) Guard player wins if they get some kind of guard like single leg x or sweeps or gets an arm saddle?
There has to be some easier drilling before this game. Some kind of situation where catching opponents arm is one of the best options?
Maybe hand fighting standing and trying to open arm pits? Underhooks, russian tie and extra option hug opponents biceps or pull their shoulder to your chest?
Any ideas?
4 Comments
What would happen, if you are hand fighting stand up. Try to get an under hook, but you end up with a grip from triceps and you reforce it by pulling opponents shoulder to your chest. Can you just sit down to the mat and manage distance with your leg on opponents hip? Would you get an arm saddle position or a sweep?
We did a whole month on arm saddle recently, heavily assisted by Jasons Arm Saddle course on here (https://app.theguidesites.com/grapplers-guide/courses/arm-saddle), and the biggest thing for me was not trying to teach it from too big a game too early.
Obviously the goal of CLA/Eco learning that I think you're alluding to is to make the position show up on purpose as much as possible. Ths requires very narrow focus at first, even starting with the arm saddle with top persons objective to retract the trapped arm. And then back it up slowly from there, the complexity added is beginning the arm saddle from further and further away from the secured position, eventually leading to the following as a the culmination of this build up:
Start from a very biased passing stance. Something like headquarters / split squat / knee cut range with one arm available and the guard player already in supine or seated-to-supine. That way the bottom player is learning to read a realistic arm position.
Give the bottom player only 2–3 good answers
I’d make the bottom player’s jobs:
Arm saddle
Wrestle up / come up
This gives them an option if the top player decides to just run away but keeps the game in play with a very narrow focus if other guards start to be used
3. Make the top player pass honestly, but through narrow routes, I think your idea of limiting the passer to over/under style entries, knee cut / headquarters, or bodylock-ish forward pressure is good.
Reset every time the arm is fully withdrawn or the hips get beaten cleanly
This gives loads of reps without it becoming fake.
Personally I think standing hand fighting is a bit too far away if the lesson is about connecting seated/supine guard. Useful, but as a side quest. I’d start much closer to the actual problem so they can get lots of clean looks first. But as a entry from standing in general I personally think it's very viable. Just the arm saddle style grip is a connection which you can use to pull guard (and hopefully enter into the arm saddle) or I tend to use sacrifice throws a lot which this grip lends itself very nicely to.
I am going to check out this arm saddle course.