6309 SW Capitol Highway, Portland OR, 97239
503 432 7450
info@southwestportlandmartialarts.com
Summer is coming! Sing, cukoo, sing. The meadow is blooming, the woods are throwing out all the leaves, and it’s time to train at Southwest Portland Martial Arts.
Pretty sure that’s how that poem goes.
Anyway, terrible paraphrases aside, we’re running an amazing special. Pay us $100 and you can train from now until August 31st. You get 100% of our classes – yoga, martial arts, and CrossFit.
What’s the catch? No catch, but the offer is limited to new students only, and only to folks 13 years old and older. Sorry, no kids for this special (check back in when the next school year starts.) Go here to sign up.
SW Portland Martial Arts Blog
Summertime
May 25th, 2026Bow and Arrow Choke
May 24th, 2026
There are so many ways to choke out someone in BJJ, it’s probably impossible to know them all but there are also a core group of chokes that most folks should know. The bow and arrow choke for the Gi, in my opinion, is one of those that you should probably learn.
Why? Because it isn’t a dead end. You can use it after failing other chokes, and there are chokes that come off of it if it fails.
A dead end move is what it sounds like: you try it, and if it doesn’t work, you have to settle back into whatever position you tried it from. There should be a name for moves that lead to other moves… a connector? A lego? A progression? Whatever we call it, submissions that lead to other submissions, or to improvements in position, are generally more useful than those that don’t.
Row
May 17th, 2026
Since the rower is just a machine, there’s no technique to it, right?
Wrong. We’re going to spend the next 10 weeks working on rowing technique. That doesn’t mean we’ll do it everyday, but there will be rowing in at least one workout a week and we’ll try to use it as a warmup and talk about technique at least two times a week.
For today, we talked about the speed of the pull versus the speed of the return. As a general rule, you should pull the handle about twice as fast as you let it return. Why? Because then you can put more power into each stroke. If you don’t let the rower spin down, you can’t make it go faster.
Try it. I was shocked to see I was keeping a faster pace and getting a longer rest between pulls.
Limp Arm
May 15th, 2026
Sometimes, your arm gets stuck. If your partner has deliberately captured it and is holding on tight… you might be able to solve the problem by using the limp arm.
Contrary to the name, it doesn’t simply mean letting your arm go limp. That’s part of it, but the other parts are changing position (or waiting for your partner to change the position) and then whipping the arm while it is limp.
So, suppose you’re in dogfight and your partner has a strong overhook on your arm. If (as you have so many times before) you tense up and try and use strength to escape, it might work, but the better your partner is the less likely this strategy instead. Try dropping your shoulder, letting your arm go limp, and then whipping the limb out of the trap. That is the limp arm.
This scenario comes up in standing positions and lots of other places. A very similar situation happens when your leg is trapped from a kick catch or a single leg attempt – that’s when instead of doing the limp arm technique, you get to do the limp leg technique (that’s not actually the name, but the techniques are remarkably similar – except you drop the hip instead of the shoulder and whip the leg instead of the arm.)
Want to learn more? Come try our BJJ classes anytime or enjoy the full panoply of our Martial Arts schedule.
Women’s BJJ
May 2nd, 2026
Having you been wishing for a women’s only BJJ class to appear on our schedule? Your wish has been fulfilled. Starting today, May 2nd, at 3pm, there is now a class open to all female identifying folks ages 13 and up.
The content will be, as it is with all our classes, tailored to fit who shows up. That means if you’re brand new to the game or if you’ve been in it for years, you are welcome. It also means if you’re in peak physical condition or you’re just coming off of an injury, you are welcome.
Check out our full BJJ schedule here and enjoy a free week. For this class we are also offering sliding scale drop in fees so if our monthly membership feels like an exorbitant cost, pay what you can.