BJJ 9.2.2010

This was the first class to concentrate fully on the mount. So, after a quick warm up, we picked our partners and started going through some basic stuff about control and escapes.

The mountee has several things that he might try to throw the mounter away from the position. Juha showed us a collection of attempts and counters to them:

• If the bottom guy bridges to get your hands on the ground, you can straighten your hips to avoid falling.
• Or, you can lay flat on top and put hook his legs. Don't extra-hook with your feet, because the opponent may kick his legs straight and twist your knees to a mush.
• If the opponent tries to maneuver his hips in some other way, you can grab behind his neck with both hands and press your elbows to his chest. It's really hard for him to do anything from that position.
• If the opponent gets on his side and is about to free his bottom leg by pushing on your knee, quickly grab his pushing wrist and pull it away.
  

Whatever you do, it's always good to scoot your knees closer to the opponents armpits when returning back from any of the above counters.

To keep things fair for the bottom guy, Juha showed us a new escape combo. You start with the basic bridge escape, where you grab the collar and a sleeve, trap a leg, and bridge to roll the guy away. He can block your sweep by posting his foot on the ground for support. However, this makes his knee rise from the floor, so you immediately move your hand to the knee, and push and free one of your legs.

Armed with a new set of mount tricks, we practiced escaping and keeping mount with our partners before a couple of rounds of free sparring.