This Past Saturday during our Fundamentals of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class at Crossroads BJJ we discussed the correct position to keep your arms in order to escape from the bottom of side control. The side control position can be one of the more difficult positions to escape in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu as the top bjj player has a number of attacks and positional transitions he or she can implement in order to stay on top. In a fight it is always better to be on top since you have gravity on your side and are in much less danger.
All escapes are much easier when you provide the person in the top position less opportunity to grab onto you and reduce your ability to move. In this class we focused on keeping your arms in tight where they can not be grabbed and then working to either escaping using an elbow escape or a whale walk. We then finished the Fundamentals of Jiu-Jitsu class by drilling how to switch between the two options.
Being confident in your escapes is the first step getting good at submissions , which is how we end a fight in Jiu-Jitsu. When you first begin to attack submissions the fear of failure can be overwhelming. Knowing that if you miss the submission you could end up stuck on the bottom, where if you do not have good escapes you will be trapped and submitted. However if you know that you can’t be held down you will have no hesitation attacking your submissions.