Here is an excerpt from a soon-to-be-released book that I’ve been working on called “A Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-jitsu“:

Keeping the top position is a contentious issue. To illustrate the debate, let’s consider the one of the classic BJJ techniques: a straight armbar from Mount. If you manage to pull it off and apply the armbar then that’s great, the match is over. If your opponent manages to defend against the armbar, however, then you will typically end up on the bottom, in Guard. Going for that armbar means that you are accepting the risk of trading a superior position (Mount) for a neutral position (Guard). Some instructors and coaches will encourage you to go for that armbar, while others find the risk of losing top position unacceptable.

As with all attempts to balance risk and reward balancing acts, however, everyone has their own comfort zone. Some BJJ practitioners are perfectly happy to abandon top position to pursue a submission, whereas other, more conservative, practitioners prefer submissions that don’t yield the top position if the submission attempt fails.

If you are competing in mixed martial arts (MMA) or are in a self defense situation then I would think long and hard before abandoning the precious top position. Any time you end up on the bottom in a context that includes striking there is always the chance that your opponent, with gravity on his side, could slip some heavy punches, elbows or headbutts through your defenses. If, on the other hand, your emphasis is more oriented towards sport BJJ or submission grappling then you have a more latitude about ending up on the bottom. Being on the bottom in a sport BJJ context isn’t so bad if you have a good Guard game.

One of the decisions you’ll have to make at some point in your BJJ career is where YOU stand on the issue of keeping the top position. Even if you become a die-hard top position player, there are still several reasons why you should still learn and occasionally practice submissions with an inherent risk of you ending up on the bottom.

First, it may help your athletic development, and make you feel more comfortable in scrambles where positions aren’t so clear cut and the role of the combatants (i.e. top vs. bottom) changes very rapidly.

Second, an opponent may reverse you and send you to the bottom against your will – feeling comfortable with these techniques may allow you to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat en route to the bottom.

Finally it will allow you to better counter these techniques should an opponent try them on you; because the best way to learn to counter a technique is to know how to apply it yourself.

A large part of jiu-jitsu is using your weight to immobilize your opponent; “crushing the bug” as it is sometimes referred to. When done properly, the application of your body weight from the top position can be enough to submit your opponent by making it impossible for him to breath. Even if your opponent doesn’t actually tap out, one of these diaphragm chokes can take much of the wind out his sails and reduce his will to fight.

A barrier to learning the nuances of body positioning and weight distribution necessary for this level of pinning is that most people have no way to gauge the effectiveness of what they are doing. In today’s newsletter I’m going to share the ABC method of teaching weight distribution, a powerful way to get immediate feedback on the effectiveness of your pins.

Imagine being back in school and writing a test, with a teacher standing right behind you. Would you score higher on that test if your teacher were to give you encouragement, saying “yes, that’s it”, whenever you started writing down the right answer? Of course you would – getting immediate feedback always helps your performance.

So try this:

Start out by pinning your partner in side mount or knee mount – these are the two easiest positions to initially apply this in. Now get your partner to slowly recite the alphabet, saying “A, B, C, D…”, out loud. If he is able to speak easily then there is something wrong with your positioning; most likely you are putting too much weight onto the mat instead of onto your opponent.

Now adjust your position: try getting off of your knees, lifting your elbows, shifting your weight from his belly onto his diaphragm, etc. When it becomes hard for him to breathe and his recitation starts to sound labored – “A ….. gasp …. B ….. gurgle …….. c-c-c …..” – then you’ve got it right!

If you’re an instructor teaching a class then give the ABC method a try. It makes for a very effective demonstration, because it leaves no doubt in anyone’s mind that the pinning position is, in itself, an offensive weapon.

I have written other tips and articles on this topic, which you can check out by going to these additional resources:

• Crushing the Bug
• Choking the Diaphragm
• How to make side mount heavier

Take care
Stephan Kesting

As we’ve discussed in previous posts, achieving good posture when pinned under your opponent is the first, and often the most critical, step in the escape process. Today we’ll address how to achieve good posture on the bottom while your opponent is doing everything he can to prevent it.

Most of the time when I am on the bottom I use one of two strategies to get into proper posture:

1 – Use your bridge. The bridge is an important escape motion, but it is also a useful tool to create space, allowing you to move your hands, forearms and elbows into position.

