BJJ / Grappling Tips: Half Guard Top Theme Part 3

In my previous 2 posts I explained the main concepts a Half Guard Player can dominate your trapped leg from the half guard by controlling your foot, your knee and / or your hip. I explained that I've found that the key to unraveling their control is to negate their control of the trapped foot using a "Lockdown" style control. Once I freed and hid my foot, I noticed most of my training partners tried to control my hip instead and yesterday I discussed what I have found to be the most important concept to prevent the opponent from controlling my hip (plus 3 auxiliary ones) and outlined my counters to their counters. Lastly, I promised I'd show two approaches I've been playing with to how I deal with the Butterfly Half Guard and today is the day.

The Butterfly hook in the half guard serves the purpose of creating space but also stickiness to the top player. If you are to negate that, you need to address both these consequences of the butterfly hook.

As promised, I give you two expressions of the same set of principles. First is Master Pedro Sauer's version and second is that of the legend that is Mr Roger Gracie. Notice that while they deal with the problem (having space created against them by the bottom guy) slightly differently, they achieve the same objective, albeit using different tools:

Master Pedro Sauer:

Professor Roger Gracie:

I hope you enjoyed this extended and detailed style of blog and that you spend the upcoming 5-6 weeks putting one or two tips out of it into your own practice. I welcome all feedback, just drop me a line through the link at the top of the blog.


Next topic: The side mount (AKA Side Control or even Cross Side).


--------------------------------------------------

ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Check for more resources on Amazon.com:

Support British Jiujitsu: Valor Fightwear

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Half Guard Top Theme Part 2

Half Guard Wizardry

In a previous post I explained the main concepts a Half Guard Player can dominate your trapped leg from the half guard by controlling your foot, your knee and / or your hip. I explained that I've found that the key to unraveling their control is to negate their control of the trapped foot using a "Lockdown" style control. Once I freed and hid my foot, I noticed most of my training partners tried to control my hip instead and I promised I'd discuss what I have found to be the most important concept to prevent the opponent from controlling my hip (plus 3 auxiliary ones) so here we go:

The most important concept(s) in preventing the HGP from controlling your hip in the half guard:

1. Keeping the opponent flat, rather than on their side. This will force their top leg to point upwards rather than into you, like a good frame would.
2. Using the outside of your elbow to peel off any part of their leg that tries to gain purchase against your hip.
3. Contouring your hip, ribs and torso past their top leg and closer to their torso, so that your top arm hugs their hip close restricting their ability to shrimp away and your tightness restricts their ability to re-insert the top knee or shin against your hip or chest.
4. As an extension of the point above, especially when the opponent frames hard against your upper chest / throat, considering turning to face the legs. Not only does this allow you to bypass their top leg entirely, it, consequently, allows you to land far more of your weight directly onto their torso and it gives you several tools to help free your leg and pass, if that's what you want to do.

It is important to note that not all these points are equally valued. Point 1 is king, because it directly facilitates points 2-4 and more, to be honest.

Back to our chain of command: foot - knee - hip(s)

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Half Guard Top Theme Part 1

In a previous post I explained that I will be focusing the blog articles on one theme for the duration of 6-week projects. This is to reflect my focus in training. The past 6 weeks I've focused as much as I could on the half guard top position. I've used this time to investigate the ins and outs of the position with regards to postures, pressures, submissions, strikes and guard passing (or any other positional change that I initiate from the top). Here's a summary of the variables I've been experimenting with.

Half guard top: foot - knee - hip

The Half Guard Player's goal is to dominate and manipulate all three of these joints if they are to truly dominate the leg and, by extension, your whole body, and sweep you. In order to weaken their control, we have to take control away from them and reclaim it back for ourselves.

To completely negate the half guard, we need to eliminate all aspects of control the HGP has on our foot, knee and / or hip, which in turn is the definition of passing and being in Side Mount. The sooner we dominate the control of the feet, knees and hips (starting with our own and progressing to our opponent's) the sooner we will dominate the half guard top vs bottom battle.

