Dave Camarillo held an free in-house seminar last Friday night at AKA in San Jose.  He holds these at least every few months as a service to his students, typically covering a position he has been working on recently, or a position where he feels he has a solid game to communicate.  Last night's focus was the standard armlock position.

Anyone who has seen Dave compete knows that armlocks are his specialty so there was no way I was going to miss this one.  In fact, just a week ago, I had asked Dave specifically which arm was best to use in armlocks after reading Rodrigo's new book, Complete Guide to Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.  You see, in that book, Rodrigo finishes all the armlocks using his leg side arm instead of his head side arm.  This made me wonder since I always take armlocks with the head side arm so I am free to grab the pants with my other hand.  I asked Dave and his response was of course that "it depends".  So with that in mind, I was excited about the seminar topic and hearing his views.

I arrived a bit late due to traffic, but as I entered the packed facility, Dave assured me that I hadn't missed any of the details yet.  As I settled in and found a partner, he made clear the fact that once your back is off the mat you are in danger of being rolled.  With that in mind, you need to recognize the risk and "stabilize" the position.  He then proceeded to show three simple ways to stabilize the standard armlock position - posting, extending your body, and grabbing the pants/leg.  Each of these made immediate improvements in my game.  It is amazing how sometimes little details can make such a big difference.  That is the beauty of bjj.

After the discussion of stabilizing, he moved on to "finishing".  I appreciated the classic "position before submission" mindset as it works for my slower style of game.  Of course, Dave will often take the armbar immediately, but hey, he's Dave.  In terms of finishing, Dave kept things simple (which is good) and covered his two favorite finishes, noting that he can use these two against "anyone he can finish". 

The first finish was from any of the three stabilizing positions while the head side arm is holding their arm.  Nothing magical here, just a palm strike to free the arm and then a zig zag motion to finish.  The other finish was more complex and started from the standard armbar postition as well, but your other hand was going for the finish.  This is Dave's favorite of the two and in it he uses his leg to apply pressure to the opponent.  It resembled bringing you leg over for a figure four, but without the figure four.  It is a very strong finish.

Overall, this seminar was pure gold for me.  In about two hours I can say that my finishes from that position will increase 5x.  I used to feel a bit shaky there, worrying about being rolled or losing the position.  That is no longer the case.  My partner was a big, strong guy and I had no problem holding him in place with very little effort (and the same for him holding me btw).  I am really excited to play with this week.

Thanks again to Dave for putting out such great info to his students!

See you on the mat,

Paul