I was caught unprepared once…I swore that would never happen again. – Batman
You know…
When you step away from the whole rat race of trying to learn as many techniques as possible, you start to realize that there are a few principles that have broad applications in a wide variety of situations.
Case in point:
In almost every situation, the first step to effortlessly escaping a bad position is setting an effective frame. The best example of that can be found in bottom side control. If I don’t establish that inside frame against the hip, I can forget about escaping. Without that frame, my opponents will just run me down every time I bridge or shrimp.
There would be no way to stop them from closing the distance.
And such a path only leads to frustration.
It’s far better to prepare for escape by first establishing effective frames, but there are more than one way to do it. I’ll count a few of the uncommon ways, but first imagine that you’re being straight up smashed in side control, and it’s a HEAVY dude too, who has no qualms about grinding you into the dust. Your right arm is near his hip, and your left is on the outside near his head (that will be important making sense of how I break down the frame options).
Here’s a few things you can do with the left arm:
- Bicep check em against their collar bone. (This is one of the tricks I use when I need to create more space so that I can establish a hip frame. That left arm – or right depending on which arm is on the outside – reaching for the belt as you bridge and turn towards your opponents.)
- Roll up in their armpit. (When that shoulder pressure is dropping on you with the force of the ages, it can really save your gluteus assimus. It’s a variation on the overhook. I would explain it but it’s tricksy. You’d have to see it.)
- Frame against their neck. (Ahh. The tried and true iffen you can get it.)
- Grip their collar. (Sometimes, I like to establish a thumb in grip on the collar. It becomes a stiff arm, and it works ridiculously well as a frame for creating space in more than one direction.)
- Attack the structure of their head. (Oh boy, I use this often. It’s all about using your bicep to roll their head towards the mat as your bridge. It damages the structure of their position in a truly elegant fashion too.)
That may or may not make sense to you. It really depends on how much you already know.
The core principles and tactics behind escape all broken down in video in a certain place though.
More information can be found here:
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