Side submissions

Submitting your opponent

Whatever submission you are going for, the important thing is to be careful not to give away control when setting it up. The moment when the person on top goes for a submission is very often the moment when the bottom person will make his escape.

Submissions can be roughly divided into armbars, bent armlocks, chokes/collar chokes and leglocks. The possibilities are endless so I’ll leave you with some free videos I found on the net. See if you can figure out how to work them together into flowing combinations!

Americana and Kimura variations

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSwja0FKUMU

Gi choke to armbar or kimura

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnHqYtMP6mU

Arm compression and Shaolin choke variation from side (Spanish)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6GjICTSDds

Choke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNfNh6avg-k

Triangle and kimura from under diaper check

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giZJ-8CtEXI

Far side armbar 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8rp6Fd4ZGE

Far side armbar 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qinDDaDtOc

Odd armbar entry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVoaEJiY9xE

Kneebar from side control

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6280073366392382222&q=bjj+side

Books I recommend

Although the title of this book is Ultimate Fighting, it is in fact devoted to gi bjj techniques. Royce Gracie explains a myriad of useful techniques for finishing the fight from on top of your opponent in a top quality book filled with clear photos.

Rubber Guard

If you haven't seen this rubber guard video yet, it's worth a look. There used to be 3 of these out there.

Part 1


Highlights from an Eddie Bravo seminar


Rubber guard finishes


Some very rough garage grappling (not me!)


Books I recommend
Both of Eddie's books are well worth a look.

Mastering the Rubber Guard


Jiu-jitsu Unleashed

Locks from Mount

Locks

Americana


Americana (Off S-mount)


Similar technique


Ryron and Rener armbar (with sweet grip breaking technique)


Armbar (Off a turn to the side)


3 Armbars (Off S-mount)


Knee bar
Move one foot inwards so it rests on the inside of O’s thigh
Spin round to the same side and grab the leg with your arms
Fall off and extend the leg for the kneebar
Apologies for the very basic explanation! I couldn’t find any videos for this One tip I find very useful is, rather than thrusting my crotch forward to get the kneebar tap, I try to extend my whole body, especially my legs.

Neck crank to armbar Notice how Paulson doesn’t fall off to the side – ideally you should never give away top position.



Similar style armbar


Toehold


Toehold from under mount (!)


Books I recommend
No-one should be without this awesome book by BJ Penn. This goes for around £20 in Waterstones so save yourself some money with Amazon.

Chokes from Mount

Chokes from Mount

“Anaconda Vice”


Arm triangle
Closest clip I could find - from side


Brabo
(Off elbow escape) Check out Bjorn's excellent Brabo instructionals


Cross collar choke
Demonstrated by Ninjas… No-one’s going to lay there while you do this unfortunately.You have to be careful with this one as once you put an arm into the collar you cannot use it to post out when O bridges.


Ezekiel (Gi)The mechanics – shown from guard

Ezekiel (No gi)
Thank you Frodo!


Ezekiel (Own lapel)

Guillotine


Gogoplata
There's a less subtle version of this where you simply bring your shin across O's throat and pull up on the back of his head.

Triangle
It’s not a great example I'm afraid.

Wrist locks

Simple wrist locks

Wrist locks are an interesting technique in BJJ. Most people don't seem to use them much possibly because they are seen as cheap or liable to cause injury. Another reason they are overlooked might be that people feel they are not the "fight-ending" technique that, for example, a kimura is.

On the other hand (get it? please yourselves), they are extremely painful, they take away the use of one of your opponent's hands and might be easier to explain in court than an armbar. In addition, wrist locks are worth practicing even if all you learn is how to avoid them.

Spazzing out and wrenching your partner's wrists is a good way to make your partner angry, however, when done smoothly wrist locks can be valid techniques. I suggest you mention to your partner that you want to carefully incorporate wrist locks into your roll beforehand if you do not usually practice them.

Basics
To effect a wrist lock, you will need to immobilise the arm at the elbow before bending the wrist either forwards or backwards by pushing on the hand.
To defend a wrist lock, you will need to nullify one of these control points. In other words, either free your elbow or protect your hand.

The simplest way to defend a wrist lock is to bring the other hand over and grab the hand that is being attacked. Accordingly, we need to be alert and avoid situations where one arm is isolated and vulnerable. Without the support of your other hand you are simply going to have to squirm your elbow or hand out of the lock as fast as possible.

Now lets look at some of the positions where we can apply wrist locks. This is by no means an exclusive list!

Side
Control the elbow with both arms with a hugging grip as you use your chest to bend the far wrist inwards. This one won't always be there but the opportunity sometimes arises for it.

Wrap O's lapel around the outside of his arm, trapping his elbow against his body. Secure the lapel with your head side arm. Grab his wrist with your leg side arm and push it inwards for the tap.

Spider web position (sitting out for a juji-gatame/armbar)
O is folding his arm towards his body to escape the armlock, grab his wrist with both hands and pull it in towards you.

