Train with me: Side Control > Knee Ride > Elbow Cup Armbar

Training at home in the age of covid? Looking for drill snippets to work every day in a little and often approach? Me too. For the last year, I’ve focussed on short daily drills of 10-20 minutes. I find anymore than this with the dummy is too demoralising. Perhaps you’re in a similar situation. If so, join me in the first set of drills in an emerging series of ‘train with me’ snippets.

To begin with we’ll practice controlling the side mount. Then, maintaining the knee ride. Finally, we’ll progress to an elbow cup armbar from the knee on belly. I like building up attacks by combination or flows with position-control-submission. Here, I’ve confined myself to techniques within the Gracie University BBS1 syllabus, which includes a lot of the fundamentals. In this way I can force myself to make connections between techniques, in order to internalise and conceptualise the material more fully. So, if you’d like to join me, please read on for videos and suggested drills.

Before you go any further, couple things to note. Firstly, I’d recommend doing each drill for 2-3 days. Get that regular consistency by training a little, a lot. Secondly, what follows is intended as a guide for your solo practice, rather than a course of proper online instruction. Finally, you undertake these drills at your own risk, just sayin’.

Suggested drill

5 minutes each side dropping to side control, integrating the side control flow from the previous snippet before returning to knee on stomach.

Suggested drill

Start from side control, drill your control from there. Then move to knee ride, and perhaps drop back to side control before establishing a solid knee ride. Finally, apply the submission.

10-15 minutes alternating sides.

Lastly, enjoy yourself! And for what its worth, spend more energy on celebrating getting all these great reps and less on missing the proper gym and you training partners.