In lesson 14 of the Crossroads Martial Arts Curriculium we start with learning how to defend somebody grabs you from behind. This is a very dangerous position to find yourself in because the attacker has the ability to lift you off your feet and throw you to the ground. In this position it is imperative that you drop in base and lower your center of gravity and break the grip of the person who has grabbed you so that they can not control your how you move. Once you have broken the grip you can then move to improve your position and work to control the fight.
On the ground we start Lesson 14 of the Crossroads Martial Arts Curriculium starts from the half guard position commonly referred to as the knee shield guard or the z-guard. This is a position where you are fighting off of your back and use your knee to control the space between you and your partner to prevent them from passing your guard or in a self degense situation prevent the person on top from punching you. In BJJ distance management is essential still to being able to fight off your back effectively.
From the bottom of the knee shield guard we took advantage of the person on top reaching diehard to far, from this mistake we transition from playing a defense guard to being more offensive and taking the back with an arm drag. By moving to the back we have moved from being on the bottom of a fight to being on top where our training partner has no way to arm us. This idea is the core strategy of bjj and is what separates it from other martial arts. Once we have improved our position we go over the mata Leo choke, the strongest submission in BJJ
If you are interested in learning more about what brazilian Jiu-jitsu is all about while getting in great shape and having an awesome time doing it stop by our “getting started” page and learn everything you need to know about coming down and checking out a BJJ class for yourself. If you live in CT and haven’t come down to check out Crossroads BJJ don’t wait another day, come down, try a class and see how much fun learning BJJ really is.