"In a fight, only one person can be comfortable. Your job is to transfer the comfort from the opponent to you" Rickson Gracie

BJJ / Grappling tips: Passing the half guard: Dealing with the Underhook

The half guard used to be viewed as a position of weakness, especially if strikes are available as a weapon. Partly, the top player is almost past the guard players defenses and partly it allows the top player to lock the bottom player's hips in place and deliver damage.

Naturally, the half guard player has many attacks at their disposal and by becoming a subject matter expert within that narrow field, they can learn to manipulate the top fighter's weight and sweep, submit or take their back. To stop them, we need to first neutralize their most valuable asset: The underhook.

Picture courtesy of grapplearts.com 

The best option to defend the underhook is to have the underhook first. The half guard will not suddenly materialize out of thin air so anticipate your opponent's intentions to steal it and get there first.

If, however, they get there before you, here's a strategy that my professor, Mr Eddie Kone, learnt from his teacher Master Royler Gracie that has given me much success over the years.

and you can see the same technique explained by legendary jiujitsu fighter Sensei Saulo Ribeiro:

Lineage in the Martial Arts is something I am very passionate about, for this simple reason. No man is an island and we are all connected. Use this technique to re-gain the underhook from the half guard top.

--------------------------------------------------

ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Check for more resources on Amazon.com:

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Everybody Makes Mistakes in Jiu-jitsu

It's just that mistakes made from mechanically advantageous positions tend to be more forgiving.

 

A recent BJJ discussion centred around countering someone whose tripoding to Ezekiel choke you from inside your own closed guard. It's not the best or smartest move but it can still work. It can at least make you open your guard for them. But It's still a mistake, at least for beginners, for many reasons:

• Committing the weight forward,
• Making the legs light,
• Committing the arms to their upper body,
• Leaving their hips free...etc.

The counters we discussed involved:

• Sweeping,
• Armbarring,
• Taking the back.
• Attacking the legs (oh yes!)

All well and good. The thing is, I often catch myself make stupid mistakes like these (committing too much weight forward...etc.) but usually from mount or side-control. I lean too much in this or that direction or commit my arms too early to a technique and I often get away with it. There are just simply wider margins when you have the positional advantage. They can still throw you, joint-lock you or take your back. It's just so much harder, more obvious and hence easier for you to stop or even counter.

 

It becomes my responsibility to keep my ego in check and realise that I simply got lucky. When I'm in mount and I almost get thrown off or even worse, it really is my responsibility to go back and check why that even came close to happening, rather than pat myself on the back, content that I got away with a quick last-second recovery. "All's well that ends well", but why did it even get to start, never mind come close to ending?

 

While this might be the kind of thing that corrects itself with lots of mat time, I think it's a perfect opportunity to put the Part Time Grappling mentality to test. Why not learn 3-4 things at once if you can?

Here's a great example of attacking from a mechanically advantageous position: Ezekiel choke from half guard top by Roger Gracie:

 

--------------------------------------------------

ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Check for more resources on Amazon.com:

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Prevent the guard pass - Ari Galo shows how he developed the best guard ever (no hands)

How do you prevent someone from passing your guard in jiujitsu? Without using your hands? In the video below that has been making the rounds on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, Carlson Gracie black belt Ari Galo shows us his method called "Balling Guard"

 

 

 

That's nice, but how does he do it? How does he move his legs and hips to nullify the passers attempts to get by? In this second video, he explains how he balls up to always be one step ahead of the opponent.

BJJ / Grappling tips: the Half-Guard. How to avoid getting crushed.

The half guard is a position that has evolved massively in BJJ / Grappling. The Half-Guard fundamental concepts are:

i, stay on your side,
ii, prevent the Cross Face,
iii, work for the top underhook.

Every time I drill half guard bottom with a partner I'm always reminded that you have three weapons in the oh-so-important fight against the Cross Face. These are, in order of employment:

The bottom-arm paw
The top-arm paw, and
The Heavy Head.

Some people use both hands at the same time but I just prefer giving them different jobs. Most people know about the paw-grip controlling the biceps but looking around the mat I often see a lot of people giving up the Cross Face once their arms were bypassed instead of gluing their heads to the floor, at least until they can re-insert their hands and resume the fight.

