#194: Controlling the Elbow for Wrestling

In this episode, Jake and I talk about getting inside and outside the elbow from standing and while defending front headlock and what options you have from there for wrestling. Hope you enjoy!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yellow? Oh, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

I I don't know why I said I would call you. Here's why he was gonna call me.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Oh yeah, no, it's okay. What's up, Jake? Welcome back from your trip.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

We're a little rusty.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So uh yeah, we were gonna talk about um we've been kind of on this this I I guess I've been like trying to knock our pool and work on standing more, and um I've been starting to find as like a tall person, I'm I'm starting to think maybe getting outside the elbows and going to the back as it leads to single legs or the back is an area like I haven't really explored enough. And as a tall person, maybe it'll fit me better because man, getting under and like going for I just end up getting sprawled on so much. So I mean there's probably stuff I'm doing there wrong as well, but I've been thinking a little bit about how do I get around. So uh yeah, we talked about that Russian two-on-one, and uh I'm starting to find the arm drag a little bit off it and not really getting to the back, but seeing the single leg start to open up a little bit from there. Um, so yeah, maybe we could talk a little bit about just ideas around getting outside the elbows from standing and where it can go versus all like that inside game.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah. Yeah, one thing I have just noticed, and it seems like you're finding to be true as well, is like I was doing a lot of study on um escaping the front headlock. And when you do something like an elbow pass and you control um, like you get outside their elbows with a straight grip, it can be hard to go into direct offense when they stand up. So, like from the context of escaping the front headlock, if your primary escape is to like build height and like stand and you know, do that whole thing, and then you use an elbow pass, it's it can be a great escape, but it's hard to go directly into offense after that elbow pass unless you're able to like snap their hands to the mat with the elbow pass. Um, whereas when you do like a short drag or an arm drag, when they stand, you have a much greater ability to maintain that position outside their elbows, and you have more offense that you can go into when they stand to prevent the go behind. So it seems like what you're what you're describing with the Russian, you're outside their elbows. And yeah, like I think it's just tends to be it flows better into offense when you do something like an arm drag, and then you can go into a single leg, or you can go into like a lat drop or like a foot sweep or a uchimata or like different offense um from there that tends to be hard to do when you um get outside their elbows in other ways, like an elbow pass.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Yeah. Um, yeah, because like their their elbows all the way across, and then I guess your other your uh attacking arm is like right there, their legs right there. So yeah, it was just funny for me. I always would do the arm drag, you know, you hit that angle and then they they reset, they score back up, and I would just think of it as a failure, you know, like ah damn, I I didn't do the arm drag. But uh now I'm starting to see like, wait, that that's actually a nice setup for the single, so it doesn't have to be, and I guess that's where all wrestling happens is like how you chain these things together. Right. Um so yeah, that's one, and then the overhook is another, because um being taller, I just get underhooked a lot, and usually with the overhook, yeah, I don't know what to do. I just mix face, get away, reset, and try again. But uh it'd be nice to have like uh offense from the overhook as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

