In Lesson 8 of the Crossroads Martial Arts Curriculum we begin the self defense portion of class by escaping the headlock from the bottom position on the ground. While all of the techniques we cover in class are applicable in a self defense scenario it is very uncommon to have to apply certain escapes while you are performing live drilling against another student because the holds are simply not effective and fairly easy to escape from once you know how. This is why we spend the first section of every Brazilian jiu-jitsu class drilling these escapes, to keep them fresh in our muscle memory. In todays class we escape the headlock by simply performing an elbow escape and because the top player is resting their weight on us, if we move, we are no longer there for them to rest their weight and they fall to the bottom position.
The next portion of lesson 8 covers how to perform a bump or umpa escape from the bottom of mount. Knowing how to perform this technique is essential to being able to escape the mount position. Before people learn Jiu-jitsu they will attempt to turn over to their stomach and push themselves up off the ground, this exposes your back for the top player to advance their position and your neck for them to finish the fight with a choke. The proper way to escape the mount is either with an elbow escape or the bump escape. The bump escape which we cover in this lesson is done by blocking two limbs on the same side of your training partner body( left arm and left leg, or right arm and right leg) you then bump their weight in the direction of the two limps you have trapped leaving them no way to base out and stop your roll.
Once you have rolled your opponent off of you, you are still not out of danger. While you now have the top position you are still in their guard which is a position they have a lot of attacksfrom and if you are not careful you could very easily find yourself on the bottom again or even worse tapping out. This is why it is imperative that you get your posture and position your arms correctly as soon as you roll them. Lesson 8 of the Crossroads Martial Arts Curriculum discusses how to position your arms to you can defend sweeps and avoid submissions.
Of course Brazilian Jiu-jitsu always offers a way to undo the things your training partner is doing correctly, or even trick them into doing something they know they shouldn’t. To demonstrate this idea we finish the class with an armlock from the bottom of guard. By figuring out a way move our training partners arms out of position we can reposition our hips and attack from the bottom of guard with the armbar. Brazilian Jiu-jitsu is a game of constant adjustment to our training partners movements. We must be constantly adjusting or we will find ourselves left behind and tapping out.