For one example of this concept, let’s say that you are trying to get to the following position (more more fully described in this tip):

To do this posture correctly you have to get your left hand under your opponent’s armpit by sneaking your hand between your chest and your opponent’s chest. Too much friction and too little room can make this a difficult task. One solution is to do a series of short little bridges, one right after the other: every time you bounce your opponent his chest pressure lessens momentarily, and that means you can sneak your hand a little bit closer to its goal. Of course you should save some energy, because as soon as you get to your posture you need to do a big bridge to throw your opponent up and come out the back door!

2 – Posturing during the pass. In every successful guard pass there comes a point when the person on bottom realizes that getting pinned is inevitable. THIS is when the bottom person should start fighting for posture, NOT once the guard pass is finalized and his opponent’s position is stabilized. It is much easier to establish posture in the final few moments of the guard pass than it is to fight to get your limbs into position under a tight side control.

It takes beginners a while to grasp this concept because they don’t know how to posture, and also because they have difficulty recognizing the point of no return in a guard pass. The solution to this problem is time on the mats.

Intermediate-level grapplers – roughly blue belt level in BJJ terminology – sometimes also have problems grasping this concept, but for different reasons. These grapplers have learned many things since they were beginners, including:

1. how to prevent common guard passes, and
2. how to relax while pinned on the bottom.

However in this case, 1 plus 2 equals premature relaxation; they settle into ‘being pinned mode’ a second or two too early, instead of fighting to establish posture in the final stages of the guard pass.

If you are grappling someone who relaxes prematurely it goes something like this: you battle to get your grips and establish posture, you finally figure out a way to uncross their ankles, you control the legs and hips with difficulty, you force the guard pass as they try to wriggle out of it, and then, all of a sudden, they just give up and lie on the mat like a starfish. The solution lies in their training partners recognizing the problem, printing out this tip and giving it to them.

Set your escapes up early by fighting for posture before your opponent has stabilized his position: you won’t be sorry you did. If you are already pinned then try to imagine yourself as a ratchet: every time your create space, or are given space by your opponent, your limbs move into better posture and never give up the ground you’ve gained.

Practitioners of grappling in general, and BJJ in particular, quickly learn about the importance of posture, most typically in the context of being in an opponent’s guard. If you have bad posture in the guard you will get swept and submitted all the time; by adopting good posture you can stabilize the top position and get ready to try your own techniques (i.e. guard passes).

Back when I was a blue belt it was a revelation to me to learn that the concept of posture can be applied in other positions as well. I was watching Michael Jen teach pin escapes on video, and he started talking about the importance of posture when trapped in sidemount. If I remember correctly, he went on to explain how correct posture would make your escapes easier and also make it much harder for your opponent to submit you. This changed my way of thinking when it came to setting up my escapes from bad positions.

Posture is important anytime you’re vulnerable to submissions, including when you’re trapped on the bottom. If you’re trapped in the mount, for example, bad posture might include having your hand on your opponent’s chest, making yourself vulnerable to the armbar. Good posture in the mount might consist of having one leg straight and turned outwards, the other leg bent and based on the mat, your body turned slightly towards the straight leg and both elbows tight against your ribs. In this position you’re much less vulnerable to the quick and easy submissions and much more ready to start your own escape.

Most of the time good posture on the bottom will help create some maneuvering room by pushing on your opponent using the stronger parts of your body (elbows, forearms, knees) while limiting the ways in which he can anchor onto your body or limbs. Achieving and maintaining good posture while on the bottom against a skilled opponent isn’t easy, however, because he will be doing everything he can to disrupt your defensive posture. If you’re skilled at your pin escapes then the primary battle often lies in achieving good posture, and once you finally get to your posture then the escape happens almost by itself and without much effort.

A Reader Asked:

I keep getting trapped in side control. Sometimes I can’t even get my hips loose to attempt an escape. Some of the guys I train with are really good and get so tight, epecially trapping my hips between their knee and arm, that I can’t move my hips at all. I keep bridging but to no avail. I know a few good escapes that I usually have a lot of luck with, but I wanted to know if there are any little tricks for loosening up the guy on top. How can I loosen the knee and elbow from my hips?”

My answer:

It sounds like your opponents are controlling you in side mount by sandwiching your hips with a knee on one side of your hips and an elbow on the other. This is a good pinning position, and I use it myself fairly often.

