Tag: Mount

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How To Do A Twisting Arm Control Submission

The twisting arm control submission is an excellent BJJ attack that draws on a fundamental principle of Jiu-Jitsu and uses an opponent’s energy against them.

Mount is an extremely effective and dominant position in BJJ, but you may find yourself unable to finish a submission from mount due to your opponent’s strength, excellent defense, or escape attempts. In those cases, the twisting arm control submission is a useful transition to the back and the rear naked choke. 

Twisting arm control is a frustrating position for the bottom player, and many BJJ fighters will fall into this trap just to move out of the position. In MMA or a fight, the position leaves one of the top fighter’s hands free for punches, forcing the bottom fighter to escape or be knocked out.

This technique by the great Rener Gracie for his Gracie Jiu-Jitsu Academy Youtube channel is part of the Gracie How To Get a Blue Belt in BJJ guide.

Start: Mount

Step 1: Secure a cross-grip on one of opponent’s wrists and using your free hand to push their elbow, drag that wrist across their body to their opposite shoulder

Step 2: Lay your chest on the twisted arm and post your gripping hand into the mat to secure their arm in place

Step 3: Slide your free hand under opponent’s neck and grab their wrist, switching which hand has the grip

Step 4: Slide your back knee (the side that now has the grip on opponent’s wrist) up behind their shoulders and post front foot next to their stomach

Step 5: Pull opponent’s wrist towards you while pushing their elbow with your free hand, forcing them to turn away

Step 6: When opponent turtles (either out of frustration, to escape punches, or to avoid the discomfort of your heel digging into their stomach), abandon the twisting arm control and post both hands on the ground to get both hooks in and take the back.

Step 7: Slide one arm under opponent’s neck and through to other side, figure four your arms and reach free hand behind their head to finish a rear naked choke

Finish: Tap due to Twisting Arm Control Submission

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How To Do The Anchor and Base Mount Control Technique

Maintaining the mount in BJJ is an important skill to have. There isn’t much in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that’s more frustrating than fighting with your opponent, knocking them back, passing their guard, passing their half guard, maintaining side control, and finally passing to mount only to have them use one of the many mount escapes to roll you onto your back or reclaim their guard. 

The mount escape game in BJJ has so many options that it’s almost as important to know how to maintain your mount when your opponent is desperately trying to escape. Having good mount retention allows you to stay mounted long enough to attempt one of the many submissions from mount.

The mount anchor and base drill will teach you essential mount retention techniques.

Start: Mount with arms posted over opponent’s shoulders to both sides of their head

Step 1: Bring your feet together underneath opponent’s knees

Step 2: Drive your hips into opponent’s hips and stomach

Step 3: When opponent pushes you to one side, that side’s knee and hand both splay out as the other side foot wraps around their leg and your arm scoops their head as the anchor

End: Mount

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How To Do a Fish Hook Elbow Escape From Mount in BJJ

Some say that the UFC and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu truly made it in the world when Friends did an episode about it. And in the opening to that episode “The One With The Ultimate Fighting Competition,” there was reference to a fish hook. 

Monica: “It’s sort of like wrestling, but without the costumes.”

Joey: “And it’s not fake. It’s totally brutal.”

Chandler: “Yeah, it’s two guys in the ring and the rules are THERE ARE NO RULES”

Monice: “You can, like, bite and pull people’s hair and stuff?”

Ross: “Anything goes except eye gouging and fish hooking.”

Monica: “What’s fish hooking?

Ross: “What’s fish h—”

*interrupted by Joey fish hooking him*

Ross: “thanks man that would have been really hard to describe”

So of course when the Gracie family wrote out their BJJ Blue Belt Test, they included fish hooking. The fish hook that is actually used in BJJ isn’t as dangerous or disgusting as the Friends fish hook, but they do share a name.

In actual BJJ the fish hook is a technique for escaping the mount when your opponent is wise to your standard elbow escape and hides their leg from you, and this sneaky ninja move will let you work around that.

Start: Mounted, opponent has tight legs securing you

Step 1: Bend your knee on the side you’d like to extract first until opponent’s foot pops up and over your knee

Step 2: Hook your other foot under opponent’s foot (this is your fish hook)

Step 3: Lift opponent’s foot up with your hand while you push down on their knee with your elbow to clear the path for your extraction leg (this is your fish hook

Step 4: Swim extraction side hand over opponent’s shoulder and then over their neck to grip opposite side shoulder

Step 5: Step extraction side foot over opponent’s leg from the outside to trap it

Step 6: Extract trapped leg by slicing knee inside of opponent’s knee and switching jips for more room

Finish: Closed guard via fish hook elbow escape from mount

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How To Do a Hook Removal Mount Escape in BJJ

In BJJ, MMA, and in street fights, being mounted is one of if not the worst position you can be in. When mounted, your opponent is using their weight to control all of your movements while leaving their hands and feet free to stop any escape attempts or mount their own attacks. Being mounted in BJJ only gets worse when someone grapevines you and hooks their heels under your legs, stretching you out until you can’t bridge or upa.

