When you are under side control your opponent may “backturn.” Especially if you are pressuring under their neck. If this is the case your escape may involve you sitting up.
(If you time it right you can just sit right up and completely reverse your opponent. This is not a high-percentage move and usually works best with a lighter opponent. You hit this reversal by keeping your fett very close to your butt and as your opponent backturns, your kick and swing your hips out. Think pommel horse in gymnastics, or breakdancing, depending where you hail from. )
If you are like the rest of us, then this second alternative will likely work better.
1) Start with your opponent in side control on your right. Free your inside arm. Keep your elbow down and your hand on your opponents hips to keep them from rotating into north/south.
2) After they back turn move your free hand into their armpit outstretch and lock your arm. This keeps them low on your body and off your chest and allows you to work on freeing your other arm. Rock from hip to hip to free your outside arm. (Try turning towards the outside, but be careful not to give up the back.)
3) Now that both arms are free it’s time for them to get off of you. Put both your left hand in their armpit and your right hand on their hips, but don’t extend your arms fully. Now prepare to bridge by scooting your feet towards close to your butt.
4) explosively bridge up. Go for height. Next, before your drop forcefully extend your arms shoving your opponent away from you as your body drops. As you drop, scoot your hips as far back as possible.
5) Now that you are sitting up, grab your opponents belt with your left hand (this is like the conter to a single-leg.) Keep pressure down on their neck with your elbow.
6)Take the back by continuing to scoot your hips out and trying to kick out the near knee and grabbing the far armpit with your right hand, rolling your opponent towards you backwards.
Here is Josh Griffiths from Jiu Jitsu Inc showing a triangle from side control. In this technique Josh takes advantage of the fact that his training partner is pushing against his face with a bent arm. He traps the arm and sets up a triangle choke.
In this video Clay Burwell, Jiu Jitsu Inc strength and conditioning coach, demonstrates the kettle bell swing. The kettle bell swing is great for improving your balance and base for bjj. It also strengthens your legs hips and back.
The second part of escaping side control is re-establishing yourself in a more dominant position. You will aim to put your opponent into your guard. But depending on their reaction, you may end up sweeping and landing in side control.
Picking up where the last post left off, you’ve just bridged away escaping your hips aways from your opponent. Now we’ll focus on closing the distance back in and re-establishing. (In general you usually want a lot of space or to be very close to your opponent. When you are neither close nor far don’t hang out there.)
Start hip escaped out. You are on your right hip. Your right hand is fully outstretched, pushing against your opponents left hip, maintaining your distance.
Getting to Guard: IF your opponents right arm is not planted on the mat (which would block your legs when you moved in to get guard)
THEN go for guard. - Grab the back of your opponents right tricep with your left arm (overhook). Next, take a big step in with your top leg, your left leg and plant it next to your opponents hips. Start to place your guard by sliding your right (bottom leg) knee in, over your arm that’s posting on their hip. End with your ankle between their legs. Next swing your left leg up onto your opponents back. Now underhook your opponents left arm with your right arm. Now flop onto your left hip by pressing down with your left heel on their back and locking your hands and applying pressure behind your opponents left arm with under hook. Slide your right foot out and lock your legs to complete guard.
Taking the sweep to side control: IF your opponents right arm IS planted on the mat
THEN go for the sweep. - Kick your right leg under you so your hips are facing down. Reach inside and under your opponent and grab their pants behind the knees. Base up onto your knees , pulling yourself in tight to your opponent. Keep your head low and tight into your opponents knees. Pop your head out to one, stepping up with that leg as your pull your opponents knees up to that side and push with your head to sweep. Land in side control. After you establish side control, let go of the knees.
Being under side control is a drag…. Let’s discuss how to get out of this unfavorable position by breaking it down into 2 categories: 1 - The Bridge, and 2- Re-Establishing (a better position for yourself). In the following example, your opponent is on your right, on top of you.
The Bridge:
You will be bridging twice, once to get your opponent off of you and a second time to create more space for yourself. There are 3 options, depending on where your outside arm is: Underhooking your opponent, Inside your opponents underhook, and finally inside your opponents underhook and pinned by your opponents head
1st Bridge:
One important purpose of the first bridge is to get your inside arm elbow down on the mat. If your opponent has this arm up off the mat, you must maneuver until it’s free and touching the mat. Once the inside hand is free, cup your opponents bicep and block their top arm from reaching around the back of your neck. When you’re under side control is really starts to be awful when your opponent traps your neck and immobilizes you and makes you uncomfortable.
IF you have an underhook that is great. You may be able to heave them forward so far that you can take the back. Often, however, your opponent will be tight on you, pinning your under hook very close to your side. Instead of trying to lift them up with your bridge, start your bridge moving your arm out to your side (like you’re making a jiu jitsu snow angel).
IF you are underhooked then bridge up and crossface the top of their head. Hitting their head at the top will give you the most leverage to direct their head and body away from you.
IF you are underhookedandyourarm is being pinned and they are keeping their head down tight to your body (they may be back-turned at this point) then grab their collar and edge your elbow under their chin and then bridge by throwing the elbow up, pushing their head away and over your shoulders.
2nd Bridge:
After you’ve moved their weight a bit, follow with another bridge to get enough space to re establish. Straighten your inside arm and push your opponents hip as you bridge again and scoot your hips back a second time. (There can be more bridges, but it’s good if you can do this fast, so 2 is a good target number. If you can do it in one, even better.)
Here is a flashy but effective finish shown by Josh Griffiths at Jiu Jitsu Inc. First the guy passing is pushed away, when he enters again he is elevated and then caught in an oma plata.
Here is another way to get to the triangle choke from the open guard as shown by Jiu JItsu Inc Instructor Josh Griffiths. From this set you can easily transition to the arm bar as seen a few weeks ago.
Start in your opponents butterfly guard. You are pinning their feet and back down, and have your head on their chest and your arms holding their side. Your head is facing to the side you will pass towards. For this example face your left.
1. They try to extend their legs and sit up to attack. React by posting up on your toes and taking an underhook on the opposite side that your head is facing, so under hook with your right arm. (By posting onto your toes, you are very hard to sweep. You are a tripod and your head is pinning their chest down as well.)
2. Start your pass by dropping one of your hips, your right hip. This will lose the hook on that side.
3. Continue the pass by pushing down their remaining leg with your left hand, to avoid half-guard, as you walk your legs out towards the passing side.
