Musings from the BJJ Gi #23, lesson 24; standing headlock defence & take the back from the guard

We have gone over the standing headlock defence quite a few times, and the technique is always being refined by small details. My partner was really nailing it this time with precision though; when I hit the floor, I hit the floor with quite a bit of momentum, and I fell into the sweet spot, not squashing her leg or anything. It's awesome when you feel your partner nailing a technique like this, because you can feel the conviction with which it is executed, and you think "that one really got me! I couldn't have stopped that one if I tried".

Taking the back from the guard involves quite a lot of steps to put the whole thing together. This technique is actually taught in 3 stages because there is so much to it, and is a fair bit to remember. The indicator is your opponent in your closed guard, putting their forearm across your throat and standing up on their feet, driving their weight forward to try to choke you with their forearm, and perhaps also punch you with their other arm. You turn your head towards the elbow of their choking arm to offer your neck some protection from the choke, block the punching arm, lift their weight back using your legs and hips, and now that their choking forearm is lighter, push it across to the side of their punching arm, lock up a Gable grip behind their neck, and direct their weight to that side with your legs. So you now have their head and their closest arm locked up inside your arms/grip, almost like an arm triangle. You then achieve a better side-on angle on their body (when safe to do so; when they aren't writhing and trying to escape), by putting your outer foot on the ground and sort of shuffling your hips around a bit. You then hug their neck tight, and pull up towards yourself, while simultaneously chopping their outer leg with your inner one (the one underneath them), and then bring your inner leg back up high, so that the inside of your knee is against their abdomen or chest area. Next, you grab a hold of their lat with your outer arm, tuck your inner arm in close, and with your weight resting on your shoulder, push off the ground with your toes to bring your bottom knee up, put your tucked arm/hand on the ground, and get your hooks (feet) in to begin securing the back mount. The final movements are getting your hips back/lower on their body, and getting the over/under grip (under grabs over).

This is clearly another one which is a bit of a mess to describe in writing haha. It's a great technique though, and seems like it would be very difficult to counter or escape from for an untrained person. To writhe around and panic in this position would be extremely exhausting, and would yield very little benefit to you as well, as you have a person's entire body weight gripped tight onto one side of your upper body. It's really difficult to utilise power, gain momentum, or create any space at all from here, as one of your arms is pretty much useless, sticking straight out in front of your, glued to your own head, and it's almost like you are partially being choked too, depending on how tight that Gable grip is around your neck and arm.
Cheers,

• David