Being on someone’s back is the crown jewel of BJJ. From this position, all your weapons are pointed towards his throat and all his weapons are pointed away from you. Life is good!
The trouble is that once you’re on the other guy’s back he’s going to do everything he can to escape. He’ll try technical escapes like going to the weak side and using the ground to scrape you off of him. And if that doesn’t work then he’ll thrash, wriggle and squirm like a newly-landed fish.
Getting to the back is a LOT of work and, once there, you don’t want to lose the position. Therefore you need to know how to reset the position even when your opponent is almost out.
Here’s one of my favorite methods to shut down the back escape and re-establish a dominant position even if your opponent is almost out!
Remember, first drill this technique with the lightest, whitest white belt in the academy and then work your way up before deploying it against your favourite frenemy on the mats
But I do hope you use this move to surprise the hell out of your training partners!
Stephan Kesting
P.S. Below are some related links if you want to go deeper into this material…
Related Material on Grapplearts
Controversial opinion: pretty much EVERYONE can learn the rolling backtake.
Here’s the exact progression I’ve used to teach 2 month whitebelts and inflexible 60 year old men how to do this move safely and effectively.
Click here for the easiest way to learn the rolling backtake!
It’s a terrible feeling of inevitability when you’re in someone’s guard, he takes your arm across his centerline, and starts to climb to your back.
But it doesn’t need to be this way. Having your elbow across his centerline doesn’t automatically lead to him taking your back and making your life miserable.
Here’s a technique to get out of this position that has saved my butt many times…
Click here to get a step-by-step breakdown of my favorite way to completely shut down the backtake in the gi.
More black belt matches end with chokes from the back than any other kind of submission, making back control the king of positions in jiu-jitsu. But getting to the back can be super difficult, especially when your opponents get wise to your regular techniques. You need to mix things up and not be predictable.
Rolling backtakes are a family of techniques that teleport you onto your opponent’s back almost instantly. These are highly effective, difficult to stop, competition-proven moves that are regularly used by many of the top competitors active today.
In Rolling Backtakes for Everyone, you’ll learn exactly how to take your opponent’s back from everywhere using my simple to learn, easy to do rolling backtakes system.
Click here to find out more about rolling backtakes
Having someone on your back in rear mount is an absolutely terrible situation.
It doesn’t matter if you’re doing BJJ, no gi submission grappling, MMA, or are in a self defense situation. When someone is behind you with the hooks in and his arms locked in the seatbelt position then you’re really very close to getting choked into a drooling mess.
Knowing how to escape the back without getting choked or armlocked is an absolutely critical skill.
Click here to learn three high percentage rear mount escapes.
