Side Control Escapes

Question 1

What are the essential steps of the standard side position elbow escape?

Answer 1

Get more and more limbs inside opponents real estate/inside position

• bridge away from opp to get a elbow/forearm frame inside opponents near side hip (halfway down your forearm)
• bridge into opponent (asymmetric bridge) to get opponents head from your left side over to your right side, this creates space at his hips
• shrimp your hips out while holding the bridge into opponent, enter your knee at opponents hip socket and slide down inside his knee
• you now have an elbow inside his knee and your knee inside his knee - 2 limbs inside his real estate
• use your free outside leg, to step over his calf capturing that knee holding it in place
• now you can bring your initial inside knee inside his far hip (and the hip socket) a 3 limbs on inside position
• now you can shift your hips, using the ‘SERPENTINE MOTION’ to realign yourself with opponent, and you can easily lock up closed guard

Question 2

How to we use penetration points to elbow escape from side, against strong/heavy pinning opponents?

Answer 2

When being pinned by a strong/heavy opponent, making it hard to move at all even to bridge etc..

• bring your knee to the pocket of the opponents hip, your knee must be inverted, pointing down, your foot is higher than your knee
• make small shrimps out, every inch you shrimp out, then knee moves an inch further inside the opp’s hip
• you know take your knee inside, creating a V-frame with your elbow touching your knee making a strong frame against the whole of your opponents hip line, blacking both the right and left hip
• you can now slide your inside knee inside your partners knee and draw him around to your outside knee, and reach over with outside knee to capture it with your foot
• you know bring your initial inside knee to Opp’s other hip, creating a v frame and elbow escaping using the ‘serpentine’ motion to lock up closed guard

Question 3

How do we deal with a strong crossface while in a side control pin, with a walking method, to complete an elbow escape?

Answer 3

To elbow escape we need to be positioned into opponent but the crossface is making us face away, preventing the elbow escape

• we can’t have hips static- we need to start walking our hips away from opponents hips.
• opp is now forced to follow us, which will force him to relieve crossface pressure
• as pressure is relieved and he walks round to follow, in one motion we change the direction or our walk and in one motion we insert our inverted knee into his hip pocket
• establish v frame
• elbow escape

Question 4

What ‘frames’ are needed for a knee escapes from side control?

Answer 4

We need an UNDERHOOK to be able to bridge into our partner and get our head inside the crossface and ideally onto our partner’s sternum, before completing a knee escape

Question 5

How do we beat our opponent’s crossface? (Once we already have the underhook)

Answer 5

• get underhook
• Perform an asymmetrical bridge into our opponent WHILST ALSO strongly reaching/shooting our underhook arm into the direction of the bridge
• once the space has been made by moving the opp, we turn and put our head into the sternum

Question 6

How do we get the underhook against a resisting opponent, who isn’t ‘ear to ear’ in side control ?

Answer 6

If the opponent has top head and arm control but isn’t ‘ear to ear’ with you:
•frame with your ‘trapped’ arm by putting your hand against his near side shoulder, thus putting your elbow on his other shoulder (your forearm across his collarbone)
• perform a small bridge into the opp (to be on your side) and simultaneously push with your forearm frame to create space, to get your forehead inside the crossface, inside the Opp’s bicep
•there is now enough space to pummel your framing arm inside, and get the underhook
•opp will probably flatten you back out, doesn’t matter, you have the underhook
•perform knee escape

Question 7

How do you get the underhook for a knee escape, if the opponent has a tight side control, and is ‘ear to ear’? (You can’t get a forearm frame in front of his head)

Answer 7

• we use our own ‘bicep crossface’ to frame and reach-push into the Opp while we asymmetrical bridge into him
• we shrimp our hips back slightly and pummel our second hand under the Opp’s armpit, inside the crossface
• now we can use our hands in unison (push with second hand make space, pummel frame hand in) to lock inside the crossface
• now we can bump our hips and push using our hands/forearms to push/turn into opponent to create space
• pummel hand in, get the under hook
• perform knee escape

Question 8

How can we use an elbow escape as a means of getting the underhook and finishing a knee escape?

Answer 8

When we are in a tight head+arm side control pin, our trapped arm being held tight often means there is space at the hips..
•shrimp hips out slightly and insert your inside knee at the pocket of the Opp’s hips (halfway towards an elbow escape)
•use your outside leg to stand over Opp’s calf muscle
•start to move your head away from the crossface-creating space
•swim/pummel your outside hand inside Opp’s bicep and take inside position
• bring your initial trapped elbow inside opp’s shoulder
•as he correct his position, pummel initial hand underneath and get the underhook
•perform the knee escape

Question 9

What are the steps to the standard knee escape from side control?

Answer 9

Start with an underhook, if you don’t have an under hook, then get the underhook.

•perform an asymmetrical bridge into the Opp, while using the underhook like a bicep crossface and reaching/driving it into the opp to create space
•get your head inside the crossface and into the opp’s sternum
•Your underhook hand slides down the back to get a single leg grip behind the opponents near side knee,use a overhand cup grip, snaking over the calf and onto the shin,to prevent the sprawl
•your second elbow comes in close to your own hips but in front of Opp’s knee to perform a back heist
•perform a back heist (bottom elbow in close to hips,your top leg is reaching back behind you, bottom leg is stretched out in front of you, scissor legs, come up to knees)
•you should be perpendicular to your opponent
•your free had can post out for base on an elbow or hand, prevented being flattened under the sprawl
• your calf gripping hand can now wrap the knee
•you are now in the single leg takedown position
if opponent is on 2 knees you reach over and grab both knees and perform a double leg

If opponent bases out with the non-trapped leg to prevent double leg then you :
•come up onto your toes (take your knees off the floor) with ASYMMETRICAL hips (closest hip to opponent angled down, the other angled up- this puts way more pressure on opp’s legs/hips)
• walk with back steps ‘around the corner’ behind your opponent (keeping knee wrap single leg grip)
• this will collapse his free leg that was basing out, and bring it to the mat, putting him on 2 knees
•now trap his inside knee between your knees(on the mat)
•now you can reach around and grab his free knee to double leg, or his ankle and walk him into the mat to put him down to the floor
•continue with choppy back steps, hips asymmetrical, backstep around into a side pin position

Question 10

What are the steps to the high leg escape?

Answer 10

When in a head+arm side control pin:
•get your own forearm crossface frame inside his head&arm (if opponent has tight pin- bridge in ‘wrong direction’ , flare chest to create space, bring hand inside, under his chin, and out hand on his shoulder)
•bridge into Opp and use your crossface to push Opp’s head away with the goal of creating space to get your head inside Opp’s crossface
•use a double thumb post either side of the shoulder/armpit to frame and push against opponent
•flare your arm
•SLIP YOUR HEAD INSIDE HIS CROSSFACE
•as soon as your head is inside, bring your inside/bottom knee (knee closest to hips) inside opponent’s sternum
•bring your outside leg around and hook over opps head
• you could roll opponent into jujigatame if he doesn’t react
•when/if he does react then put him back in guard

Question 11

How do we insert an elbow frame at the opponent’s hip, when we are in a tight head&arm side pin?

Answer 11

We turn away from our opponent in the ‘wrong direction’ just enough to insert our elbow (you don’t turn onto your side giving back exposure obviously)

Question 12

What are the steps to the standard elbow escape from a head&arm side mount?

Answer 12

We need to get our limbs inside our opponents limbs:

• first we need to get an elbow frame at the opponents near side hip, if in a tight head&arm, turn away from opponent enough to insert elbow/forearm frame
• if opponent is pinning tightly, bridge( asymmetrical bridge) into the opponent using a bicep crossface to push into opponents head, with the goal of getting his head from your left side to your right (past his own knee)
• now you can shrimp your hips out (away from opp) and insert your inside knee into the pocket of your opponents hip (your knee must be inverted- knee pointing at floor, ankle higher than knee)
• your inserted knee slides in, inside opponents knee
• now your secondary outside leg steps over your opponents near side leg to over hook it and trap it
• now your initial elbow frame goes inside your opponents knee and your initial knee slides to the pocket of your op’s second hip, inside your elbow frame, creating knee to elbow connection
• now shift your hips to realign with your opponent
• bring your legs out and lock up closed guard

Question 13

What is the first key thing you can do in cross side, to greatly facilitate your escapes?

Answer 13

Move your opponents head from the opposite side of your body as his hips, to the same side of your body as his hips.

We do this with a bridge and a reaching bicep crossface

Or ideally with a bridge and a forearm crossface

Question 14

What are the proper penetration points of our limbs on escape in side control pins?

Answer 14

Our elbow frames insert at the hip, around halfway down the forearm, toward the elbow. Our hand is always higher than our elbow, this creates the first half of a V-frame.

Our knee inserts at the pocket of our opponents hip.
Our knee must be inverted- ankle higher than the knee and our knee pointing toward the floor. Once it is inserted at the hip, we now have our Vframe- where our elbow connects to the knee forming a V, which flows the contours of our opponents hips

Question 15

How can we deal with a strong crossface in a head and arm side control pin, with a fake sweep attempt?

Answer 15

In a top head and arm side pin-

• get your elbow frame at the hip as usual
• start bridging into opponents hips
• when he tightens crossface pressure to stay balanced..
• switch your hips, straighten your outside leg and push at the hip, as though your attempting to sweep him with the change of directional force
• this will force him to release the crossface to base with his hands and a leg out to prevent sweep(if he doesn’t base he will be swept)
• once he has based out, shrimp out, get your knee in at the hip
• perform elbow escape

Question 16

How can we beat an opponents crossface with our own crossface while we are in a top head and arm side control pin?

Answer 16

While in a tight head&arm side pin:

• perform a strong bridge into you opponent while using your own bicep crossface to reach and extend with your arm
• do both of these things with the goal of moving your opponents head to the same side of your body, as his hips
• shrimp hips out slightly to make room to insert your knee at the hip
• perform elbow escape

To make it easier you can walk your feet/hips out away from opponent before performing your initial strong bridge and reach

Question 17

What is the goal when using the bridge body movement and how is it executed, step by step?

Answer 17

The goal with bridging is to displace your opponents body weight from side to side.

We do this with an asymmetrical bridge.

Asymmetrical bridge

While in a supine position (on your back):

• One knee is bent pointing up towards ceiling
• The other knee is bent pointing out to the side (foot turned out)
• the knee pointing up, with foot flat on the floor is the initial/first drive leg
• look with your eyes/head in the direction you are bridging
• perform a bridge with the initial drive leg pushing through the floor
• your hips should still be low to the ground, the goal isn’t height of the bridge, it’s full hip extension to the side
• you should now be on your side with only your drive leg foot (ball of foot) , shoulder (opposite to drive leg) and the ball of your other foot on the floor
• the straighter the line of your body the more powerful you are
• as your drive leg loses power, your secondary leg takes over
• your initial foot now leaves the ground and whips over so you end up on your knees

The goal is going from supine position to on your knees when performing a bridge in isolation. The bridge forms the initial part of a majority of escapes along with rising shrimps and back heists etc

Question 18

What are the body movements associated with performing elbow escapes?

Answer 18

The elbow escape consists of an initial asymmetrical bridge to displace the opponents body weight
Then a rising shrimp which allows us to capture a knee
Then a series of shrimps (serpentine motion) to capture the other knee and regain guard

Question 19

What is the goal with the rising shrimp and how is it used in an elbow escape

Answer 19

The goal of the rising shrimp is to create space to capture an opponents knee to allow us to escape and put an opponent back in guard

• after performing a strong bridge with full hip extension
• shrimp your hips away from your opponent
• insert your knee at the hip socket of opponent
• bring knee to your inside elbow to create a v frame
• capture the knee
• perform elbow escape

Question 20

What little ‘tricks’ can you employ to relieve the pressure of a really tight crossface, to give you time to think and plot your next move?

Answer 20

To relieve pressure of a tight crossface when in a tight head&arm side pin
•take your non trapped arm (your hip frame arm) and take an over wrap grip on the shoulder
• overwrap grip means a wrist-deep false grip, wrapping over the opponents cross facing shoulder
And pull your elbow down to your hip to pull his shoulder away
•turn your head towards your own shoulder - put your chin inside opponents shoulder (his goal with crossface is to make you face away from him and away from the direction you want to escape in)

OR

• You can also threaten the elbow escape by putting your near side knee at your opponents hip, he will be forced to sit-out to block your knee with his hips, this will force him to relieve his crossface pressure

Question 21

How do we elbow escape when an opponent switches from a top head&arm side pin, to a reverse cross face and hip block pin?

Answer 21

We basically need to elbow escape his hip-blocking arm first and then also elbow escape as normal ..

• frame as always on the hip with your inside elbow/forearm
• turn onto your side (towards opp)
• pommel your top hand/elbow inside the bicep/elbow of opponent’s hip-blocking arm
• while using your hand to frame inside his bicep- shrimp hips out away from him
• bring your inverted bottom knee inside his bicep (elbow escape the arm)
• use your secondary leg to reverse shrimp into your opponent, bringing your initial leg through inside his knee and capture opponents knee
• opponent will recover
• elbow escape as normal

Question 22

What body movements are associated with the knee escape?

Answer 22

Bridge + back heist

There is an initial bridge to move our opponents body weight and get our head inside the crossface

After we move our underhook down from the mat to capture the leg, we perform a back heist (a scissor of our legs) to get onto our knees

Question 23

Why do we not lock our hands for the single-leg element of the knee escape?

Answer 23

We use a one-armed single leg grip to allow our bottom arm to be close to our hips so we can back-heist to scissor up to our knees and then use our bottom hand to base under our opponent so he doesn’t flatten us out

Question 24

How do we ‘anchor’ ourselves to our opponents leg, to come up into a single-leg situation?

Answer 24

We use one hand, snaked around our opponent’s calf with an overhand false grip. This method doesn’t rely on the strength of our grip (like a locked hand standing single leg grip) rather, it relays on the strength of the extension of our entire arm, making it much stronger when the opponent tries sprawling.
This false single hand grip allows us to be anchored to our opponent while we back heist to our knees

Question 25

What other hand grip can we use for the single leg takedown out of a knee escape (other than the wrap around knee, or the false cupping grip on shin to prevent sprawl grip), and how do we finish with that grip?

Answer 25

We don’t want hands locked for a single leg on the floor (different if you’re performing single leg from standing)

So once you’re in a single leg position in the floor (perpendicular to opponent ofc):

•You can go palm to palm briefly but then you must put your hand that is trapping the leg on the floor palm down, then your other hand on top of that hand palm down (like chest compressions)
•then you must extend your arms and put weight on them by bringing your chest forward over your hands (like a push-up)
*by doing this, you’re preventing the Opp sprawling out of your single-leg grip
• then you come up onto your toes
•turn your body to get asymmetrical hips
•back step around your opponent
•bring your inside knee behind his grounded knee
•reach for his other knee
•take him to the mat

Question 26

What is the mechanical trick we can employ, to make the opponent’s free/basing leg drop to the floor, when we are trying to perform the takedown element of the knee escape? (Going from the single leg position to finishing the double leg from behind)

Answer 26

After we have come up into the single leg position of a knee escape :

• we are on two knees, perpendicular to our opponent, with our inside (closest) arm wrapped around the outside of his near leg, our elbow to the floor and our wrist/hand wrapping around the inside of his knee (which is also on the floor)
• our head is at his sternum and our free hand is basing/posting under his body weight
• our opponent will have his free leg based out and away from us and off the floor, so we can’t access it, and also helps him sprawl his weight into us
• to get him to the mat we need to bring the knee of his free/basing leg to the mat

