Today during class we continued working headlock escapes from the bottom position. While this is not something that will typically happen during a sparring session at Crossroads BJJ because the headlock does not offer a great deal of control over our training partners and there aren’t many submissions from the position it is something that happens very often in a self defense or street fight situation. Today we worked a specific variation where your training partner is holding you in a headlock while you are on your back and they are keeping their head very tight to your body which brings their weight forward. In the escape we covered today we used our training partners weight shift to move to a safer position by attacking a shoulder lock forcing our training partners to give up top position. This escape demonstrated two key concepts in jiu-jitsu understand weight distribution, moving away from where our training partners or opponents are heavy and understanding the Kimora or shoulder lock and how pressure on the shoulder joint can facilitate movement.
After we finished the headlock portion of class we went on to work the collar choke from mount where we discussed a few details on finishing the choke as efficiently as possible. We covered where exactly our hands should be and how we can get as much weight as possible into the finish. Once everybody in class knew how to finish the choke we discussed the “levels of timing” concept. This idea lets us pick the easiest move without using strength or physical attributes to win. Depending on how soon we are aware of our training partners reaction to being choked we can choose one of three options to counter their defense, being smarter instead of stronger or faster.