Sunday Field Notes: Oct 26th, 2025
Weekly Thoughts, Mistakes, and Accomplishments
📝 Field Notes
Three Thoughts from This Week
Calling My Shot
I recently fell in love with the Mounted Arm Bar. I’m finding new ways to isolate both arms and jam my opponent up in a way that it hard to escape. With that in mind, I’ve now started to let my training partners know that I’ll be submitting them via Mounted Arm Bar.
This isn’t meant to be cocky. I genuinely need them to defend the entire process to their best ability.
My goal being to pass the guard, transition to mount, isolate the arms, slide into S-Mount, then finish with an Arm Bar.
Building Up Instructors
Something that I’m working on is building up instructors and coaches. I would love to get to the point where the 5am Dawnbreakers program is in good hands when I’m out of town or sick. But I would also love to see my students develop their programs on their and branching out outside of our home gym.
Taking Some Time Away
It’s been such a tough year. Work has demanded so much of me and I don’t remember the last time I took sometime off. It may have been April Bjj Mental Models Camp.
Normally, I want to check out Jiu-Jitsu gyms when I travel but I decided to pass hoping to disconnect for a bit.
New Tapped In: A Jiu-Jitsu Podcast Episode Out Today!!
E67 | Positional Playbook: Butterfly Guard
My Kimura Gripping Approach
Stop grabbing at the wrist and start grabbing the hand with your fingers on the inside of your opponent’s palm.
What it does..
You can force the gap between their elbow and ribs to stay open for you.
Makes it hard for them to gain a solid defensive grip.
Thank you for reading.
David Figueroa-Martinez
Founder, DFM Coaching
Coach | Writer | Grappler
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