I've heard quite a few BJJ instructors say that if you're under side control and your opponent grabs your head instead of going for the far underhook, you should be able to take his back WITHOUT PROBLEMS, because in that case you'll have the underhook.
But in reality that doesn't always work so well, especially against good judo guys - not to mention if they're bigger than you and you have a gi on. They will go into kesa-gatame, i.e. "head and arm", by pulling up on your near arm and grabbing around your head. And in some cases, you'll be pushing on his hip with your near arm, making it easier for him to pull it up.
And you know that you're SUPPOSED to take his back with ease, but sometimes it just doesn't happen.
What can I do to make my underhook escapes from side control less susceptical to kesa-gatame?
If I have my left arm underhooking, then I pull my right elbow down to the ground. I stop pushing him away with my right arm.
Why? Because my goal with the underhook is to throw him up in the direction of my head. If my right elbow is up in his hip, then that's like blocking my own throwing motion.
When I pull my right elbow down to the mat, if he tries to grab around my head, he will only have a side headlock and that is very easy to escape.
The motion for throwing him up with your underhook is very much like throwing an uppercut in boxing. The power comes from your hips, not from your arms.
If my left arm is underhooking, then I bridge explosively as I do the uppercut movement with my hips turning towards my right. When I twist my hips to the right, it brings my right elbow to the mat and allows me to get up to my knees very easily.
The key thing is timing. When you get your underhook, there are a million things he can do to prevent you from doing your escape. You need to do your escape the same millisecond you get your underhook, before he can react.
Don't get your underhook if your other arm is killed.
No I don't try to pull guard if I have the underhook. I pretty much do this one escape and it works 95% of the time, assuming I started doing it the moment I got the underhook.
You can see one of my training partners do this move in competition at 1:32 of
I pull guard from under side control using the forearm in the throat and forearm in the hip.
But really, 80% of what I do from under side control is just getting the underhook and then doing this move. I usually get the underhook AS they pass guard. A lot of people pass a little loosely, running around the legs, and that allows me to get my underhook pretty easily. If you play a lot of half guard, you have this
underhook instinct in your blood, so you just get it without thinking.
In that same competition, I did this escape like 3 times. The memory card was full on the camera so we didnt get any footage of it. I was never under side control for longer than 3 seconds, except in one match where the guy was just way better than me, and was able to hold his underhook.
Now remember, to pull him in your guard, you have to push him down towards your legs. To go to his back, you need to push him up towards your head.
Theoretically, you could set up a harmony by first pushing him down to guard, then when he pushes back, you push him up and take his back.
But I think that would take too long. While this is going on, he will move his underhooked arm to inside your leg to do a cradle, or to your near hip, and you can't throw him up any more.
what's up fellows? here is my 2 cents. last year at a royce seminar, he showed where you could take your underhook hand and pull on the belt(above the butt)/(lower back)area just enough to place you post foot on.(of your opp.)(same way you would control the biceps with your feet, you will control the belt that way. at the same time you push with your post leg and free your elbow or keep the underhook to take their back.
p.s. for the inflexible ones, grab your on foot with the underhook hand and pull up until you reach the belt and just begin to dig your toes and feet into the space between his belt and the back of their gi.
hope this makes sense, but it actually work for a strong head and arm side control escape.
I thought I'd chirp in. What's been covered above is all good stuff. I just wanted to add that it covers the preventative type of escape. You set it up before you're really in the position, etc.
The next thing you want to be able to do is escape from the position when it is fully secured. So, you've lost the preventative battle(it happens sometimes) and now you're stuck in that position.
Now, in all reality you'll have to have more than one type of escape, since they've really got it on you good.
what you're talking about, underhook, and try to climb up their back. You can step over their nearest leg with yours to make it easier as well.
bridge: Bridge directly up trying to take your opponent toward your head, THEN roll across. The up bridge off balances and then the roll brings them over while they're off balance.
sitting up escapes. Trying to rock your hips out and then sit up to escape.
shrimping out.
No one of those is going to work all the time, and usually they'll work best in conjunction with eachother. Work toward one, they react, and you switch it up. It works just like any combo submissions, or escapes.
I commonly use a shrimp out and switch to bridging. Then try some of the others.
Also, if you're having problems with the position, try starting live drills from being in the position securely. Being comfortable being in the position and working to get out are always big keys in trying to develope escapes from any position.