I'd Rather Fight a One Armed Man

I’m a 46 year old black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. One of my reasons for writing this is I have ADHD (as I suspect a lot of us do), and so I constantly struggle with traditional BJJ “move of the day” type instruction. So I’m trying to look for key concepts I can remember when I forget the 17 step combo I was just taught 5 minutes ago.

Today’s concept is:

I’d rather fight a one armed man.

I often hear this called “winning the grip fight.” But I know for myself and I suspect for others, “grip fight” sounds like something that might go back and forth. “Oh, he won that grip fight but I won the next one.” Or “I’m constantly grip fighting”. What I’m talking about is more akin to “grip domination.” Whoever dominates their opponent’s arm usually wins.

I’m going to start with an analysis of the Gordon Ryan/Josh Saunders match, which takes place mostly in half guard with lots of hand control. I think this is a crystal clear illustration of why dominating a grip is important. But then I’m going to expand on that into other positions and other matches and tutorials, including looking at Craig Jones, Marcelo Garcia, Lachlan Giles, Mauricio Gomes, Mica Galvao, and even Leon Edwards. This is everywhere once you know to look for it.

Josh Saunders vs Gordon Ryan

I, personally, found this match very exciting to watch. Which may sound strange for a match where 80% of it was fought in essentially one position (Saunders bottom half guard, Ryan top half). If you haven’t seen it, it might be worth watching in full.

But again, the reason I found it exciting was it’s a great demonstration of how, when you control one of your opponent’s arms, you keep yourself safe, and when you abandon that control, you open yourself up to attacks. Even Gordon Ryan, arguably the best no-gi grappler of all time, has a hard time attacking with only one arm. He has to wait for Saunders to let his arm go to attack.

First Example

If you don’t want to watch the full match, that’s fine. It gets interesting (to me) about a minute and a half in:

This is the first of several times this sequence plays out. Saunders does a really good job controlling Gordon’s left arm, using either one hand or two:

And then, he… just lets go of it, which allows Gordon to get a grip on his upper body and flatten him out:

Getting flattened is bad because he has to expend a lot of energy recovering his guard:

Here’s the actual clip starting at the interesting part if you want to watch:

Second Example

As soon as he gets back to a solid half guard working from his side, it’s another battle for control of Gordon’s attacking hand.

At first, again, he does a good job fencing off Gordon’s attack hand:

Then, again, inexplicably he gives it up and Gordon secures head control:

And he gets punished even worse this time, with a full guard pass. This forces Saunders to bench press a 228 lbs (possibly chemically enhanced?) slab of man with his lungs:

It’s worth watching all 60 seconds of this interchange to see it play out in exactly the same way: Saunders is safe as long as he restricts Gordon to one hand, in danger as soon as he gives Gordon both hands. This 60 second clip starts at the 2:10 mark:

Third Example

Just to drive that home, here’s the final guard pass of the Saunders/Ryan match.

It starts off exactly the same, with Saunders on his side in bottom half, excellent control of Gordon’s attack hand:

Gordon pushes forward and frees his hand and Saunders lets it go:

Gordon once again secures head control and uses it to pass guard:

You can just watch the clip from 7 minutes in until the end:

Once Saunders gets passed again, Gordon uses it to start setting up leg entanglements for the final finish.

This happened 3 times almost exactly the same way, and each time it costs Saunders more and more.

And I would go so far as to say there wasn’t a single time when Gordon had both arms free where Saunders wasn’t threatened.

In my opinion, ignoring arm control lost Saunders the match.

Same Thing For Craig

And I see this play out a lot in high level matches, especially higher weight classes.

For example, here’s a match between Craig Jones vs. Chael Sonnen at ADCCs in 2017 doing exactly the same thing, but with a different result (Craig wins).

This is worth watching to see how Craig alternates between controlling the hand (when attacked) and launching his own attacks:

But exact same position and focus on controlling the attack hand.