Guard
Praying Mantis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wfIT6rz8KQ

A sneaky wristlock can be employed when O stiffarms you back onto the ground. Grab behind his elbow with both hands and sit up, curling inwards and away from his other hand as much as possible. his wrist will be bent back against your chest and he will be forced to tap.

When O has your back
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPxltLz0ueU


Omoplata
A wrist lock is an easy way to finish an opponent from the omoplata position. The arm is isolated and held in position by your legs. Simply bend the wrist.

Triangle
You can't really see what's happening here but the wrist lock can be performed on the trapped arm by bending it inwards (the elbow is locked in place by your legs). If he tries to defend with his other arm try switching to a kimura on that arm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXsAGM9Iyak


Switch between the armbar, wrist lock and kimura from the triangle until you get the tap.

Mount
Here's an odd one that shows what you can do if you're creative.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUvvOI7bXuM



Random
It's difficult to see clearly but this vid might give you some ideas. The uke screams horribly throughout which is annoying but there are some legit techniques in there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UoghCk_8FE


Standing
Here's a simple standing lock flow.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lpKuPDhPh0

An explanation of simple standing wristlocks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVX0UtThpN8

Another flow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vSokq5xoZE


This kali vid has some nice lock flows from about 5.36 onwards.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWSi_X0Gpm4


Hope this has helped!

Closed guard basics

Closed guard

"How did Ricardo Arona get in my guard? Maybe he took me down, it doesn't matter, maybe I just woke up one morning and Ricardo Arona was in my guard. Here's what I'm gonna do."
Mario Sperry (Stolen from RadBoy's signature!)

Contents

1. Posture
2. Good posture for O
3. Good posture for you
4. Grips
5. Unbalancing O
6. Left/Right
7. Forward
8. Backward
9. General advice
10. Be active
11. Relax
    
12. Be ready to open your guard
13. Avoiding submissions
14. When your guard is passed
15. Guard techniques
16. Collar and lapel chokes
17. Shoulderlocks
18. Sweeps
19. Ways to take the back
20. Miscellaneous
21. Books I recommend
    

Posture
Good posture for O
Good posture for O is to be upright, one or both hands controlling your hips in some way, his weight based out making him difficult to sweep. From here O will attempt to open your guard and either pass or attack with a leg lock.
Check the start of this clip with Gustavo Dantas to see an example of such posture.
Here is another example of O taking a strong posture to control the hips.
O will want to keep his arms free so he can post out to avoid having his posture broken/being swept. If you want to sweep him, you have to control the arm on the side you want to sweep.

Good posture for you
You want the opposite of what O wants.

• Keep your hands free
  
• Keep your hips free
• Keep him off balance
• Control his arm/hand on the side you want to sweep
  

Grips
To break O's posture you will need to get a dominant grip and stop O from gaining a good grip on you. In gi BJJ you can grab the sleeve at the wrist, behind the elbow or inside his collar. Check this clip for some gi grip ideas.
I usually grab across my body (my right hand to his right sleeve, elbow or collar and vice versa). I also like sticking my hand in the collar to threaten the choke and get some good pulling leverage.
In no-gi, you will be looking for underhooks, overhooks and to wrap the neck. Check out this clip for some no gi ideas.
Of course, these positions are possible in gi BJJ too although the feel is different.

Unbalancing O
Once you have your grip, ways to offset O include:

Left or right
Armdrag
Pull one of his arms across his body and hug him to you so that your body blocks the elbow from retracting.
See Frodo do it here.
Note the little bridge he does at the start to help break O's grip.

Forward

• Grab and fall

Sit up, grab O and fall back down, using your weight and gravity to bring him forward.

• Leg pull

Pull O towards you with your legs. You need to send him off to the left or right at the same time or he may end up headbutting you.

• Climb your legs

Whenever possible, I like to climb my legs up O's back. The higher your legs are the easier it will be to transition to armbars and the harder it will be for O to regain posture.

Backward

• Push him backwards with your legs.
• Pull him forward and when he resists, push him backwards with your legs.
• Threaten O's neck with a collar choke. He will instinctively pull back.

This will set you up for the hip bump sweep/kimura/guillotine.

General advice

• Be active in your guard

The guard is not a place for you to rest. Constantly pressure O by pushing, pulling and threatening subs and sweeps. The moment he feels safe, O will start to pass.

• Relax

Being active doesn't mean spazzing out! Breathe. Attack O logically using good technique and leverage. Pull one of his arms with both of yours. Use your legs to unbalance him. Use your weight to unbalance him. Threaten him with collar chokes and submissions. If you are going red in the face and getting nowhere you are doing something wrong!

• Be ready to open your guard

When your guard is closed you actually have very limited mobility. You will need to open your guard to sweep, to submit, to avoid being picked up and slammed if O stands up move, to move into open guard and to stand yourself up.

It is essential that you develop an open guard game as well as a closed guard game. Of the two, I would say a good open guard game is more important. The closed guard is easier to pick up for a beginner but open guard is such a huge part of bjj at the higher levels that the sooner you start to learn it the better.