I do this we must :

• bring out knees off the floor, putting us on our toes, with asymmetrical hips (our inside hip angled down low , outside hip angled up high)
• while keeping our grip on his knee (elbow to the floor inside his calf/shin, the other our hand wrist deep around his knee) using our elbow as a PIVOT..
• walk ‘around the corner’ behind your opponent with short choppy back steps
• this will put pressure into the opponents hips with our shoulder/body weight and force the opponent to bring the knee of his basing leg to the floor
• then we bring our inside knee behind the ankle of his initial grounded leg (the one we had our arm wrapped around)
• then we can reach around and collect his secondary ankle or knee (the one of his basing leg) and drive him to the ground, completing a double leg from behind

Question 27

What is a simple way of setting yourself up to get an underhook, when someone has passed your guard and is looking to pin you from the side position?

Answer 27

When someone passes your guard and you can see they are coming into gain a side pin on you

• put your outside hand-palm down- on your chest (hand furthest away from your opponent, on the opposite side they are pinning)
• put your inside hand towards your head (like a tight boxing guard)

Doing this will make it easy to pommel your outside hand under your opponents arm to get under-hook, shrimp out of it helps

Question 28

What are the steps to the prop escape from side control?

Answer 28

From top head and arm pin:

• Bridge strongly over one shoulder into opponent to move his head to the same side of your body as his knees, turning onto your side, chest facing towards the floor
• pummel your bottom hand inside his bicep
• thumb post with your outside hand inside the bicep towards shoulder
• double thumb post with your inside hand
• framing and pushing your opponent away
• have your hips off the floor (bridged)
• in one motion extend your outside leg outwards, push with thumb post frames across the chest diagonally towards your extended outside leg, your outside elbow comes to the floor, then builds to a hand post while you keep opponent extended away with inside hand thumb post as you sit up
• draw your feet towards your buttocks to return to seated guard
• scoot accordingly to realign with partner

Question 29

What are the steps to the CUT-BACK knee escape finish?

Answer 29

•get an underhook from bottom side
•bridge and frame into opponent to
Move his head away and get your head inside the crossface to the sternum
•move your top hand down into a single leg grip behind his knee and into the floor
•back heist into your knees
•opponent sprawls/puts weight into you with wizzer etc
• plant your outside footing floor/bent leg
•inside knee steps/slides through as you keep your head high towards his far hip
•’step around the corner’ to put him down

Question 30

How do we take the back from the knee escape/single leg?

Answer 30

• get underhook
• perform knee escape
• get to single-leg situation, arm around back of opp’s knee, hugging inside the knee,hand on floor
• step over his near side leg with your near side leg, hooking his ankle/shin with your leg
• opponent has a strong whizzed- you feel stuck
• base out with your outside arm
• relax your single-leg gripping arm
• bring your head outwards towards basing hand
• quickly drag our inside hand out like a ‘paintbrush’ action
• whip it out of the whizzed and shoot it around opp’s back to get tight-waist/body lock etc
• take the back

Question 31

How and when do we use the knee escape, to get to half-guard top?

Answer 31

• knee escape
• get to single leg position
• opponent has strong sprawl with a whizzer , you feel like you’re going to lose the single-leg and not get the takedown
• your same side leg as the gripping hand, knee comes off the floor
• take your leg that’s opposite your single-leg gripping hand, knee slides through to inside opponents knee
• your other leg (the one off the floor) steps over the shin/ankle to trap it
• your single-leg gripping hand now comes up to his hip/waist around the back
• your free hand grips inside his free/basing leg to assist with a back-roll sweep into half guard top
• if opponent let’s go of whizzer and bases out stopping the sweep then you change direction with a scissor of your legs, and take the back with the back-take finish

Question 32

When and how would we knee escape to butterfly guard?