With no ability to post either of their feet, the grapevined BJJ fighter is stuck with no chance to create space between their body and the top player’s hips. To get back to a position they could upa from, the bottom fighter would need to leg curl with enough strength to overpower their opponent’s extension. Unless the bottom fighter is built like elastigirl, that’s a losing battle.

The BJJ hook removal mount escape is an essential Jiu-Jitsu mount escape, so critical that it is part of the Gracie BJJ Blue Belt test guide. 

Start: Mounted and grapevined

Step 1: Kick one leg out to the side to strip opponent’s grapevine and then circle inside

Step 2: Use free foot to peel opponent’s other grapevine off and kick the trapped leg straight

Step 3: Frame a hand on opponent’s knee to stop its movement

Step 4: Slide the frame-side knee through in front of opponent’s knee

Step 5: Step free foot over opponent’s leg to trap it and switch onto you opposite hip

Step 6: Frame against opponent’s other leg and slide that knee through

Finish: Guard via Hook Removal Mount Escape

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How To Do An Ezekiel Choke in BJJ

The Ezekiel choke in BJJ is named after Ezequiel Paraguassu, an olympic Judo fighter who studied with the Gracie BJJ family before the 1988 olympics to perfect his ground fighting. According to Jiu Jitsu Legacy, Paraguassu was frustrated by the tight closed guard of his new Brazilian friends until he remembered an old, rarely used judo choke called the Sode Guruma Jime, Japanese for sleeve wheel constriction. The choke was so effective and popular that it was named after him (albeit with a misspelling).

The Ezekiel choke uses the cross face position from mount, half guard, or even from inside someone’s guard to grip onto the free arm’s sleeve and use that sleeve to choke the opponent. This setup doesn’t require sacrificing your good position, so it’s a great submission to attempt even if your opponent defends it well. 

Start: Mount

Step 1: Establish cross face behind opponent’s neck

Step 2: Grip attacking arm’s sleeve with four fingers of cross face hand

Step 3: Slide attacking hand under opponent’s chin and over their neck

Step 4: Pour weight onto your hands and into the choke

Finish: Submission via Ezekiel choke

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How To Do A Headlock Trap and Roll Escape

Being fully mounted in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is an awful position. With no opportunities to attack your opponent, your only goal when mounted is to escape from the mount and recover your guard or switch to the top where you have a chance to break your opponent’s guard and pass to an advantageous position. In MMA or a street fight, the mount is an even worse position. That is why escaping from mount is a crucial tool to have in BJJ and is included in the How To Get A Blue Belt guide. 

A common position when the bottom fighter is strong or very active trying to escape is the cross-face or headlock, where the top fighter will reach their arm under the bottom fighter’s head and through so that their elbow is against the bottom person’s neck. This locks them down onto the bottom fighter and sets up attacks like the Ezekiel choke.

The headlock trap and roll escape in BJJ allows you to sweep your opponent off of their position mounted on top of you even when they have you in a headlock, an even worse position! The headlock that secures the mount can be used by the bottom fighter to trap the top fighter and turn their attack against them as they are swept to their back.

Start: Mounted with a headlock or cross-face

Step 1: Grab arm with headlock and make your head heavy to trap in place

Step 2: Step foot on same side as headlock over opponent’s foot to trap it

Step 3: Wrap other arm around opponent’s back in a body hug

Step 4: Bridge hips up

Step 5: Reach body hug arm across towards other side

Step 6: Switch hip to follow opponent over

Finish: Opponent’s guard via headlock trap and roll escape

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How To Do A Punch Block Trap and Roll Mount Escape in BJJ

The punch block trap and roll mount escape is a simple, basic, effective mount escape. This variation is based on the idea of blocking a punch, so it is definitely essential for a street fight or MMA, but it is so essential for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu that it is a part of the Gracie BJJ How To Get a Blue Belt guide.

This mount sweep relies on one of the fundamental ideas in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu when thinking about sweeping or escaping from your opponent: remove one of the legs of the table. Think of an opponent’s limbs as the legs of a table (since they have four of them and usually use all four to support themselves when they’re in a top position), and then think of what would happen if you were to take one of the legs away from a table (it would fall over, if not immediately then definitely if you bumped it towards the missing leg). This is a fundamental rule when escaping or sweeping an opponent. In the punch block trap and roll escape, you take away one of the table legs (the opponent’s arm) and then set up a block on their leg to stop them from changing from a normal table into a tripod. This allows you to simply visualize the trap and roll mount escape shown in the video below.