So um, okay, so I'm trying to think of where to start this. Um, because like I said, I was doing a lot of study of the front headlock. Um and like basically the goal is to be able to escape into offense. And the goal of being good at escaping the front headlock in my mind was to ultimately give myself more confidence when I was shooting in for a takedown. Obviously, there are many takedowns you can do without having to shoot in and prevent being put in the front headlock, but if you are gonna shoot in on their legs, when it goes wrong, you're probably gonna end up in the bottom of the front headlock. So just to give myself more confidence when I'm shooting, I wanted to work on my escapes. And kind of the classic escape is the like two-on-one on their stranglearm and kind of sit back to your guard, or you could potentially like stand up and not not have to sit back. But um, from what I've seen, the offense that comes after that escape tends to be getting outside the elbows. And a lot of the offense that comes after front headlock escapes in general tends to be getting outside the elbows. And when you control their wrist and do your escape, now to get to your offense, you have to climb from the wrist to their elbow. And then now you can do an arm drag or something to go into offense. But climbing from the wrist to their elbow tends to be hard, especially when you like sit down to your butt because you're like making yourself less athletic than them, and then you're trying to climb up and then make yourself, you know, um, give yourself an angle or whatever. So like the offense tends to be like, I'm not necessarily like doing an arm drag. Maybe I'm doing an arm drag to enter your legs or something, but um, more often than not, they control the wrist, they're trying to climb to the elbow, the person rips their arm back, you end up neutral. So the solution to this might be controlling their elbow as part of your escape. So after you escape, you already have control over their elbow. And then you could go into offense. And this is where I was talking about the offense off an elbow pass, I think tends to be less reliable than an offense off of an arm drag or short drag. Um, so I kind of settled on like the short drag. Like this should be like the prime, I at least for me, it's it seems to be the best way to escape into offense most reliably, especially when they stand um with you as you're trying to build hype to escape the the front headlock. So this got me into the kind of rabbit hole of maybe I should try to control their elbow um when I shoot in for a takedown. So that way when it fails, I already end up with control of their elbow when I'm on the bottom of the front headlock. And this led me to the idea that like right now, from standing in my mind, it was like you're either like someone who likes to shoot from space or you're someone who likes to play the like overhook, underhook type game. And this is where you see a lot of um like jujitsu games that are shared publicly of like you start with an underhook, the other person starts with an overhook and like work on being effective from the underhook, work on being effective from the overhook. It's very like close range, um, or you have someone who like shoots from distance kind of thing. But the idea of controlling their elbow before you shoot in basically is the idea of playing in that like middle space where you're not playing with like the armpit connection of like an underhook or overhook, and you're not playing from space, you're kind of playing in the middle ground. And when you compare this to guard passing, it would be like you're like holding the line at the knees. Um and like for me, I've I've worked a lot on being comfortable holding the line at the elbows from the standing position and um yeah, being effective from that distance as opposed to trying to close all the way in to get under hooks and overhooks.

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Yeah, the uh I played around a little bit with that that elbow uh grip where you're kind of just crossing it, you know, across the their center line. Uh, but I haven't done much with it. And then uh before we started recording, you were also mentioning like the bicep tie, kind of playing inside um that space where you're not like attached to the shoulder, but you already beat the hands. Um so in your hand fighting, are you kind of focusing on those two connections? Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

So like the outside control would be like an elbow tie, is what I've heard it called. And then inside control would be an inside bicep tie. But that would be like you're you're not necessarily controlling their elbow, you're probably more controlling their tricep or even like their armpit with your hand. Um, but your like whole arm isn't in your their armpit, you know. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Interesting. Um, so when hand fighting, do you think maybe it could be good for me to practice? Um, yeah, get get the hands out of the way and then just try to move them around with those connections, double inside or maybe one outside and getting to angles. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

I've tried to just um be very comfortable maintaining these positions and then try to, I at least the way I've structured it, is I give the other person a win condition of trying to connect their hands around me to try and see what type of offense I'm vulnerable to when I'm at this range, you know. Yeah. Um and then the I would say like idea behind this is you're talking a lot about using this grip to get outside their elbows. Um, but at least for me, I've been thinking about it more of like I'm taking this grip so when I shoot and my shot fails, I already have control over their elbow. So I'm trying to get to these grips, not with the goal of getting outside their elbows right away, but with the goal of shooting in for their legs. And then I'm either going to complete the takedown or when I end up in the front headlock, that's where I get outside their elbows. Um, so yeah, that's the way I've been kind of thinking about it in my mind.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Yeah. It relates to the uh the risk management, um, like the recent episode you did with yeah, yeah. That was great episode. People haven't heard it on mental models. Uh Jake was on recently again talking about risk management. But yeah, it reminds me of that because it's like worst case scenario, you're already in on like another attack, basically. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay, so what would that look like? Like um, maybe if you could paint a scenario of like, all right, you have that elbow grip, and then you're shooting in for like a single with your other arm?

