Branching

There you are, with your partner in the guard.  Perfect!  You love playing bottom guard position.  Even better, you see a chance to take the armbar!  Awesome!  You love taking the armbar from the guard.  You lock things up but your partner gets wise and counters.

What to do when you’ve been foiled?  Well, you’ve got a few choices.  You could try and adjust to close the armbar.  Maybe if you change angles a bit, maybe if you sweep them, maybe if you change the placement of your leg… you can close the submission.  You could change to a different submission.  Perhaps their countering of the armbar has set up a triangle or a Kimura.  Maybe they’ve opened themselves for a guillotine.  Finally, their counter has maybe set up a sweep.  You love guard but if you can sweep them so you end up in top position, that’d be sweet.

Those are the three good choices.

There are bad choices you could take as well.  You could try and prove who is stronger and muscle your way through.  You could give up the attack, lay flat on your back in guard and wonder why none of this grappling stuff works.

When things don’t work – seek another target or seek the target you have from a different angle.  There are times to muscle through a technique, but most of those times are not on the mat with a friendly partner.  There are times to abandon the attack, but none of those times should involve a feeling of despair.

The video above shows some the options we went over after failing to get the armbar we wanted.