Hey, you. Yes, you, psst… What if we were to tell you that there is a way that you can finish your opponents and training partners from Mount – just by using your one arm?
Don’t believe us? Then believe the ADCC and IBJJF World Champion, Robert Drysdale, who demonstrates just how simple it is for you to use this technique and surprise everyone you are rolling with.

THERE’S OPPORTUNITY IN EVERY DEFENSE

Starting from the Mount and pressing on his training partner’s head with both of his hands, Robert demonstrates that you first have to make sure that you’ve gotten one of your opponent’s arms isolated over your shoulder.
This position, of course, grants you a phenomenal opportunity to go for an Armbar or an Arm Triangle – however, as you try and make your transition to the submission, your opponent might try to defend it by swimming their arm back to the inside, towards your neck. And this is exactly that which will open up an opportunity for you to get that One Arm Shoulder Lock or One Arm Wrist Lock!

SETTING IT UP

To begin your setup, you first need to make sure that your opponent doesn’t manage to actually place their arm on your neck, because then you’ll have to adapt more than it’s necessary. You’ll avoid this, Robert emphasizes, by using your forehead to follow their arm as they swing it through. In other words, you’ll keep your head down and use your forehead to block your opponent’s forearm as they swim it back towards your neck.

Because you’ve done that, it’s not just the case that you’ve managed to protect your neck from that nuisance, but you’ve also managed to get their arm to just the right spot! For, as they swim it through and you follow it with your forehead, it ends up just within reach for your own hand – and so the One Arm Shoulder and Wrist Lock game can commence!

GETTING THE ONE ARM SHOULDER AND ONE ARM WRIST LOCK

What you essentially do, Robert demonstrates, is that you grab the outside of your opponent’s palm with your hand. Make sure that you pin it down to the mats and that you keep it pinned down, as well as that you keep on pressing their head with your other arm.

All that is left for you to do from there is to pull your opponent’s shoulder back, and you have the One Arm Shoulder Lock!
This is a great technique because it is a low risk one – if it fails, you’re still going to preserve a strong position and manage to continue on imposing your own game. On the other hand, everyone will be expecting you to try and set up the „regular“ Americana; they won’t see this one coming!

However, if the chance is that your opponent is very flexible at their shoulders and that you can’t finish this submission for that reason, fear not because there’s a great solution to this as well.
In this case, what Robert does is that he opens up his training partner’s arm and presses his knuckles to the mat, doing so by pressing his bicep against the partner’s tricep – and so he gets the One Arm Wrist Lock!

Robert Drysdale explains these two sneaky techniques on the video below: