If you’re on the lookout for “secrets”… For details that will make a huge difference in your Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu game, then you should pay careful attention to your grips. The reason? It all starts with how you grip your opponent, especially when it comes to a Gi roll/match. And lots of athletes, especially lower belt ranks, don’t give it enough attention… So you can use that to your advantage!
Therefore, here’s one grip that’s seriously underused in Jiu-Jitsu. One, that will yield great submission and sweep opportunities – the tricep grip!

WHY THE TRICEP GRIP?

But, why should you use the tricep grip anyway? What’s the use to it? Can’t you just go for the regular grips, such as the sleeve, collar, the pants, the lapel, or even the belt?
Well, all of these grips should be used, and you need to learn how to best utilize them to your advantage. However, the tricep grip has two serious advantages that you may have not taken into consideration.

First of all, as Jon Thomas explains, when you grab the opponent at their tricep – that makes it much more difficult for them to pull their arm out.
Let’s say that you went for an Armbar. If you just grip them at their sleeve, they’ll be able to easily pull back their arm, bending it at the elbow in order to stop the submission. But if you grip their Gi at the tricep, they’ll have a really difficult time pulling that arm out.

And secondly, remember what we’ve spoken about in the introduction of this article? A lot of people don’t pay careful attention to the grips, and so you’ll have a lot of opportunities to grab their tricep.
Here’s one example: when they reach to grab your lapel, you have this grip for the taking!

Watch the video below to learn more about this underused grip, from Jon Thomas: