White Belt - How To Survive Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: Part 5, Start with the worst-case scenario & work up from there

White Belt - How To Survive Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: Part 5, Start with the worst-case scenario & work up from there

Because of where I came from in terms of being claustrophobic and having had a traumatic experience of having some local hoodlums on me in full mount beating me up, for me the worst position is being mounted by a heavy opponent who presses their bodyweight down on me and attempts to use pressure to lead them to good submissions. When I began BJJ this situation would often see me tap without my opponent having to even use a submission move.

But because I have a slightly demented mentality, I wanted to face the biggest test for me head on, and so instead of trying to win position at the start of sparring I would not resist my opponent passing my guard and getting into mount, and then I would start working from there. The benefit of studying such a deep and technical martial art as BJJ in today’s world is that you can find very good instruction for free on YouTube, Instagram and other platforms.

With the help of my instructor, my training partners and the breadth of instruction available on social media, fairly quickly I started to pick up some tips to survive in my worst-case scenario position on the bottom being crushed by a heavy opponent.

The two really simple tips which helped me a lot are these:

1.       Don’t lie flat on your back when you are being mounted, instead turn sideways (not fully sideways, but maybe 45 to 60 degrees), this will enable your breathing to continue with less feeling of restriction, and technically gives you a lot more ways of fighting out of the position.

2.       Secondly, if your opponent is too good or too strong, and can force or work you into a flat position routinely, you can quickly turn mount into half guard by just shoving one of your feet underneath your opponent’s leg and back round on top of the back of their calves. Half guard is much more promising for you than full mount. There are plenty of attacking options from half guard, and numerous sweeps which can allow you to reverse positions with your opponent. Like so many things in BJJ this move is really simple once it occurs to you to do it.

Being fully mounted is my worst-case scenario by the way, but you may identify a different position than I do as your biggest threat. In some ways, having someone take your back is a much worse situation because they can wrap you up & have a free pass at attacking moves.

At least if you are mounted you can try bridge escapes and that type of thing which instantly reverse your position, but escapes from someone controlling your back doesn’t tend to have a simple dynamic solution to reversing positions. Personally though I find this position of having someone behind you less claustrophobic because they have to carry your weight versus the other way round. And most white or blue belt players I have encountered basically have two submissions they will try from that position – rear naked choke (which is quite easy to defend against by holding their choking arm with one of your hands and by turning away from the choke with your neck and also by tucking your chin downwards).

Then the other choke low level players usually know is the bow and arrow choke, which is shockingly effective against someone who has never trained before, but again is quite easy to defend against if you are watching for it. There are multiple more advanced attacks from the back, but I don’t find anyone below about purple belt tries anything else from the back position, so for me it feels like a less unpleasant position versus on the bottom of an opponent in full mount.

The overall point here is this: you may have a different worst-case scenario from me. But regardless of what your worst-case position is, you need to work and work to enable yourself to escape from worst case positions.

I am told by much better more highly qualified BJJ players than myself that being really good at escaping bad positions really frees you up to attack at more advanced levels because you aren’t so worried about getting stuck in a bad position having spent the time at the start to learn first how to escape.

Written by Jimmy Rose, lifelong martial artist & BJJ enthusiast