Answer 32

• get underhook
• bridge and frame to get opp over head( your head to their sternum)
• get single leg grip
• back heist to knees (scissor up)
• he gets a whizzer and sprawls hard away
• bring your far knee through inside his knee
• you can’t step over with your other leg cos he’s sprawled hard
• bring your single leg grip hand upto his waist to get a belt grip
• the leg that usually steps over behind, now inserts in front as a butterfly hook
• your free/basing hand now grips the sleeve of your partners free/basing hand
• he’s now in butterfly guard and in a good position to be swept with SUMI GAESHI

Question 33

When and how would we knee escape to full guard?

Answer 33

• get the underhook
• bridge into opponent and reach/frame to move him overhead
• get your head to their sternum
• get the single leg grip behind their knee
• back heist (scissor up) to your knees
• put your single-leg grip side leg up (knee off floor)
• your other knee slides through in front of their knee (the one you’re gripping)
• your other leg (one that’s off floor) steps behind/over their leg to trap it
• your single leg grip hand now comes up to their waist (belt grip)
• now put your bottom foot on their trapped knee and push it through to straighten it
• you now pummel both feet inside his knees for full butterfly guard or sit back into closed guard

Question 34

What are the steps to the ankle trap escape from side mount?

Answer 34

• get the underhook
• bridge and reach into opponent to move him over head and bring your head inside his crossface to his sternum
• bring your bottom elbow to the inside of opp’s knee
• with your top hand reach around his leg and inside his ankle
• elevate his ankle off the mat
• move your hips to his knee (reverse shrimp if needed)
• with your too leg- over hook his ankle and triangle your legs to trap his ankle
• let go of his ankle with your hand and reach up and grip around his waist (belt grip ideally)
• with your bottom hand scoop your opp’s other leg behind his hamstring
• walk his knees together into a straight line (reverse shrimp if needed)
• reverse shrimp to get underneath your opponent
• ’walk around the corner’ and ’tilt’ him behind you and sweep him over
• if opponent doesn’t have a whizzer and bases out preventing this sweep then unlock your legs, use them to pendulum up to take your opponents back
• if you fail to take the back pommel your feet inside for butterfly guard and attack or sit back to closed guard

Question 35

What is a key detail to the ankle trap escape regarding getting the ankle?

Answer 35

The key idea of getting to the ankle to trap it, is the idea of ‘chasing the ankle’. You don’t want to grip the ankle with your hand and then awkwardly reach over with your top leg, you want to move your hips towards the ankle like your chasing it and then trapping it with your top leg is much easier

Question 36

What is the critical detail of the ankle trap regarding your knee placement when triangling your legs to trap the ankle?

Answer 36

A mistake people make with their knees when they have triangled their opp’s ankle, is they fave their knees upwards, this creates a lose connection and a weak trap triangle

The key detail to a strong trap triangle is make your knees point down towards the floor, so your inverting your knee, ankles are pointing more towards the ceiling

Question 37

What are the steps of the shoulder roll escape from side mount?

Answer 37

We need both our hands and elbows inside the crossface for this escape

• get a reverse crossface frame
• perform a small bump while pushing on opp’s shoulder with your crossface to create a gap
• pummel your second hand inside of his crossface
• perform a second small bump to bring your second elbow inside
• turn onto your side
• scissor your legs so your top leg is in-front of your bottom
• grip your opponents hand at the knuckle-line and put it on top of your top leg with the goal of getting his elbow behind your hip so he can’t block your movements
• keep your bottom elbow in close to your hips and bottom shoulder on the floor
• keep hold of your opp’s hand
• retract your bottom foot towards your buttocks
• push up off you bottom foot and into your opponent so you are in an inverted position
• push your hips back into your opponent to put him back in some form of guard

Question 38

What are the steps to the Spinning Escape from side mount?

Answer 38

• from the bottom of side control, get frames inside their crossface if possible (reverse forearm crossface, bicep crossface)
• shrimp hips out and away slightly and then perform a REVERSE SHRIMP AND FRAME AGAINST OPPONENT so you move to a quasi-north/south position
• framing against the Opp, bring your knee to your elbow together
• Form a scissor with your legs against the opponent
• use the scissor to spin to realign and put Opp back in guard