Most times you have a juji gatame arm bar you also have a triangle available: The positioning for arm bars and triangles is such that WHENEVER YOU HAVE one, YOU ALMOST ALWAYS HAVE THE OTHER AVAILABLE. Triangles have the inherent advantage that they a locked around your opponents head and shoulder and hence much tighter. Also, triangles offer the dual benefits of a strangle as well as an arm lock and also, you can attack the joints from a triangle as well or even better than you can from a conventional juji gatame position. For these reasons it is often worth your time to switch your legs from the classic arm bar to a triangle when working for your submission. At little cost you will soon find yourself exerting considerably more control and with more finishing options. Here, Gordon Ryan takes an Ollie to from a brutal arm bar into a still more brutal triangle variation that makes escape very unlikely and allows him to choose his next attack in a leisurely fashion. Next time you are in arm bar position, play around with transitions to triangle variations – front, side, rear and reverse – and see what kind of havoc you can create