Of course, you shouldn't dwell/stall in half guard but rather get deep in and start your attacks, reversals and sweeps but that's moving forward. Giving up cross face is a HUGE step backwards so remember to Heavy Head. It'll save your ass!

If you have the time, I strongly recommend watching this fantastic video by Indrek Reiland and Jorgen Matsi. It's long and extensive, but it will arguably teach you all you will ever need to stay safe and aggressive from the half guard in both nogi grappling and jiujitsu.



--------------------------------------------------

ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Check for more resources on Amazon.com:

BJJ tips: Lockdown Escapes by three experts

The recent Metamoris III main event between Eddie Bravo and Royler Gracie saw Eddie catch and control Royler's leg for a long time in a lower body entanglement / grip known as the Lockdown. The grip itself has been part of Judo for many years, but Eddie's innovative use of it allows him to not only hold his opponent but also move them, resulting in sweeps and a number of submissions.

The question is, how to break the lockdown and pass the half guard?

Here is what three Brazilian Jiu jitsu black belts had to say about it:

BJJ tips: Using the belt or the tip of the gi jacket in passing the half guard pass

Almost 4 years ago I made this short video on a method of using the opponent's belt (or tip of the gi jacket for that matter) to trap the arm and facilitate the half guard pass:

Silva vs Sonnen and the Evil-ution of Grappling and MMA

Have you watched the Anderson Silva V Chael Sonnen fight on UFC 148? I think everyone and their mother have watched that fight by now. I'm not a dedicated MMA fan but there was so much hype around this one I had to see it so I looked for the fight afterwards and was not disappointed.

Spoiler alert. If you haven't seen the fight yet and don't want me to spoil it, please walk away now (or watch it here)

While we all wait patiently for the awesome Gracie Breakdown by Rener and Ryron, I want to talk a little about the evolution jiu jitsu that was used in this fight.

The first round saw Anderson Silva use beautiful defensive/survival tactics from the bottom. Some have speculated that Anderson Silva may have played the round like that on purpose to tire Chael out or perhaps lull him into a sense of security. I don't know that. What I do know is that Chael tried to hit him effectively the whole round and Anderson's defence was so tight it meant hardly any shots connected and the ones that did caused him no visible damage. I could go on but Rener and Ryron will do it so much better*.

What really caught my eye was Anderson Silva's reluctance to pass Chael’s guard to side or mount. It has been my prediction over the past couple of years that we will be seeing new control positions other than the side, mount, back and knee on belly. I believe that the level of grappling will evolve so much that many of the top fighters will be using a new animal of Ground N' Pound.

My prediction is that the half guard top (in its current variations and new ones that will constantly evolve) will become the new Mecca for striking from the top. It's not that Mount is bad or even that Half Guard is that much better for striking than Mount. It's just that it's easier and faster to learn to strike from Half guard top (or even inside an unscrambled Open guard) against an opponent pinned against the cage wall than it is to methodically pass the guard, mount and maintain the mount. **

I remember reading in the awesome judo book Osaekomi (Judo Masterclass Techniques) by Katsuhiko Kashiwazaki how Kosen Judo (the huge proponents of ground work within Kodokan Judo - the parent art of Gracie Jiu Jitsu) came about and why they focused so much on newaza or ground-work. The book is a fantastic treatise in the holds (Osaekomi) of judo (which are more or less the same fundamental ones of BJJ) but the part I'm referring to explains how Kosen Judo was the type of judo practiced in high-schools and how, with only three years to create judo champions, the instructors focused on getting the match to mat and then working on a variety of holds and pins for the win.

I also remember reading how the art of Wing Chun came about and how the Shaolin nun who invented it basically needed to condense the whole Shaolin Kung Fu curriculum into a speed-course to teach Yim Wing Chun the bare essentials to survive against the thug who wanted to kidnap and, essentially, rape her.

In my opinion, it is fair to assume that the kids trying to get start a financially successful MMA career want to do so as soon as possible and will not have the patience to grow within the arts***. Therefore, I predict that, at least until MMA gets an amateur body that allows fighters to mature before they are fed into the pro-circuits, we will see more and more of this "evil"ution of MMA where new positions will develop based on a transitional, as opposed to, a positional game.

