The crossface is one of the most important ways to control your opponent in BJJ and make it much harder for him to escape.
This technique essentially turns your opponent’s jaw into a lever and uses that to turn his head. Once his head is turned it greatly limits the directions he can move in, and also makes him bear your weight.
This technique is used in guard passing, to control the half guard, the mount and the side control
BJJ black belt Cal MacDonald came into the Grapplearts dojo to share the details of the side control crossface for maximum pressure, as well as crossface defences and escapes.
Cal and I filmed an instructional called BJJ Foundations, and it’s the best BJJ curriculum I’ve ever seen.
It has techniques, but more importantly, it has an amazing set of drills and training methods to make learning as fast as possible.
Click here to check out BJJ Foundations by Cal MacDonald and myself.
Getting flattened out, crossfaced, and smashed when you’re in the half guard sucks, and in this article we’re going to learn how to prevent that from happening.
The key is to use your upper body frames to stop your opponent from getting chest to chest and flattening you out. Doing this also allows you to get back to offense from the bottom again.
Click here for a breakdown of how not to get smashed by the crossface…