Avoiding submissions
There are a few submissions O can do to you whilst in your guard. Know them and avoid them.

Can opener

Thrusting choke (tsukkomi jime for any Japanese speakers among you)

Once these are on, escaping or countering requires that you open your guard. Hence, many use these techniques to open a closed guard in order to begin passing. However, they are legitimate submissions so be aware.

In addition, there are numerous leglocks that can be applied once O has opened your guard. You must learn at least the basics of leglock attack and defence.

When your guard is passed
So O opened your guard and you couldn't stop him from passing. Once you've lost the guard battle you begin a fight for posture, usually under side control.

• Keep your knees and elbows tight to your body and between you and him.
• Do not let O establish a comfortable side control.
• Don't let him take the underhook or crossface.
• Don't let him flatten you out, try to turn onto your side facing O.
• Scramble to use your escapes (turtling, returning to guard, spinning out etc.).

Guard techniques
I have already posted on armbars and triangles from the guard and these are both high percentage techniques. However, there are many more techniques and submissions available from the guard, of which the main ones are collar and lapel chokes, shoulderlocks, sweeps and ways to take the back. Attack with combinations of these to keep the pressure on O.

I will add more to these later!

Collar and lapel chokes

Shoulderlocks

Sweeps
Hip bump sweep
Pedro threatens a collar choke to make O lean backwards

Locked guard sweep
Attacker breaks O's posture forward with a leg pull.

Locked guard sweep 2

Overhook sweep
Check how he takes the overhook grip with his left hand.

Scissor sweep to collar choke/armbar

Some no-gi moves
They work because O has no posture

Ways to take the back

Miscellaneous
Krellik's Lockflow thread

Lockflow techniques resource

Books I recommend
I recommend Essential Guard by Kid Peligro and Rodrigo Medeiros. It contains a wealth of useful information on the guard including nuances of posture and drills to help make your submissions more effective.

Top Mount Basics

Mount

Posture

Staying on top
“It doesn’t matter how many attacks you know from here if you don’t know how to stay here.” Cesar Gracie on the mount

Arms

• Keep your arms free to post. See this video at 2.23.
  
  
  
• Use a swimming motion (breast stroke) through his arms or legs to disentangle yourself.
• If one arm is caught shift your weight slightly over to the other side to destroy his bridging leverage.
• If O catches one arm and bridges before you can shift your weight or you simply cannot stop his bridge, you can base with your head. This is to be done from a low posture as you do not want to be slamming your head into the mat from any great height (or even worse onto concrete!).
• Pull up on O’s head to destroy his bridging leverage. Erik Paulson shows how in this video.
  
  
  

Knees
If he is good, O will likely adopt a very tight guarded posture with his elbows tight to his body and his hands protecting his neck

• Keep your knees tight to his sides.
• Do not sit on top of his arms or he will escape “out the back door”.
• Do not let him jam an elbow inside your knee for the elbow escape.
• Move your knees up under his armpits when possible (any time O raises his arms) - ideally go to the knee clamp position. Try setting up the knee clamp by threatening a choke (O will raise his hands to defend).
• Hold the top of his head to stop him wriggling away from you – Erik Paulson shows how in this clip.
  
  
  

Weight

• Stay loose and relaxed.
• You don't have to sit down heavily on O, doing so will actually give him more bridging power.
• Keep your feet tight to O's body to give you extra "grip" when he bucks.
• Let the guy on the bottom tire himself out trying to escape, inexperienced guys will likely panic when mounted and expend lots of energy trying to buck you off.
• Be ready to lean back, post out or shift your weight slightly to one side to deal with the bridge.
• Be ready to turn to the kneeling mount shown here.
  
  
  

Demonstration
The swimming motion and the lean are demonstrated by Cesar Gracie at the start of this clip. Cesar also demonstrates the knee clamp, how to set it up and two submissions (armbar and Americana).

Clip no longer available...

Basic Escapes
Everyone uses these and you will have to know how to deal with them. Below each escape I list the various motions you can use to counter.

Bridge (upa)

• Lean back.
• Post out with your arm(s).
• Base with your head.
• Shift your weight slightly to one side.
• Pull up on his head.

Elbow escape

• Keep knees tight.
• Turn to kneeling mount.
• Counter with Brabo.

Giving you the back

• Take the back and flatten him out.
• Turn into the kneeling mount.

Double/Single leg escape (O brings his leg(s) around your chest to lever you off)

• See a single leg version here (awful sound).
  
  
  

• “Swim” with a breast stroke motion through the legs.
• Be aware of it, the faster you can respond to this one, the more likely you are to retain mount.
  

Back door

• Don’t sit on his arms.
• Turn around very fast if he gets out.

More escapes
Play around with these Roy Harris escapes with resistance - see what you come up with.
Roy Harris Foot Drag escape

Roy Harris Foot Drag escape 2

Roy Harris Foot Turn escape

Roy Harris Kneeling mount escape