Start: Mounted with opponent posturing up to punch

Step 1: Sit up and hug opponent’s midsection to reduce space

Step 2: Bridge hips to push opponent forward and force them to post their hands on the floor

Step 3: Reach hands up and onto opponent’s shoulders from behind and climb up opponent’s body with legs
Step 4: Trap opponent’s arm on the rolling side with a whizzer-style over-elbow arm wrap

Step 5: Post rolling-side foot on the outside of opponent’s leg to trap it

Step 6: Bridge up and to rolling side and reach other-side arm up to roll opponent onto their back

Finish: Opponent’s guard via punch block trap and roll escape

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How To Do A Soul Crusher Arm Bar in BJJ

The soul crusher position in BJJ is an absolutely vicious setup for the cross body arm bar from mount that will leave your opponent broken and defeated. Part of the goal in BJJ is to do the coolest stuff, and a big part of that is hitting the submission with the coolest name. Sure everyone knows the guillotine and anaconda choke, but while those are intimidating names, they aren’t quite as mean sounding as the soul crusher arm bar.

Part of what makes the soul crusher a cool submission is that it lives up to its name. The soul crusher puts your weight to work on your opponent’s chest, and then their shoulders while you force them into an awkward, uncomfortable position where they beg you to just submit them.

Start: Mount 

Step 1: Stretch your opponent into a pressure mount by hooking your heels around their legs and stretching them down and away from your body while arching your legs up and lifting your knees off the ground to drive your hips into your opponent’s body.

Step 2:  Get a cross face with your attacking arm and reach all the way through to opponent’s arm pit

Step 3: Drive opponent’s elbow to the ground with your attacking hand

Step 4: Circle non-attacking hand to the mat palm down below your opponent’s elbow

Step 5: Walk attacking hand up to above opponent’s head

Step 6: Grip across opponent’s head with at your non-attacking hand

Step 7: Give up crossface and repeat elbow drive and walk up above opponent’s head with that hand

Step 8: Squeeze both arms together

Step 9: Switch to high mount

Step 10: grip opponent’s elbow with attacking hand

Step 11: Kick non-attacking leg out away from opponent’s body

Step 12: Sit up onto opponent’s waist and post non-attacking hand on the mat for support

Step 13: Lean in and step attacking side foot over opponent’s head

Step 14: Sit back and bridge hips

Finish: Submission via soul crusher arm bar

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How To Do An Omoplata From Mount

The omoplata is a fantastic BJJ submission. It pits the strength of your hips against your opponent’s shoulder, which is super effective. The omoplata also involves twisting around so that you’re attacking your opponent from behind and from the side, reducing their options for defenses. 

While the omoplata submission is most often attempted from the closed guard in BJJ where that is an advantageous position, in MMA or a street fight the guard can be a dangerous place to be. The omoplata from mount is a BJJ technique that you can use even when strikes are an option but you still want to end the fight using jiu-jitsu. 

Start: Mount

Step 1: Trap one of opponent’s arms over your hip, this will be the arm you attack

Step 1: Kick your attacking leg forward underneath opponent’s arm

Step 3: Bend opponent’s arm down over your attacking leg

Step 4: Pivot towards your attacking leg, dropping to that knee

Step 5: Drop attacking side shoulder to the mat and step free leg over opponent’s head to attacking side

Step 6: Roll over attacking shoulder

Step 7: Scoot away from opponent’s body

Step 8: Pendulum your attacking leg and drive opponent towards the mat

Step 9: Lean into opponent and push his hand forward

Finish: Submission via omoplata from mount

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How To Do An Americana in BJJ

The Americana is an incredibly simple (you twist someone’s arm until their shoulder reaches its limit) but incredibly versatile (it can be used from just about any position) submission in BJJ. The Americana submission is so common that it is a part of the Gracie Jiu Jitsu How To Get a BJJ Blue Belt curriculum.

The Americana in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is typically executed from mount or side control, though it is also common from half guard and since it is a simple twisting of the arm it is applicable from just about any position and a useful tool to always have in your arsenal.

Start: Mount

Step 1: Pin opponent’s wrist to mat above their head with opposite side hand with their arm bent at 90 degrees, as if they were throwing a football

Step 2: Slide same-side hand underneath opponent’s upper arm at the bicep and tricep

Step 3: Grip your opposite side hand with your same-side hand, using a C grip or monkey grip. At the same time, hook your opposite-side foot inside opponent’s leg to prevent being swept or bumped off of mount

Step 4: Drag opponent’s wrist down towards their feet, keeping it pinned to the mat like a paint brush

End: Submission by Americana