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Yeah. So um basically, like I'm not the best at wrestling and all the terminology, but from what I understand, whenever you have some sort of upper body grip and you attack their leg and you have control over their leg along with an upper body grip, they call it a dump. So, like a fireman's carry where you control their arm and you grab the inside of their leg on the same side that you have control over their arm. They call that an inside dump because you're controlling their leg from the inside, and then you dump them. And then there's an outside dump, or I've heard it called a far leg carry or an outside carry, where you have the elbow tie on one side or an inside bicep tie, and you attack the leg on the opposite side as the control that you have over their upper body. So it's basically like a if you were to lose control over the arm, it's basically a sweet single leg. Um the way um I've done it, and the way I've done it because I've seen really good wrestlers do it, is um this dump, the either dump, but I've really tried to prioritize the outside dump or the outside carry. Um, just because I I'm not necessarily comfortable with the idea of doing like a fireman's carry where you're like offering potentially a lot of back exposure. So um I've opted more for this outside carry. Um so the idea is this outside carry is a very good way to escape the front headlock as well. So if you have control over their arm, the most perfect scenario would be you attack their leg on the opposite side with like a sweep single leg, you hold their arm the entire time and you complete the takedown. The other scenario would be you lose control over the arm, but you gain control over their leg. And now you're finishing a sweep single leg. The other scenario would be they sprawl to make it hard for you to get their leg, but now you have their arm. And then now you can do your drags or your elbow passes. Um, I've really been trying to do the the drags, but sometimes it's like they sprawl a bit hard and your head's like already almost out. So you can just like pass it and then go arm drag. If that makes sense. Like with the elbow pass, you can get their hands down to the mat and then you can go arm drag. Um so yeah, that's kind of the the sequence that I've been working on. You get some sort of inside bicep tie or elbow tie, um, and then you shoot for their their other side like that.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Yeah. Dude, I like that. Um, man, I end up uh with with this whole like journey of not pulling by, I end up in the front headlock so much. And I do I just suck at escaping it. Um, I've been so scared with my neck injury. Like I'm like just fighting the hands so much, and then I kind of let them go behind so then I don't have to deal with like neck reinjury, and then I've just yeah, and then I've just been playing back defense and stuff, but man, um escaping front headlock for me has been is is is very challenging because of that. I I wonder if it's like I kind of just grab that that joking arm desperately and wait for them to go behind. But I wonder if there is an opportunity of in that transition when their hands aren't locked anymore for me to then go for these style of escapes where you can go straight into offense.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Yeah, so um okay, so we're gonna we're gonna dive into front headlock escapes now. Um so for a short drag or like an arm drag to escape the front headback. You often hear people talk about like sagging your weight back to do the the short drag. Sorry, I don't like burp. Okay, good. Um so you often hear people talk about sagging your weight back so that you can do this, and I think the the main like effect that we're trying to create to use Greg Sauter's terminology is we're trying to alleviate their their pressure on us, but I think the ultimate goal is their chin strap arm, we need to have our shoulder on top of their shoulder on that same side. And this little indicator has made like I very much struggled to do a short drag before. And this little indicator of shoulder position has made it so much more effective for me. Like it's not even like it's very reliable for me these days. Um so the way I think about it is you can sag your way back, is one way to get that shoulder position. Another way to get it, get it is by threatening their legs because they're gonna shoot their weight back to prevent you from getting their legs, and then you just try and get your shoulder on top of theirs. If and then you can like basically I try and what I've tried to do is I have the elbow tie and I use the elbow tie to get my shoulder in position, and then I switch to the the arm jack.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

