29/12/2011 - Teaching (Escaping the Back)

Teaching #034
Gracie Barra Bristol, (BJJ), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 29/12/2011

I just finished my first day at a new job, which will inevitably cut down the hours I can spend preparing for lessons. Fortunately I'm also coming towards the end of my second cycle of planned lessons, after which I intend to restart at the beginning. I'll make a number of modifications to the lessons I taught in the first run-through of those two cycles, but it will be much easier than having to plan an entirely new thirty-six lessons. By the time I start into my third cycle, I should hopefully have lots more time. :)

Tonight's lesson was relatively straightforward, as I was adding in some escapes to the body triangle I showed last week. I went through the escape briefly already last week, so discussed it in a little more detail this time round, adding in a slight variation from Nick Brooks. Once they lock the body triangle on you, your goal is to roll to the side of the dangling leg. Normally they will also be hooking their foot behind your knee (as this helps their control, because they can then lift and turn you).

If you can trap that leg on the floor, a simple footlock is now possible. Bring your nearest leg over the top of their dangling foot. Triangle your legs to prevent them moving their legs, then bridge, so that your hip shoves into the point at which their foot is locked behind their knee. That should cause sufficient pressure on their ankle and foot to make them tap. You can also try Brooks' version, where you instead use the heel of your foot to block their dangling leg in place, then bridge.

Two less effective options which may still yield results are to hook around their leg as they turn you to the other side. From here, you can again try and bridge into their locked foot and knee, but they have a much greater range of motion, so it will be tough to generate enough pressure. Similar, if their foot is dangling between your legs, you can try crossing your legs over that and bridging.

Finally, I went through a typical method for escaping the back, after you've managed to clear off one of their hooks. This is the one I saw a few days ago at RGA Bucks, which Sahid described as 'bobbing and weaving'. Pull the arm they have by your shoulder over your head, then fall in the direction of that arm. You're looking to trap it between your head and your arm: to further trap it, you can also try grabbing their tricep. Still on that side, pop your hips over as usual (either use your hand, if your neck is safe, or push their hook off with your opposite heel), but as you move around to side control, keep facing their head. That should set you up nicely for a d'arce choke.

Last week, there were only three people in class, which meant I could take part too. I found that the specific sparring drills from the back were helpful in terms of making me think more carefully about how I tried to escape: hopefully if it did that for me, the same was true of the students. So, I decided to include it again, with the same rule that the person on the back was purely looking to maintain the back position, not submit their opponent (although this time there were enough people that I didn't need to take part until later, when I paired people up).

There is the danger there that you become complacent about protecting your neck (so I made a point of mentioning that throughout: it should hopefully have become clear during a later round of specific sparring, where I brought submissions back in), but I think it also helps you really concentrate on how to remove those hooks. It also encourages you to pay careful attention to their weight distribution and use of pressure.