Everyone says that moving your hips is one of the keys to jiu-jitsu. And they’re absolutely right: the correct movement of the hips is critical not only for escaping bad positions, but also for applying submissions, sweeping your opponent, passing the guard and much more. Traditionally an exercise called ‘shrimping’ is often used in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu to develop hip movement. This … [Read more...]
Napoleon and How To Be Ready for Anything in BJJ
Napoleon Bonaparte may have been a megalomaniac who left millions dead in his wake, but if you read about his battles and military campaigns there is no doubt that he was a strategic and tactical genius. (Well, maybe he wasn't a genius when he invaded Russia in 1812, but before that he was damn near unstoppable...) He fought over sixty battles in his lifetime, during which he was … [Read more...]
A Simple Tweak to Develop a Powerful Bridge in BJJ
The bridge is one of the most important movements in all of BJJ. It is one of the three critical pin escape movements and can be used to escape almost every bad position. For example, the classic (and highly effective) 'Upa' mount escape would not exist without bridging your hips high up to ceiling before turning your body and getting out of the mount. And my favourite way of escaping … [Read more...]
A Triangle Choke Escape that Requires Almost No Training…
Years ago I came back from an Indonesian Silat training camp led by Dan Inosanto. I showed up at BJJ class the next day and was telling a few guys about how much I had enjoyed the training. One guy with a slightly smartass tone asked me, "How would a Silat guy escape from my triangle choke then?" It turns out that there IS a very effective, super high percentage Silat escape to the … [Read more...]
The 4 Most Common Errors For The ‘Upa’ Mount Escape
The 'Upa' (or 'Bridge and Roll') is probably the very first mount escape that a beginner ever learns. It's taught as part of the basic curriculum for a very simple reason: it works! You see this escape in MMA, submission grappling, and BJJ competition with the gi. I've used it as a white belt, blue belt, purple belt, brown belt and black belt. Contrary to what some people will tell you is … [Read more...]
How to Escape Kesa Gatame and the Headlock
Kesa Gatame is one of the most under-utilized positions in BJJ. People in jiu-jitsu tend to ignore this position but generations of judo players and wrestlers have proved that Kesa Gatame IS a powerful and effective way to pin someone. And - even worse for someone caught in it - Kesa Gatame is also a great entry into some very effective armlocks, leglocks, neck cranks and diaphragm … [Read more...]
Don’t Build Your BJJ Game on White Belt Techniques.
Certain BJJ techniques are 'white belt' moves. Which means they might be effective against white belts (and sometimes blue belts) but then stop working once you move up to opponents of a higher skill level. Basically you can pull off just about anything on a newbie. They make rookie mistakes because they're, well, rookies. Whitebelts don't instinctively know how to move to prevent, defend or … [Read more...]
How to Defend Strikes on the Ground
You're walking down the street, someone bumps you, words are exchanged, you get pushed to the ground, and now some big gorilla is trying to knock your teeth down your throat. No matter how focused you are on the sportive aspects of grappling you've still GOTTA know how to defend strikes on the ground!!! It doesn't matter if your goal is casual recreation or if you wanna be the next UFC … [Read more...]
A Better Armbar?
The armbar, as it is usually taught, involves using BOTH of your hands or arms to control ONE of your opponent's arms. This two-on-one control can be used when trying to break through your opponent's defenses, as in the photo below: The two-on-one arm control is usually retained right until your opponent taps out to the finalized armbar, as in the following photo: Now this regular … [Read more...]
How To Use Moves You Already Know to Do Advanced Techniques
We've just launched the latest Grapplearts BJJ instructional mobile app with my friend Brandon 'Wolverine' Mullins. It's called Advanced BJJ Fundamentals. The name of this app isn't accidental, because it's all about using the fundamental building blocks of jiu-jitsu to make learning easier, to amplify the effectiveness and reliability of your techniques, and to build an advanced … [Read more...]
The Simplest Mount Escape for MMA and BJJ?
In BJJ the Mount is one of the very worst positions you can be in. And if punches are flying in either an MMA or a self defense context then things are much, much worse. The truth is that if you find yourself mounted in a fight then you screwed up a long time ago. Your opponent is either more lucky or more skillful than you. That being said, if you have good mount escape techniques it IS … [Read more...]
The Three Ways to Escape ANY Submission…
Jiu-jitsu has hundreds of submissions including chokes, cranks, armlocks, wristlocks, kneebars, footlocks, crushes, and many other ways to make people tap out. But if you're caught in a submission - any submission - there are only three ways to get out. This relates to the timing of the defense: before, during or after. Let's go through them, one by one... … [Read more...]
A Little-Known Move to Recover Guard from Turtle
When BJJ world champion Brandon Mullins and I started talking about doing a second instructional set, he was adamant about including a section focusing on the advanced applications of fundamental movements. I was initially dubious. I didn't think that most people would be interested in this. But the more we talked about it, and especially when he started showing me what he wanted to cover, I … [Read more...]
How NOT to Get Triangle Choked While Passing the Guard
The very first guard pass I learned was the stacking guard pass (also known as the smashing guard pass or sometimes the 'over under' pass). Initially I was doing this pass all wrong, and I can't even begin to count how many times I got triangle choked trying it. But eventually I learned a few tweaks that made it much harder for my opponents to apply the triangle choke, and now it's one of my … [Read more...]
BJJ Self Defense Part 5: Defending the Low Tech (and Deadly) Headlock!
One of single biggest errors you can make when you're practising a martial art is to assume that everybody else practices that same martial art. Let me explain that... Boxers spend 99.9% of their time learning how to fight other boxers. Wrestlers train to attack with, and defend against, wrestling techniques. … [Read more...]
BJJ Self Defense Part 2: Escaping the Mount
The first time I ever saw the Mount position was during a schoolyard fight in grade one. One kid pushed the other kid to the ground, climbed on top, sat on his chest in the classic bully position, and then absolutely dominated the fight. He punched and slapped and taunted the other kid who was completely unable to do anything about it until the fight was broken up by the teachers. The kid on … [Read more...]
A Time to FREAK OUT!
When it comes to sparring, many BJJ rookies just freak out for the whole session. Every grip is a deathgrip, they spaz out when they're in the guard, and then push with every bit of their strength the whole time that they're pinned on the bottom. And then they get tired... … [Read more...]
Five Great Followups to a Failed Triangle Choke
The Triangle Choke is definitely another one of those Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu signature moves. It's a super-powerful submission and it is responsible for ending a LOT of BJJ, MMA and submission grappling matches. But the sad fact is that no submission works for everyone, or on every opponent all the time... For example, sometimes your legs can be too short to apply an effective triangle … [Read more...]
The Highest Percentage Rear Mount Escape
There's one specific rear mount escape you'll see more than any other in high level competition... It's also my 'go to' escape when I'm sparring with tough training partners... And to top it off, this technique works with the gi, without the gi, and in MMA! … [Read more...]
A Sneaky Armbar Escape
The armbar escape in the video below is one of my favourite armbar defenses. I like it because it's simple and effective against a wide variety of grapplers, but also because of the reaction it gets from people who were oh-so-close to armbarring you. They'll either laugh or swear out loud after you get out; either reaction is pretty gratifying! I learned this from MMA trainer and former … [Read more...]