While I’m not a fan of the classic figure four grip, the reverse figure four is very sharp and viable grip. Switching the arm that crosses the Achilles puts your wrist blade at a great spot, with better leverage. Particularly used with other positions such as 50/50 and the saddle, it can be devastating.

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This is probably the simplest pass you can execute from a standing position. You grab both the ankles and throw them to the side. But there is more to it than just that.

I start with the throw by pass, using a bit of a juking motion to disorient and fake them out a bit, followed quickly by a knee on belly. We can then double throw by, anticipating our opponent quickly turning back into us and throwing the legs by a second time. This is more effective as you use their momentum against them.

In MMA, we can also add on overhand right which can be devastating from this position, making the pass even easier.

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When an opponent is working to pass your guard, you can bait them into a Kimura. This requires that you have kept your frames on his far arm, so that it can be captured as he advances to pass. It’s tricky for them, because your appear to be giving up your back, which if he tries to take it will end up with him getting stuck in a Kimura as well.

I have hit this technique on all levels of athletes, and even the best athletes fall for this. The key is in the setup. If I just give up my guard with no resistance it will be suspect. But if you are defending your guard, and they are putting pressure, and then you appear to give way and expose your back, they will rush to take it, leading them to getting stuck in the trap.

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The Flower Sweep is one of the fundamentals sweeps every guard player should know. It can blossom into many other techniques, such as arm bars, omoplatas, triangle chokes, and even leg locks! It also works well against opponents that try to stand, and can be used against shorter opponents who need to stand to break guard.

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Against more skilled opponents, you will often find they can still invert their guard to block the pass. This is my ideal situation, as I can then expose their back and get an even better position.

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When you have an opponent that is standing over you and giving you space, it creates and opportunity for you to stand up. The technical stand up is a way of coming up efficiently and safely – a must know technique for every martial artist.

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While training in a class with Jake Shields, who was covering ashi garami attacks, Alvin and I played around a bit with different finishes and I came up with this. I like it because it really goes from 0 to 100 and puts you on the offensive quickly – changing from being on bottom to top with an aggressive guard pass. Even if the pass doesn’t finish, you are going to be on top and have a strong angle

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This technique was something I have seen Alvin do before, so I like to pick his brain on this position as he likes playing it as much as I do. This one he gives credit to Craig Jones for, but I’m just going to call it the Coyote Hook Hip Bump as that makes sense to me. 🙂

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My friend Alvin Yeh showed me this technique as we were reviewing the Reverse Seat Belt position, and it instantly got my attention. I wish I would have thought of it myself, but I wasn’t going to let a great technique slide away from me, so I asked him to teach it for me. As you can see, it’s a tricky trap move, so I instantly fell in love with it.

The trap is set up from bottom side control with the Reverse Seat Belt (also called the Overwrap, Octopus Guard, Cat/Dog, or Reach Around guard, lol). The top man often likes to crush the bottom man with their hips, sitting off to the side, which also gives them access to an easy mount in the process. Usually bottom man is unhappy with this and will adjust his position, but in the trap, Alvin allows me to be comfortable here and lets me mount, even using his free hand to push my hips towards the mount.

The moment I start to step over for the mount is when the trap is sprung. He uses his far knee to bump my hips up and then uses his other leg to secure a lock down on my near leg. Now he has great options for taking the back here. He can use the lock down to extend me and take my back, or he could truck roll to the back.

I love this because a good trap has great bait and predictable escapes, and this fits that description perfectly. Better guys usually like going into mount versus the reverse seat belt, and I usually just resort to hip escape to go back to neutral, but this makes the mount a deadly mistake.

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If your opponent is really tight on the Over Hook, and perhaps not giving you the opportunity to switch to the Under Hook, that makes a throw by a great option. The tighter the Over Hook, the more effective the Throw By is. We are simply doing a windmill motion with our seat belt arm, unwinding our opponent’s Over Hook and throwing it in front of them. This gives us an easy back take with minimal effort.

The key is to set up properly. If your opponent’s Over Hook is loose, it’s not advisable to go for a throw by, as when you unwind the Over Hook his arm won’t move forward, and you will end up giving up your back instead. We need that strong Over Hook to drag the arm forward, so make sure it’s there first.

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The Seat Belt position is a classic wrestling scramble position. You can easily get into this position off a failed body lock attempt, where your opponent attempted to counter you with a Harai Goshi (like we covered a few days ago), but you were able to let go of your body lock and post out. The Seat Belt position is a 50/50 position – either man can win under the right circumstances.

Today, we are going to cover the person with the seat belt (the tight waist around the back) and how to use it offensively. One simple solution is to simply switch to an Under Hook. The Under Hook from this position removes nearly all the Over Hook Pressure, making it easier for you to attack.

Typically, I would angle off to either go into a Front Headlock, Modified Pancake (using a far wrist grip), or stand up and look for a Far Knee Block as my opponent stands up.

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This is a little tricky move you can hit from the Over Hook when your opponent is not guarding their free hand carefully. You can initiate this off them grabbing your wrist (preferred) or you can grab their wrist.

Either way, we or can pass their free hand to your over hook hand and secure a strong pin. You will now have both their arms trapped with one arm, leaving you with a free hand to attack. I find it best to use my free hand to control their far triceps or elbow and pull it tight into me, as this will off balance them and cause them to circle into me. This sets up a front trip beautifully, and makes for an easy take down.

You can get more creative with this arm trap of course, and hit things like an Inside Trip, or go for back trips, laterals, and more.

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Even when you are struggling to dominate the shoulder, you can still catch your opponent with a Fireman’s carry. A good Fireman’s carry gets your opponent’s feet off the mat quickly, so that they can’t work to counter you or put you into compromising positions like a back crucifix.

It is used well when you can get your opponent driving into you, so you can fall underneath them and make them load themselves on their shoulder. A key point here is to make sure you use your arm controlling the over hook to control their triceps and pull down on it hard. That will help get them to dump on top of you and get their feet off the mat.

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The Over Hook (or Whizzer) in wrestling tends to be used in a defensive capacity, but you can actually use it for some great offensive take downs as well. The battle between the Over Hook versus the Under Hook is all about dominating the shoulder. The Under Hook man wants to use his hook to break the posture of his opponent, while the Over Hook man wants to really crank on that arm and maintain his posture.

Secondary to the shoulder domination in my opinion is head positioning. I find it’s more important for the Under Hook man to have head positioning to score their take downs and utilize the position. The Over Hook man can still score without head positioning, but it’s better to have head positioning to make sure you negate your opponent’s offense first.

One of my favorite attacks from the Over Hook is the Harai Goshi. It is a powerful throw that can ruin the day of the Under Hook man. The main keys are:
1. Break your opponent’s posture before stepping through
2. Keep your hips over your feet (don’t reach)
3. Maintain control of their free arm so they can’t post out
4. Power through the up kick and upper body rotation, making sure to land in front of his hips, not over (prevents getting rolled through).

This also comes in handy when someone gets a body lock on you at an angle, and is a great way of countering that position.

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