Basic Elevator Sweep- MMA Training, Jujitsu and Mauy Thai

This great move is best employed when your opponent is on his knees in your open butterfly guard (your two feet are hooked under your opponent's thighs). Sit up and lock your arm around your opponent's upper arm (overhook). With your other hand secure your opponent's elbow or wrist. Fall directly to the side of the wrist or elbow you have grasped. As you fall, lift with the foot on the opposite side you are sweeping towards. Push off the ground with your other foot. This combined action topples your opponent over to the side and onto his back. Keep driving until you end in the mounted position or across his side.

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Escaping the knee-on-Belly Position - MMA Training in Illinois and Indiana

Only sightly less dangerous than the mount is the knee-on-belly position. Once again fighters face a  real danger of being beaten into submission from this position of being locked in a choke or joint lock.

When you are caught under the knee-on-belly position, a good escape method is to off-balance your opponent forward. Do this by bumping your knee into your opponent's buttocks to bring his weight forward. Your opponent will need to base out on his hands to prevent toppling over. Turn toward your opponent and shoot your arm (the one furthest from the opponent) around your leg (at the knee) that was placed on your belly. Scissor your legs and get quickly up to your knees, tackling your opponent's legs and taking him down.

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Drills for the Top Position- MMA Training and Fighting in Illinois and Indiana

Live drills are the best way to develop the skills and attributes that make you a proficient fighter in any proficient combat.

Positional Drills
We looked at a series of positional drills where you and your partner begin in the basic ground-grappling positions and work front here. The very same drills can also be used from the top man's perspective. Start in any of the dominant pins we have looked at. From the top position, look to either maintain and further improve your position or submit your opponent as your partner attempts to escape the pin. When any of these goal are accomplished, stop and start the drill again.

Repetitive Guard- Passing Drill
Start in your partner's closed guard. You attempt to pass the guard into either the side-control, knee-on-belly, or mounted position. Your partner attempts either to apply submission holds, to perform sweeps, to stand up, or to get to his knees. If any of these goals are accomplished, stop and start the drill again.

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Inside step to double under-hooks clinch - UFC Training and Conditioning

Very often confrontations get physical in ways that are not very serious. Arguments and disagreements can turn into pushing and shoving matches that are not likely to escalate much further. What is needed here is not brutal technique that result in serious injury, but simple control. This double under-hooks clinch is a great way to control an opponent and resolve a situation without doing any real harm . Lower your level and step deep inside your opponent's feet. Pass your hands under his arms and lock your hands palm to palm around his lower back. Your head is on his chest, pushing into him. Keep your hips in under his for control. Pull his hips and lower back in right as you drive your head forward. In this manner you can totally control his movement and walk him where you want. IF the situation demands, you can easily take him down with the outside trip.

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Turtle Position (cont) - MMA Gyms in Illinois and Indiana

Rolling Position. Position yourself out to your opponent's side. Place one arm under and around your opponent's neck. The other goes over his back and under his far arm. Lock your hands tightly. Push your shoulder down on the back of your opponent's head so that his forehead touches the floor. Sprawl your legs out and position yourself perpendicular to your opponent. Making sure your chest is tight to your opponent's upper back, roll over the shoulder that you placed on the back of your opponent's neck. You will land in a position stretched out in front of your opponent' with your hand-grip still in place. Pull strongly with both arms to whip your opponent over on top of you. he will land in your lap. Place your hooks in and attack with the sleeper hold.

Wrist-control-to-arm-bar method. From on top of your opponent in the turtle position, reach in behind his armpit and grasp his wrist close to the hand. Pulling on the trapped wrist and leaning your weight down on your opponent, begin to circle around his head. stand up and step all the way round your opponent's head, still controlling the wrist and pulling it up and across your opponent's head, still controlling the wrist adn pulling it back. Sit down(shuffling backwards as you sit down helps the move), and fall into the arm bar position. Be sure to clamp your knees together and control the wrist of the locked arm. Keep the thumb of the captured arm uppermost to make for a more efficient application of force.

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Turtle Position- MMA in Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates and Streamwood Illinois

Whenever you go to pass the guard on a tough opponent, there is an excellent chance that he will roll up to his knees into the turtle position, rather than allow you to pass into the dominating side-control pin. Another possibly is that you go to stack him, he will roll over backward and surface in the turtle position. Therefore, you must be prepared to deal with the turtle position, as you go to pass the guard.

Attacking the turtle position can be a frustrating experience. We look at two excellent means of doing so. The first is to break he turtle position down by rolling the opponent over into a sleeper hold. The second is to attempt an armlock. We shall look at an effective and reliable example of each.

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Passing the Guard - MMA in Schaumburg, Aurora, Naperville and Minooka IL

We have seen that the basis of positional control in a real fight is the ability to get past an opponent's legs and into a truly dominant pin. When looking at the guard from the bottom fighter's perspective, we saw that there are two basic varieties of guard position.

1. The closed guard: Here your opponent is on his back with his legs wrapped around your waist and his feet crossed. The first problem that confronts you when you attempt to pass the closed guard is breaking the guard open by uncrossing his feet. Until this occurs, you are not able to pass the guard.

2. The open guard: In this case, your opponent is on either his back or his buttocks with his legs in front of you. Here, you have no need to break the guard open, the issue becomes one of simply getting past the legs.

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Heel Hook - UFC Training and Conditioning

The heel hook is a great way to attack an opponent who is standing up in your open guard. With both feet hooked inside your opponent's legs at the knees, reach out and grab the heel of whichever foot is closet to your. Pull your hips in close to that foot and kick your foot inside and around that leg until your foot lands on the hip of the leg your are attacking. Your other foot is tucked under the hamstring of the leg you are attacking. Squeeze your knees together for control. Pull the toes of the foot that you are attacking under your armpit. Hook your wrist under the heel of that foot and lock your hands together. Torque the heel across your chest to put breaking pressure on the ankle and knee. Be careful in the application of this technique-injuries are common. Give your partner time to submit while training.

