09/10/2017 - Teaching | Mount | Moving from Low to High Mount

Teaching #708
Artemis BJJ (MYGYM Bristol), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 09/10/2017

A post shared by Artemis BJJ (@artemisbjj) on Oct 9, 2017 at 10:19pm PDT

In order to progress from low to high mount, the main barrier is going to be their elbows. There are several ways you can remove that barrier. There is the brute force method, yanking their elbows out of the way and driving your knees up into their armpits. I wouldn't recommend that method, though it can work. A more reliable option, with greater finesse, is to put your hands on their shoulders. Keeping you arms straight, lean forwards to put all your weight through your arms. That should lift their elbows, enabling you to slide right up into high mount.

A post shared by Artemis BJJ (@artemisbjj) on Oct 11, 2017 at 12:31am PDT

The ezequiel choke is another way to get them to lift their elbows: as soon as they give you that space in their attempt to defend, shove your knee into the gap. To really fire the leg forward, you can push off your toes. Another option is to simply keep walking your feet up their sides, as if you were climbing up a wall. Every time you see a gap, fill it, until eventually you're up really high and their bridge is nullified.

Grabbing the top of their head and driving your hips forwards is another possibility, using that leverage to raise their elbows. To further help that motion, you could try hooking an elbow and 'spider-walking' your fingers up the mat, aiming to bring their elbows away from their body. Once you have gotten up into high mount, make sure they can't wriggle back out by blocking their shoulders. You could do that with your elbows on the mat, grabbing their head or indeed the cross-face.

A post shared by Artemis BJJ (@artemisbjj) on Oct 12, 2017 at 12:20am PDT

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Teaching Notes: I don't normally split this into a separate lesson, but it felt like it made sense. There was enough in here to split it into three videos when I did editing later, and it felt like it flowed together well. The stage after that (material on maintaining high mount) is not quite so solidly formatted, so I need to think more about that.

Make sure they have the hands fully on the shoulders, not part way off. I could also talk more about the grab the head and drive the hips option, especially against somebody who is staying very tight. That normally leads into a back take, so perhaps that could be a high mount lesson, fit that in somewhere? Walking the hands up to pry the elbow away would be a good one to talk about too.