Here’s the relevant section, from 38 seconds in:

Now, the difference between the Saunders clips and the Craig Jones clip is that Craig was launching attacks from bottom half guard and Saunders never did. So, I’ll say that I have come to believe that if you are in a vulnerable position:

The only time you should let your opponent have two arms is if you are launching a high percentage attack.

(Anything that improves your position or submits your opponent is an attack.)

Same thing in MMA: Edwards vs Usman 3

And I can’t resist sharing this. Same exact thing is critical in Leon Edwards vs Kamaru Usman 3. This isn’t just a BJJ thing:

It’s also very hard for a one armed man to punch you.

Improve Your Chances By Fighting a One Armed Man

I’m not going to cover every position. But here are some examples from several positions, starting with how to attack from half guard.

Bottom Half

• obviously, use arm control to keep yourself safe. But when you overpower one arm you can use it to set up kimuras or kimura sweeps. You can see Craig Jones trying that against Chael:

Or you can switch to the other arm if they post up on your side and pull it across to set up a back take. Or you can disengage and stand up (which is kind of what I think Saunders should have done. Or there was a possible coyote sweep I would have liked to see Saunders try the handful of times Gordon wasn’t standing on both legs):

Bottom Mount

• I like to turn to my side and control one of their arms two on one from bottom mount. This sets up several escapes and makes it very hard for them to attack me. My favorite is to control the hand until they try to take my back. 9 times out of 10 when they try to take my back, they bring one leg up into technical mount. But because I control their hand they can’t lock up a seat belt, and I’m free to abandon their hand, scoop two arms under their leg, and bring myself out the back.

• Or here’s a standup escape variation from Ritchie Yip, but same basic principle (on your side, controlling the arm):

Bottom Side

• When I control the attack hand it is safe for me to turtle into them to create space for re-guarding to half guard. If I don’t control the hand, when I turtle they use that hand to choke me.

• Here are some variations from Lachlan Giles. Same general principle, though:

NOTE: I prefer controlling the attack hand wrist like Saunders was doing instead of the elbow like Giles. But, this is Lachlan freakin Giles, so feel free to pattern your game around him for sure.

Or here’s another view from GOAT contender Marcelo Garcia (full video here):

With arm control you can turn away from your opponent:

or turn into him:

Closed guard (top)

I also find this concept very useful in closed guard. One of my instructors told me a long time ago that at the highest levels of the game, you stand to pass closed guard. And if you want to be safe when you stand, take one arm with you. I have not seen anything since then that makes me believe differently.

• grab one arm, stand. You should be safe from everything but triangles, so be careful about pulling your other arm out. If they get their hand free, drop back down because now you are vulnerable to being swept. Grab the hand and try again. Here it is from Mauricio Gomes.

• If they are bigger than you, put your forehead on their chest, then grab an arm, then tripod up on your legs. Stand and let gravity do its work.

Final Example

If you’re still not convinced controlling an arm is some sort of magic button to winning at BJJ, may I present to you Mica Galvão and a master class in fighting a one armed opponent: Brazilian national champion and world silver medalist Pedro Maia.

It’s a slight exaggeration to say that Galvão controlled one of Maia’s arms at all times. But only because there were about 30 seconds where they weren’t touching at all. To my eye, there was no point in the entire match where Galvão was threatened. Even when it seemed like Maia might get a pass, there was never a real danger he could stabilize the pass with only one arm. Conversely, Maia had to expend enormous energy and skill to escape constant attacks from Galvão.

Spoiler: the two armed man wins.

Conclusion

In conclusion, nothing in combat is ever 100%. We live in a world where sometimes even unarmed people can defeat gunmen.

But in general, especially if you are just starting your BJJ career and you want to have an easy principle to remember as you learn moves and develop your game, remember that if you take away one of your opponents arms, it both keeps you fairly safe and often sets up attacks.

It’s always better to fight a one armed man.

Next: When One Hand is By Your Neck, You’re Halfway to Being Choked

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