First we’ll review a bit of theory:

TWO ESCAPES

There are two fundamental escapes from sidemount:

1. Putting your opponent into your guard
2. Coming to your knees (aka turtling).

THREE MOVEMENTS

To set up these two escapes you have you have 3 basic hip movements

1. Bridging (lifting your hips up and/or into your opponent)
2. Shrimping (moving your hips away from your opponent)
3. Turning (moving your hips so they face the mat)

MANY POSTURES

In order to use these 3 movements to set up the 2 escapes efficiently you need to fight for posture on the bottom. One of the most important postural issues is where you place your hands and arms – call it gripfighting for the positionally disadvantaged. Posture on the bottom is a huge topic, and all I’ll say here is that you need to do things like hide your arms so they aren’t susceptible to jointlocks, but ensure that they are in position to push your opponent to make room (e.g. by placing the lower part of your forearm on his neck or on his hip).

SOME STRATEGY

OK, now I’ve given a crash course in sidemount escape theory, let’s try to look at your situation specifically.

First of all I’ll give you some bad news: at a higher level bridging or shrimping rarely work in isolation. It is the bridge that sets up shrimping, and shrimping that sets up bridging. In practical terms it means that you might bridge HARD into your opponent, and then move your hips away and try to come to your knees or place him in guard.

Secondly, reading between the lines it sounds like you are focussing on putting your opponents back into the guard. It might be time to diversify your escapes by trying to come to your knees more. If his elbow is low enough to control your hips then it should be possible to turn belly down. If he was keeping his arms higher and concentrating on locking down your upper body and arms, then turning to turtle might be a lot harder.

It is true that coming to your knees exposes your back and that you may end up rear-mounted, but the turtle can be a good thing too. Many people go to turtle and then immediately pull guard from there – they don’t really hang out there, just pass through it briefly on their way to pulling guard or half guard. If you are more adventuresome you can also try sweeps, takedowns and submissions when turtled: Sakuraba is a fighter who did this very successfully at various points in his MMA career.

Last week we started a conversation about how to make yourself feel heavier while pinning your opponent. One way to do this is to take any weight you’re placing directly on the ground, and to place it on your opponent. An example will help illustrate this strategy.

Suppose that you have your opponent pinned in side control. You are on his right side, your left arm is going under his head, your right arm is going through his far (left) armpit and your hands are clasped. Your legs are bent and your knees are beside his body.

Let’s look at what parts of your body are touching the ground. The list probably includes:

1. your left elbow
2. your left hand/wrist
3. your right elbow
4. your right hand/wrist
5. your left knee
6. your left foot
7. your right knee
8. your right foot

It is important to realize that each time a part of your body rests on the floor it removes weight that could be placed on your opponent.

Suppose that you slightly lift your elbows and hands off the floor by pulling them towards your own body. You’re not trying to squeeze him with your arms, only to remove weight from the floor. Suppose you straighten your left leg out behind you so that only the ball of your left foot is making contact with the mat – you are also driving off left leg to pressure into your opponent.

In this scenario you’re only touching the mat with the following body parts:

1. your left foot
2. your right knee (placed at his hip to prevent reguarding)
3. your right foot

With these changes your opponent now has to carry a great deal more weight. If you are doing it correctly most of the weight transfer will occur where your left shoulder is driving into his neck region, a most uncomfortable scenario for the guy on the bottom.

Now there are MANY variations of sidemount, and MANY different ways to make yourself heavier. I am giving you ONE example to illustrate what I am talking about; please don’t take it as the only possibility.

I realize that photos might make this explanation clearer, and those will have to wait until I write a full-fledged article on the topic. The exact placement of your hands and arms and feet and knees isn’t actually all that central to this discussion; the important thing is the principle of taking weight off the mat and putting it on your opponent. If you understand this principle you can invent your own limb placements and pinning positions.

Sometimes when you’re grappling you might want to play ‘crush the bug’, totally immobilizing your opponent with your bodyweight and making it difficult for him to even breath. Obviously this is easier to do if you weigh 300 pounds, but most grapplers don’t position themselves properly to maximize the bodyweight they do have. In the next few weeks I will give you a few pointers that might make you feel 50 pounds heavier when you are on top.

To start with I am going to ask you a few questions:

1. When you are pinning your opponent in sidemount, what is supporting your body? What parts of your body are placing weight on the mat and/or by your opponent?
2. What is supporting your weight when you are in mount?
3. What parts of your body are carrying your weight in kneemount?

Now that you’ve thought about that I will leave you with one final question: what can you do in each of these positions to ensure that you are putting more of your weight on your opponent and less on the mat? The answer to this is one of the keys to playing ‘crush the bug’ successfully.

Next week I’ll give you some of my thoughts on the specific things you can do to make yourself heavier.