Electric Chair in the Gi

[Arman Fathi]

Porra might be blasphemy posting a gi question here, but jokes aside I'm having problems with some better guys putting their thumb in my collar and keeping their base. On the off chance that I do get a perfect electric clinch and finish the sweep about 70-80%, he'll swim his free leg over my arm which in Nogi WOULD set me up perfect for the vaporizer, but again the handles bail him out and let him keep top position. A situatsh occurred today where he was stuck there for a good minute, then wised up and gripped my pant to get his knee out of the lockdown and lead right into a no hand pass. Any advice or experiences with doing electric chairs in the gi would be greatly appreciated. Respec towards the system, no-gi devouts, I ain't trying to hate. I'm just trying to elevate my game and looking for any help I can get. I referenced Advanced rubber guard today and got a nice review of basic principles, but am open to any experiences with having success in the gi.

Side note: this is post #420 for me. Cheers

[Amber Kamischke]

I've actually found the electric chair to be more effective for me in the gi. I don't even need the underhook on the Lockdown side to get the sweep. I've found it difficult to get the submission on women so I go straight for the sweep. Use the gi to your advantage and grab on the pant leg of the loose leg. That will prevent them from swinging it over. Use your Lockdown to move them and get them off base. Don't forget to push in the armpit as you're rolling too so they get off balance.

I hope that all made sense and helps. It took me a while but I've learned to use the gi to my advantage in these positions. They may be able to pin both shoulders on the mat using the gi but the electric chair sweep is my go to when that happens since you don't have to whip up to hit it.

[Solicit]

I don't quite understand what you mean when you say "guys putting their thumb in my collar and keeping their base", but when you whip down and hike that leg up on your shoulder, you should be checking that far arm and eventually trying to double heisman the close arm with the leg on your shoulder to keep them from turning back in to you. The gi should help you a little bit with that because you can just grab the back of their arm cloth or sleeve (or wherever you can) instead of having to c-cup the tricep. Get up onto your elbow and belly down to finish it by twisting their groin and not so much just stretching their legs out.

I'll post a couple videos of me hitting an electric chair in the gi. Maybe you'll see something that will help you. They aren't perfect by any means but they worked. I also hit one in no gi that day.

[Solicit]

This was my finals match in the gi.

[Solicit]

Here is one I hit in no gi, but you can see what I mean when I go electric hooks and then whipdown, I'm trying to use my left arm to check his far arm from turning back into me. Again, white belt level but the principals are there (I hope lol).

[Arman Fathi]

These all make sense. Thx for the tips. I guess I haven't grabbed his pants enough and been trying to go to a tight electric clinch, which in gi isn't quite as necessary and perhaps even overkill. The whip is always useful and there are principals I'm doing that get me mostly there. Like I said, I can get pretty far just off what I do in no-gi but there's just gotta be some tweaks for the gi game. I'll play around with these ideas.

[Gray]

I don't quite understand what you mean when you say "guys putting their thumb in my collar and keeping their base"

He's referring to the crossface you have to eat from the half guard in the gi. I am bad at terminology, but I think the answer is the angry rainbow? That and going under for the electric chair is a way to get around a particularly mean and committed crossface.

[Arman Fathi]

He's referring to the crossface you have to eat from the half guard in the gi. I am bad at terminology, but I think the answer is the angry rainbow? That and going under for the electric chair is a way to get around a particularly mean and committed crossface.

Yea that's pretty much it. It's basically a crossface where the guy has cloth to grab onto to create leverage on his arm to give a crossface about 5x worse than no-gi. Putting their thumb into my collar could be a variation where they're using that as a post to prevent me from swimming under. Anything with handles creates greater leverage.

[Joshua Jarboe]

Wasn't able to read all the comments here, but I've found a gi hack that I really like.

Imagine that you are locking down his right leg (it's on your left side. That's my strongest lockdown side).

If you can use your right hand to fish out his lapel and get it over to your left side (it should be pulling strongly under his armpit), your whip can become strong enough to shrug out of his grip on your head. The power of you lefting his leg and using that lapel grip to pull him in the same direction....it's very much more difficult for my game opponents to resist.

When I go for the whip, I have to use my arms and legs to lift him up and off my head before turning him.

I think there's an abstract principle there too for making no-gi stuff work in the gi: sometimes they're going to use the gi to cheat. Sometimes you have to use the gi to cheat too.

My two cents.