And then your hand that was on the elbow tie, like it goes and reaches around towards their back or towards their leg if you were gonna go for a single leg or whatever. Like it just tries to anchor on to something. But the shoulder position is like my indicator of whether or not this is gonna be successful or not. And what we were talking about, where I think a lot of escapes from the front headlock require you to get outside their elbows if you want to go into offense. And if the escape involves controlling their elbow, like an elbow pass or a short drag, you have to get outside their elbows to do the escape. So if you watch wrestling, whenever the bottom player grabs the top player's elbow, instead of staying with the chin strap, they're gonna take an underhook on that side. So now it makes it hard for you to do a short drag. Or if you sit to guard, you're gonna get smashed, basically. Like they already have an underhook, their knees coming in, like you're in a very uncomfortable spot. So at least like initially, this was very discouraging to me because like I was like, I'm controlling their elbow. And then if I if I teach my students, you know, to take the underhook, it's like I can't sit to guard, I can't even take a two-on-one grip on their wrists anymore if I wanted to and sit to guard. Um, and if I just sit to guard when they have an underhook, I'm gonna get my guard passed. If I stand up, like I've seen many videos of people like they try and stand up and build base to escape the front headlock, and then that underhook goes into a throw by it, it goes into a knee tap, now you're getting taken down. If you try and do a short drag, obviously that's not available, and now you're getting your back taken or you're getting taken down and pinned. Um so basically the the dilemma that we uh we create is we use that dump um when they have an underhook, or we don't have shoulder position for a short drag. We go into a dump and the dump works if they keep their underhook in place, they'll probably just fall over. So basically the dump forces their underhook to clear, and it allows you to get your shoulder on top of theirs, and then you go short drag. And when you go short drag, and then they try and defend by getting an underhook or getting better shoulder position, you go dump and then you just kind of play these back and forth. And the idea that our takedown is the same thing as our front headlock escape, just like basically allows you to just like I try my outside dump, it fails, I just keep doing an outside dump, like when we get to the front headlock. And then when that doesn't work, you go short drag, and then you're escaping. So, like just the the thought process of like when my shot fails, it's just the beginning of like my offense kind of thing, is like the mentality that I want to get to. Um, and it seems like a lot of very good wrestlers almost like invite the front headlock, like as like a way to get into their offense. And it's to the point where like people who are really good at this, the person who's on top, like they don't want to commit to like a chin strap and they don't even want to commit to an underhook, and they're just like kind of like there. And then the person's like, all right, I guess I'll just stand and escape, you know, since you don't want to put me here. So like yeah, it's like it's it's wild. Um, so that's basically the thing I've been thinking about um for a while now.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Dude, that is super helpful. That that just that shoulder over their shoulder. Oh my gosh, dude. Because I I I basically this just shows like I just didn't understand what what's happening in a front headlock escape. Like I I thought you stayed under there and and you're just like turning away and throwing them across, and it's like this beautiful, nice thing. No, okay. You yeah, you gotta crush their shoulder first.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

It's the same, it's the same we talked about um like clearing a collar tie into a Russian arm. Like if their arm is straight, you're not gonna be able to get your shoulder on top, and you're not gonna be able to get the same effect. Where if their arm is bent, now your whole upper body, because of your shoulder, is gonna be able to clear their collar tie. Um, it's the same that we were talking about. I don't know if you remember with like cross grips, um, when we're passing, how they're like, you can use your shoulder to like push their forearm frame across farther. Like I've just been trying to think a lot more about shoulder, and then um I forget honestly where I even heard it, but someone talked about the shoulder position for the short drag, and I was like, this is exactly what I've been thinking about, and it makes like perfect sense to me. Um, and then that that made my short drag so much more effective.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Dude, that makes so much sense. And uh, I hadn't even thought about it with the with the Russian 211, how it connects uh to that front headlock escape and getting your shoulder out uh above their shoulder and out of the way. Um dude, just that one thing alone is something I think I can focus on for a while because I end up in front headlock a lot. So um cool, dude. It's nice to have like uh that risk management um piece of this because uh now I can go and focus on trying to get outside the elbows from standing as at least single legs and and whatnot. But inevitably I'm gonna end up in the front headlock, and it's nice to have you just do it again. You just reset, you just keep wrestling, basically. Right. Uh yeah. Um Mike went to this wrestling camp, and the the lady was saying that she was like, I at the highest level, people should have the mindset that you're gonna shoot like 20 to 30 times in a wrestling match. Yeah, and I was like, dude, that's crazy. That is crazy. Maybe these little things count though, all those little shots. You know, it's not like you're shooting like from space like 20, 30 times, but it's just to constantly chain and chain and chain.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah. Let me just show you this uh this example.

SPEAKER_00 22:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Um here, he's got basically double inside the bicep ties. Um and then he threads the inside dump where he reaches for this leg. Um but then you can see he ends up kind of in the front headlock, but the person's never even able to like settle, and he already has control over the elbow. And then he goes into this dump right here, and then he gets his shoulder on top and then goes short drag out the back. So this combination uh dump and short drag, this is basically what I would call a dump where it The version that I've been doing is like you grab the tricep and you drop your hip on that same side you're controlling the tricep um to the mat. And then as they recover, you can see his shoulder is on top of this dude's shoulder, like on top, on top of it, you know? Yeah. Um, and then it just makes it a very easy drag. Wow. And then this one, I think, is the other way around. So, oh, and this is something else I wanted to talk about. I'm making a YouTube video on this, so um, yeah. But you can see he tries a short drag, dude stands and pummels in an underhook to prevent the the arm drag. And then he goes back into the dump, completes the takedown, and then yeah, he wins very much. But this like this dump short drag combo has been my favorite thing, especially since the dump can be your takedown option as well. So, like as soon as you're in like defense and the front headlock and your takedown fails, you're already doing your escape from the the front headlock. So um it seems to flow very nicely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

I've never gone for a dump or a fireman's carry before. Yeah. Or a cross lateral.

