Adults: Taking the Back
Warm-up
Hands to the Mat
Player A
Player B
Win Condition(s)
Handfighting, trying to get the other player’s hands to the mat.
Front Headlock to the Backside
Player A
Starts on top, in a front headlock, on player B. Trying to get around and get hip to hip.
Player B
Trying to keep player A infront of them the entire time, without letting them get hip to hip. No collapsing down, no getting up, no leaving the position.
Win Condition(s)
Hip to Hip Breakdown
Player A
Starts on top, hip-to-hip, with the bottom player in turtle. Trying to break the bottom player down to hip, so hip is on the mat. Keep the bottom player on their elbows and don’t allow them to use their hands.
Player B
Bottom player, trying not to get hip to the mat and trying to get up to hands. If you get up to your hands, stay there for as long as possible. Not trying to stand up. Not trying to back out or recover guard.
Win Condition(s)
If top player gets bottom player to a hip, switch top and bottom.
Main Class
Chair Sit
Once we’ve broken our opponent down to their hip, or any other way, this may happen. We need to control rotation. That means we need to stay behind their elbows. That is the crux of taking the back. If they can get their elbow to the mat, then they can get their shoulders to the mat, which in turn, brings their back to the mat.
We get our chest behind their elbow, preferably to the back of their shoulder. We connect with a tight, high seatbelt grip.
Our elbow is monitoring their hip, in case they try to get away by unexpectedly rolling to their knees. From here, we bring on leg nearest their head up to their back and tuck in our foot.
Some people will go knee/elbow here to make it impossible to step over. Instead of trying to step over and landing in their half guard, we’re going to create a wedge.
Our knee is going to insert, and like the jaws of life, our knee and elbow are going to spread apart to open the position. Now we’ve created a big hole for our foot to drop into.
We drop our foot in and attach it to their hip, still keeping our chest behind their elbow and connected to their back.
From here, we sit in a chair. We do not lie in a bed, we sit in a chair. They should be a part of us. We sit up in a chair, and then we fall to our other side, finishing the back take.
Back Take from Head & Arm
To demonstrate how staying behind the elbow is vitally important, we’re going to work another chairsit, but this time, from another position.
We’re going to work it from the mount. Often, we get the arm up for the head and arm choke, but they either turn away from the choke or find a little pocket where they can survive. If that happens, then we make a bad situation even worse by taking their back.
From this position, we’re going to drive our head up and around, toward their head. From here, our chest is going to drop onto the back of their tricep.
We loosen our hands enough to move, but keep them tight enough to keep control. We tuck our knee against the back and pull them up.
From here, everything is the exact same.