But hey what do I know? I'm just a BJJ purple belt who doesn't even practice MMA so don't take my opinions too seriously.

*If you are a BJJ enthusiast and want to learn the original punch-proof tactics as outlined by Helio Gracie, I highly recommend The Gracie Combatives course. Say what you want about online learning, but Rener and Ryron are excellent teachers and they breakdown BJJ to its core. If you belong to a BJJ gym / academy / dojo why not learn these techniques and practice them with a training partner to supplement you current training?

**Anderson Silva is a BJJ black belt and can pass guard and mount the best of them. He chose not to. GSP is a BJJ black belt, but he was told by Greg Jackson not to pass Dan Hardy’s guard even though he could cut through it like a hot knife thru butter.

***there will always be exceptions to the rule like BJ Penn, GSP, Jon Jones ...etc. who will excel in every facet of the game.

--------------------------------------------------

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks

BJJ tips: half guard sweep - depth vs breadth of game part II

One of the grappling techniques taught at the recent CFS BJJ seminar was the "Classica" or "Shaolin" Sweep from half guard. This sweep was, to my knowledge, made popular in 1997 when Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro ripped people apart with it at the Mundial. Here is an old video of Shaolin sharing his sweep with us:



The way we were taught this half guard sweep, by Roger Gracie black belt Nick Brooks, was as an alternative to another half guard sweep so the set-up and grip are slightly different to Shaolin's version but the way I learn (or love to learn) is by taking something and really digging into it. I like to research the living hell out of something so I have many details on it's versions and variations. I like to learn many entries to the same position so I was therefore very happy when I found this video by the fantastic Stephan Kesting where he visited Shaolin at his New York BJJ academy and got him to breakdown the details of the sweep that bears his name, 14 years after he got the mundial silver medal in 1997



Now, drill drill drill :) No knowledge is true until you can execute and that can only be achieved thru drilling against progressive resistance.

If you know another great breakdown of this sweep, I'd love to know about it so leave us a comment.


--------------------------------------------------

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Delivery system first, techniques second - Pablo Popovitch shows the way

I was talking to a student last Friday (during Open Mat at Fighting Fit Manchester) about a certain technique from stand-up. He was moving well and had a tight delivery system but wasn't getting much luck with this particular sweep. I watched him spar with at least a couple of different opponents to make sure the issue wasn't to do with a specific opponent's game plan, strategies or attributes.

I pulled him aside and showed a couple of very small technical details regarding where his foot and hips should be facing which I knew would help and lo and behold he sent me a message later that evening saying the tips I gave him fixed the problem and his success rate with the sweep skyrocketed.

Why did my advice work? Would that same advice benefit another athlete who might be having the same problem?

While a good technique is a good technique is a good technique, the extent to which fixing details helps really relies on one very important factor: is the learner ready for the information?

The reason my advice helped wasn't because it was anything special. Anyone watching from the outside who's had some experience with that technique could have told him the same (which is why many avid YouTube watching white belts have a lot of advice to dish out). The reason my advice worked and worked so well is because I could recognise that he had the delivery system* that could:

1. Get him to that position safely
2. Get him to that position repeatedly
3. Get him out of that position safely

Basically, I could see that he could get there and get out without getting smashed or injured and he could do that often and from multiple angles.

Why is that relevant? Because nothing means anything without drilling and repetition against progressive resistance. If you don't have the skills that would facilitate repetition and drilling, all you have is something you "saw" on YouTube but could never get to work against anyone except your grandma...when she's asleep. If your mount sucks, a million tips on improving your armbars from mount won't help.

With that in mind, watch these two videos (courtesy of BJJ Weekly) of the amazing Pablo Popovitch. See how he emphasises the finer points of control from the half guard first before going into what you could do from there and if my point wasn't clear before watch the two videos in the wrong order and you should immediately get it.

