Training in the martial arts teaches you how to deal with bad situations and that is exactly what we did during Tuesday Nights Fundamentals class at Crossroads Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Being on top in the Mounted Position gives you an incredible advantage in a street fight and in a BJJ competition. In the mounted position you have the ability to hit your opponent while the person on the bottom does not have the ability to hit you, the main goal of martial arts is to keep you safe, in this class we drilled how to escape from the mounted position going over 3 variations of the elbow escape with each one dealing with a different type of pressure from the top position.
After escaping the mounted position we worked into closed guard, the closed guard gives us the angles and leverage required to be able to defend ourselves from the bottom during a fight or self defense situation. Once in the full guard we studied a gi choke and a brabo choke. These are two very strong chokes that work very well together allowing you to quickly transition between them and keep your bjj training partner stuck in a loop of defending your attacks. The sharper we get at linking attacks together the harder it will before our Jiu-Jitsu training partners to defend them, eventually they will over commit to a defense and have to tap. This is the idea of marital arts and brazilian jiu-jitsu, using intellect over strength to outsmart and eventually beat the stronger attacker.