Omoplata in Portuguese Does Not Translate To

"A monkey making sweet love to a football."

But it probably should, at least in regards to the Omoplata in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Instead, Omaplata is Portuguese for the scapula, derived from the ancient Greek word for shoulder rather than the Latin word scapula.  The Omoplata in BJJ gets its name as it is a shoulder lock, and a very effective one it is, too, once you actually maneuver in place to lock it in.

Here's a video demonstrating the Omoplata:

 As you can see, there's a fair bit going on.  Once locked in place however, the Omoplata is a pretty surefire way to get your attacker to give up or disable themselves.

With my hip still not being 100%, my finish was more of a pull myself up to the opponent's other side shoulder than the graceful hip flip to upright you see in the video.  The video makes it look easy - for me learning it the first time, not so much.  

In short, me and the monkey were having a romantic time with a football learning this technique. I made it work, but it wasn't pretty getting there.

There are variants, and we learned a few of them.  I found I could get into the Omoplata a lot easier when holding the attacker in 3/4 guard, and it's a great opportunity to do the move if you're in that position and the attacker turns their head the wrong way, thus creating an opening for the move.

We then learned the Go Go Plata, which is the response you use when the attacker tries to sit up and pull away from the Omoplata - you adjust your feet and they get choked out rather quickly from your feet fully choking their neck.   Rather fun, if a tad vicious as it sets in real quick and hard.

You can also shift the opponent into a triangle choke if they try and move their arm to protect it from the Omoplata, and then shift back to the Omoplata when they try and defend the triangle.

BJJ, after all, is all about leading your attacker down a path to worse and worse options to make them regret their bad life choices, with attacking you being one of those bad life choices.

So yep, I need a lot more practice with the Omoplata to make it effective and I'm rather sore from my initial lesson learning it  as my hip is not appreciating moving that much, but will be doing a lot more practice with it later this week.