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Top MMA Chokes - Carlson Gracie MMA

Anaconda Choke (from the gator roll position) - This is a submission that has been gaining in popularity. It tends to begin with a sprawl.The sprawling person then catches their opponent in a headlock. Next, they dip their other arm below the neck and behind their opponent's arm, eventually locking it up with their other arm. Then the performer dips their right shoulder and rolls both combatants over. In the end, the performer turns toward his opponent and squeezes the back of their head into his or her own body.The Anaconda choke isn't used very often in MMA.

Arm Triangle Choke (from the side, often termed a side choke) - From the side of an opponent, the performer uses his or her forearm along with their opponent's own outstretched arm/ shoulder to cut off the air/ blood to an opponent. The performer actually squeezes a forearm into their opponent's neck to accomplish this.

Guillotine Choke (front) - A favorite for jiu-jitsu fighters taking on wrestlers with limited MMA experience as the guillotine choke punishes those who might try a takedown with their head down.

In short, a guillotine choke often happens after a sprawl that ends with an opponent's head in the performer's armpit. The performer then reaches around the opponent's chin without going around their arm and grasps the hand of the first arm with the second. From there they lift up, cutting off their opponent's air.This move can be applied from a standing position. However, oftentimes performers choose to fall back into their guard for leverage. It is a popular MMA move.

Neck Crank - This submission can be applied when a person is in a dominant position (mount or side mount). It involves pulling or twisting the head farther than it should go with two arms. Not really a choke, but better suited here than anywhere else.

North-South Choke - The performer must be on top in the north- south position to apply this hold. From there the performer cuts off the flow of blood to the neck with his or her bicep. This hasn't been extremely effective in mixed martial arts, primarily because few mixed martial artists end up in the north - south position and it's a slow working submission.Thus it gives fighters too much time to get out.

Rear Naked Choke - The performer must have access to their opponent's back to pull this off. From there they curl one arm around the their neck, bicep against one side of the neck, forearm against the other. Then the performer tugs it close and place the hand of the choking arm on the bicep of their other arm as that arm comes up behind the opponent's head and touches their hair. Last, the applier tucks their head, expands their chest, and squeezes. Oftentimes MMA fighters use their legs as 'hooks' for leverage. 

Triangle Choke - This move was made famous by Royce Gracie in an early MMA bout against Dan Severn. While in the guard, the performer traps an arm and extends their opposite side leg across their opponent's neck so that it lands on the other side of the combatant's body. Then their other leg crosses over that leg to tighten the hold. In effect, this choke traps an opponent's neck in a triangle utilizing the perfomer's leg and their opponent's own arm. 

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Positional Strategy - UFC Training, Conditioning and Self-Defense

The most important difference between the two arts is the use of a comprehensive positional strategy that is unique to Brazilian jiu jitsu. This positional strategy has its roots in the observations of real combat made by the Gracie family as they engaged in training and actual fights during the developmental years of their art. We have seen that the crucial idea is this; As two people engage in combat, there is a vast number of positions they can occupy relative to each other. Some others are more or less neutral. For example. if one fighter was able to get behind his opponent, he would have a significant positional advantage and could effectively strike his opponent, who would on the contrary find it difficult to strike back as effectively at the person behind him. Thus, it makes good sense for a fighter to strive to get behind his opponent in the course of a fight. Doing so significantly increases one's ability to harm an opponent while greatly decreasing the changes of getting hurt by the opponent.

Effective control of position is also closely related to another crucial skill of all jujitsu styles- the ability to finish a fight with an effective submission hold. Traditional jujitsu has a vast array of submission holds designed to force an opponent to cease resistance or risk serious injury and possibly unconsciousness. Many of these submission holds. however, are difficult to apply effectively in real combat for the simple reason that the opponent is no t under sufficient control when the hold is attempted. The positional strategy at the heart of Brazilian jiu jitsu makes  the use of submission holds much more effective because Brazilian jiu jitsu encourages the use of submission holds only when sufficient control of the opponent has been attained through dominant position. This is a key idea that goes a long way to explaining the unrivaled success of Brazilian jiu jitsu in MMA events, challenge matches, and real fights. This positional strategy is best carried out by a grappling style of martial art. The reason is obvious enough. Once you get hold of your opponent, you can constrain his movement and thus hold him in the positions you seek. If you do not hold him, he is free to move out of any disadvantageous position you place him in.

The best place to constrain a person's movement is on the ground because most people do not move efficiently on the ground and also because body weight can be used to pin and immobilize a person much more easily on the ground than in a standing position. This is why Brazilian jiu jitsu usually advocates taking a fight into a clinch- where you can attain a dominant standing position on your opponent- and then, if appropriate, you can take the fight to the ground, where a more dominating position can be easily held and maintained.

Although Brazilian jiu jitsu has quite a large number of moves in its repertoire, they can all be placed under tow broad categories:

1. Those that allow a fighter to enact the strategy of advancing from one position, into a more dominating one.(positional moves)
2. Those that allow a fighter to finish a fight quickly and efficiently (submission moves)

In general, it is the case that positional moves lead one fighter into the opportunity for submission moves. Positional control gives one the optimal conditions for applying a submission hold while at the same time severely limiting the ability of you opponent to apply his won submission holds on you. In this way, concern over position generally precedes concern over submission.

So much for the basic positional strategy that forms the strategic core of Brazilian jiu jitsu. We need to go on now and see the other crucial differences between Brazilian jiu jitsu and traditional jujitsu. 

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