Video One: Pablo looks into the elements of control from the half guard



Video Two: Pablo talks about how to create space with the top leg and free up your bottom leg to retrieve guard from the half guard / pass



*Matt Thorton talks about the concept of Delivery System in this video.
--------------------------------------------------

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks

BJJ / Grappling Techniques: Deep Half Guard to Single Leg

Half guard in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu or Grappling, especially the deep half guard, is a great gateway position. I don't go to the half guard to do damage, but rather to transition to better positions. From the half guard, I'm always working to transition to the back, sweep to side control or even escape my leg back to full guard. What's very important before you do anything, is to find a safe comfortable position to be in when under someone in half guard. For that, I can't recommend Saulo Ribeiro Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Revolution Series One
enough. The man really lays it all on the line.

In this simple but very good video, two decorated Team Lloyd Irvin black belts Jared Weiner and Jonathan “Spiderman” Torres add to the gateway that is the deep half guard another option: Transitioning to the single leg takedown.



Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks

Frames in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: The Knees

Jiu Jitsu Frames: The Knees.

To me, the "Jiu" in BJJ is, at least partially, about moving your body around that of your opponent. Frames are what stops the opponent from simply following you around as you move. They are obstacles that you place in the way of your opponent's body to stop or at least restrict his freedom of movement. An example we all recognize is when the arms are used to frame against the hips and / or knees while we escape the mount.

In fact, when the word "frame" is used within BJJ or grappling, people often think of the arms. However, the longer we play this game of jiu jitsu, the less we use the arms and the more we use other body parts to frame*. A great such body part is the knee. Here are a couple of different methods to frame with the knee while you move your body around your opponent's. In particular, these are methods to use the knee frame to extract trapped body parts**.

How do you use your knees, or other body parts, as frames in BJJ and grappling?


*Check out Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro's no arm drills on Grapplearts.com.
**Please excuse the sound quality :)
----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks

BJJ / Grappling Tips: How to recover the underhook and pass half guard. A Part Time Grappler Approach

Last night's session at the Labs BJJ Fundamentals was on passing the half guard. There is nothing special or unique about the techniques I use or recommend to control and pass the half guard in BJJ. What is different is that I try to stick to one (maybe 2) techniques to pass with. Instead of learning more and more ways to pass the half guard when people try to block my pass, I try to learn better technical details to make the pass smoother or alternatively more ways that can bring me back to that particular way to pass the half guard. If you're not sure why I do this (apart from the obvious "I'm lazy!" please see my previous post on building a BJJ competition game plan)

The pass I favour is the traditional half guard pass with the underhook, sometimes called the "tripod", "escrima" or "esgrima" as demonstrated below*:

BJJ Tips: Using Your Belt to Pass the Half Guard

I wrote a quick post a couple of days ago about unorthodox use of the BJJ belt. It was just a silly joke but I thought I may as well make it up to those who clicked on it expecting some functional BJJ knowledge.

Here is a quick video I shot yesterday at the LABS: Fighting Fit-Manchester of a neat trick where you use your belt to create a leverage that immobilises the opponent’s top arm in half guard, affording you more time to work your guard pass to side control.

The inspiration to this move is Sensei Kashiwazaki’s gem of a Judo book: Osaekomi




----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks ---------------------------------

Interview with Royler Gracie Black Belt Eddie Kone Part 3

As you all know, on Friday the 28th of May I interviewed Mr Eddie Kone, Royler Gracie Black Belt at his EKBJJ Headquarters in Tottenham for the blog. What came out of that was a 20+ minute chat about, amongst other things, Gracie Jiu Jitsu, honour and some of Eddie's own tips to all the Part Time Grapplers out there. Here's the final part (of three) of that interview, where Eddie talks about (amongst other things):

Why he wants to see BJJ in schools
The philosophy of Gracie Jiu Jitsu
Hobbies and Supplementay activities
What made Helio Gracie so good?
The value of self-defence in GJJ
The value of tapping
What he felt like walking into Gracie Humaita the first time

I hope you enjoy it.

Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkKA0eN-gVw

For those of you who missed parts One & Two, Where Eddie talked about being in the zone, the gift and legacy of Jiu Jitsu and putting your own signature on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you can find it here:

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgYncxWFCFk

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngz36EmX8ug

Mr Kone was nothing but a perfect gentleman and I really look forward to train with him and his team really soon. For those of you lucky enough to live near his academy: Go to the Ultimate Fitness Centre and learn from the man himself.


----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks ---------------------------------

Interview with Royler Gracie Black Belt Eddie Kone Part 2

As you all know, on Friday the 28th of May I interviewed Mr Eddie Kone, Royler Gracie Black Belt at his EKBJJ Headquarters in Tottenham for the blog. What came out of that was a 20+ minute chat about, amongst other things, Gracie Jiu Jitsu, honour and some of Eddie's own tips to all the Part Time Grapplers out there. Here's part two (of three) of that interview. I hope you enjoy it.


Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngz36EmX8ug

For those of you who missed Part One, Where Eddie talked about being in the zone, the gift and legacy of Jiu Jitsu and putting your own signature on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, you can find it here:

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgYncxWFCFk



----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks ---------------------------------

Interview with Royler Gracie Black Belt Eddie Kone Part 1

On Friday the 28th of May I travelled to London to attend a BJJ seminar with Royce Gracie but unfortunately Royce couldn't make it past Heathrow! Luckily the seminar organiser, Mr Eddie Kone - Meerkatsu's old instructor, decided to give everybody who was in attendance something to take home and that was a 2 hour session mainly on passing the half guard. Eddie's level of detail, but also style of instruction and general attitude towards his students, really impressed me and after the session I asked if I could interview him for the blog. What came out of that was a 20+ minute chat about, amongst other things, Gracie Jiu Jitsu, honour and some of Eddie's own tips to all the Part Time Grapplers out there. Here's part one (of three) of that interview. I hope you enjoy it.

In Part One, Eddie talks about being in the zone, the gift and legacy of Jiu Jitsu and putting your own signature on Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

The questions we covered in Part One were:

Greatest thrill he got out of practicing and/or teaching Jiu Jitsu?
Background in training and teaching Gracie Jiu Jitsu
What he thought makes a good student?
What he thought makes a good teacher?
What he would look for in an affiliate?
When did he decide to teach BJJ for a living?
The first part of the interview ends with us touching on what 2010 holds for Eddie Kone.


----Did You Like This Article?--- Click here to add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks ---------------------------------

BJJ Concepts: Why the Cross Face?

We covered half guard principles in yesterday's BJJ fundamentals session. Martyn focused on the bare essentials of success for both top and bottom and then we did a series of progressive resistance drills to experience it all in an alive manner. He actually made clear that showing any more passing details at this stage may confuse beginners and falsely encourage them to forget the essential set-up details and get lost in the intricacies of passing, only to get their backs taken or swept.

After the session, someone asked me about my previous post about just that, the bare minimums. I always get so chuffed when someone actually reads my stuff. The question was about why I gave the bottom player a priority that was something other than simply the opposite of the top player's, specifically for the half guard. To be exact, if I think that the minimum the top player needs to do is flatten her partner, why do I not simply recommend that the bottom player fights to stay on her side and off her back? Why do I instead recommend that they focus on fighting the cross face? Well, for number of reasons:

There are many ways to get flattened on the bottom and the cross face is one of the best so essentially you are fighting to stay on your side by fighting the cross face. Preventative action and all that jazz.

But also, I wanted to stress that sometimes it's ok to take a step back in order to jump two steps forward. When the top player tries to get the cross face to flatten you and fails, he can still flatten you with other tools (circle walk, far under-hook, near elbow control and more elaborate ones) but you, the bottom player, can recover from them much more reliably than from a well-placed cross face. Like Saulo says, you have to assept that sometimes the other guy is better than you or at least was earlier than you. So what's the first thing to recover from/protect against? The cross face.

What if we get flattened while fighting off the cross face? Assept that, then bridge and shrimp to turn back onto your side. Why can you get away with that simple move, because your face is NOT crossed!

----Did You Like This Article?---
Make sure you add The Part Time Grappler to your Favourites / Bookmarks
---------------------------------