SPEAKER_01 24:47

I never go for fireman's carries, and this could be something that I could I could work on more. Um but the outside carry has been my my go-to. Um but since we're on the the topic, this is kind of the last thing that's like um I've been thinking about a lot more. And the general idea is when someone reaches for an underhook on you, to prevent like good head position when using an underhook would be their head on the same side as their underhook. If we can get our head into good head position, it makes it hard for them to uh have a deep underhook on us. And this is what gives us the ability to grab their elbow. If they have a deep underhook, now we're forced to play with an overhook. And then the idea is if I am forced to play with an overhook, I'm trying to do things to get my head in good position against their underhook so I can go back to the line of their elbow. Um, so personally, I haven't been trying to attack from overhooks very much. I'm trying to like get my head in position or just move back to the line of their elbow. Um so yeah, and and head position is a is a big part of this. So like when you are grip fighting, that's what I've tried to pay attention to the most. And it seems to me like like there are multiple clips of people having like double inside bicep ties and whatever side their head is on. So if my inside my head is on the side of my right inside bicep tie, that's the one that stays, and my other hand is the one that attacks their leg. Um, and at least for me, it's led to more like head inside single legs, and like your head kind of wanna like kind of wants to like get into their armpit, kind of when you're doing the the dumps. So um it just allows that to to happen. So, like, I mean, it's just it's just kind of all over the place from from what I was already doing already, which is maybe why I'm so excited about it. But like, for example, when people take a collar tie on you, you take the elbow tie and you bury your head in their shoulder on the same side as your elbow tie, you're already in the the position for this attack. So, like you go here, you threaten the outside carry, like you attack their other leg with your right hand, and then when they sprawl, you go short track or you go elbow pass off of their thing, and then you you keep attacking. Um but yeah, that's that's been basically the whole thing I've been trying to do from standing these days.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Sick. Dude, I'm excited. Man, there's so much from uh there's so much from from the line of the elbows. Um this is this is very cool.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

And it's the risk management thing. Like I think, I think it allows you to shoot knowing that when it fails, you're gonna have control over the elbow.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

Nice. Okay. Uh, we may have to like go down some of these more rabbit holes uh as I play with this a little bit more because man, there's a lot there in front headlock, but also just from standing in general. So yeah, that this was super helpful.

unknown 28:02

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah, yeah. Excited for the next video. Do you know uh I it's probably tough to say, but do you know when it'll come out?

SPEAKER_01 28:08

You know, I've I've been it's almost done. And I was thinking about doing it on Tuesday.

unknown 28:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Um that we're hoping to release in like a month. So I was debating on should I wait? Because we're gonna add a bunch of like metrics to like track stuff and like start A-B testing when we do that. Oh so it would be nice to get like those metrics plugged in and have this video drive some traffic to the site. But I think I might as well just release it. I'll probably be another video by then. So um yeah, that might be Tuesday. Might be Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Might be Tuesday, might be in a month, but either way, either way, people should be happy about it. You're you're putting it out there for for you're for free, basically. It's free content. So yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tuesday or next month, but thank you. Um cool. Yeah, I'm gonna play around with this and then we can follow up next week.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Um Yeah, and I'll say for you and for everyone else, like the there's this YouTube channel called Earn Your Gold Medal. Um, and if you search like Earn Your Gold Medal, Front Headlock, Escape, Dump, or Short Drag, whatever, you can see where he talks about it. And basically he made this comment and said, for wrestlers that like the dump as a takedown option, he was like, I don't understand why you would not invest in the short drag. Like it's just like doesn't make sense to me logically why you would not have a good short drag if you like the dump. And then I was like, Well, I'm trying to get better at a short drag. Maybe I should look into the dump, you know? Like maybe it goes the other way around. Yeah, and that's what kind of like led me down this rabbit hole. So um, yeah, he's been a big inspiration for me, um, understanding this more. So um, yeah, I would check him out if you want to dive deeper.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Yeah, cool. Shout out to Earn Your Gold Medal, new friend of the pod.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Cool, cool, cool, thanks, Jake. All right, later John.