What do I do if my opponent wants to hold hands?

[Suprore]

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but...

Okay, i've been doing bjj for about a month, so i'm still really new, and today i encountered something i had no idea how to deal with. A new guy (first day) was rolling with me, and he had the rather alien, to me at least, strategy of constantly holding onto my hands/wrists. I have him in guard, he grabs my wrists. Doesn't really do anything, just holds on. I have no idea what to do. He had a significant (20-40 pounds) size advantage so i was having a hard time breaking his grip, but wasn't really threatened either.

I have him in side control, same thing. He also kept attacking and trying to submit me from every position available, but he quite apparently had absolutely no idea how to preform any arm locks or chokes -- he didn't set a single thing in correctly, just held onto me in weird ways until i escaped.

Since i'm really new too i didn't have a very good idea of how to capitalize on his mistakes, and didn't tap him once either, but i'm sure i'll improve that stuff eventually. My main question is regarding what i said in the first paragraph.

How do i respond to my opponent holding my wrists when i have guard or mount? What are the vulnerabilities of holding your opponent's wrists in those positions?

[shtupidhead]

prevention:

the main times he will be able to to grab your wrists are when your hands are transitioning to a new position. dont let your hands be floating, make sure you are doing something with them (ie gripping hooking etc)

cure:

work on your wrist releases. try to understand how the grip works what makes it strong and whatits weaknesses are.

transition to a position where the grip makes no sense.

more:

the reason the grip feels so strong is because of the amount of flex in his arm try to immobalize the arm then work on releasing the grip

[G-Off]

I'm a noob too, but I try to move my hands and wrists in circles to get out of grips while moving my arms forward and that seems to work ok. In gi practice my instructor was telling me to ignore my opponent's grips on my wrists and grab my own on his gi, but I haven't been comfortable enough with good grips to get it to work yet.

[Deadmeat]

Pay attention to the orientation of his thumb, and twist against it.

[jnp]

Pay attention to the orientation of his thumb, and twist against it.

Yes. You can break most grips, no matter how strong they are, by circling your fingers toward and past their thumb. The closer the circle is to their hand, the less strength required to break the grip.

First I bend my wrist away from the inside of my forearm, then I start the circle.

I'd be very surprised if someone doesn't know this technique where you train, so ask around if you are having any trouble understanding the description.

[Suprore]

Cool, thanks, that's exactly what i was looking for. :)

[hungryjoe]

Take up Aikido :)

Really - what deadmeat says above. Think of his thumb as a pointer. Either rip away in the direction his thumb is pointed, or roll your wrist into his thumb. Sometimes a combination of the two.

Grab your own wrist and experiment.

[pauli]

"when in doubt, armbar."

if he's not letting go of your hands or wrists, simply guide him into whatever submission you wish. triangles and arm triangles should be particularly easy.

otherwise, i agree with the grip breaking suggestions above. it's marvelously effective, even when they're aware of what you're doing as you do it.

edit: i'll add that my immediate response to the thread title was "kick him in the nuts." your mileage... may vary.

[Kentucky Fried Chokin]

Pay attention to the orientation of his thumb, and twist against it.

This is t3h corr3ct. When he grabs your left wrist with his right hand, twist your wrist clockwise (in as big a circle as necessary) to break the grip. Make sure your collapsing his thumb in his grip known as "breaking the thumb". You do the same thing if someone grabs your sleeve, but it takes more twisting with more force for that.

Edit: Somehow I missed the whole second page of this thread and now I feel like an ass for repeating everything that's already been said. :(

[pauli]

i'd modify "in as big a circle as necessary" to "in no bigger a circle than necessary." no need for excess motion.

[GoldenJonas]

Yes. You can break most grips, no matter how strong they are, by circling your fingers toward and past their thumb. The closer the circle is to their hand, the less strength required to break the grip.

First I bend my wrist away from the inside of my forearm, then I start the circle.

I'd be very surprised if someone doesn't know this technique where you train, so ask around if you are having any trouble understanding the description.

Words of wisdom here from jnp; simple but effective simply because the motion attacks the weakest point of the grip.

Also, try this;

1) When he grabs your wrists, drive your hands up into his arm pits and move your hips back in the opposite direction. From here he cannot maintain the grip and you will create some space to get one of your knees up (either through standing and dropping down with the knee up splitting his guard or, depending on your size, just pop the knee up) and move into a pass attempt. As soon as the knee is up, i.e., Combat Base, make sure you either commit to a pass attempt or bring your elbows back inside of the guys knees and work some other pass.

2) Get your hands back and inside of his thighs; tripod up with your head in the guys chest and THEN try and pass one arm behind the guys back and grab it with your opposite hand. If you don't drive you head into the guys stomach and tripod up BEFORE you try to pass the hand you'll open yourself up for a kimura or hip hiest attempt.

3) Lastly, 2 will always beat 1. So grab his wrist with one of your hands and work to break the grip. You opponent will have to let go of one side or else he will lose the use of his upper body which is just as important as the lower body when working set-ups, reversals, sweeps, or counters from guard.

Good luck.

[shtupidhead]

Yes. You can break most grips, no matter how strong they are, by circling your fingers toward and past their thumb. The closer the circle is to their hand, the less strength required to break the grip.

First I bend my wrist away from the inside of my forearm, then I start the circle.

I'd be very surprised if someone doesn't know this technique where you train, so ask around if you are having any trouble understanding the description.

remember once you've broken the grip you have to be doing something pro active to prevent him from grabbing again otherwise your just wasting your time and energy.

[mike321]

This applies more to striking, but will have some grappling application: if the grip puts his hand in a position that is ok for you, ignore it and apply your move. Generally this works for one hand grips only. If you need the grab released listen to posts above.

[jnp]

While I realize that the OP's thread title opened him up to this, Gitmo is still a technique forum. Therefore please keep the off topic discussion to a minimum.

The offending posts were moved here:
Gitmo rejects - No BS Martial Arts