So, it’s been a little while since I did one of these, so I thought I better get back into the habit. This week we’re looking at back control and specifically the seatbelt grip.
In BJJ the back is clearly the one of the most dominant positions. It’s worth four points under IBJJF rules. That it is a dominant position is especially true for smaller practitioners like me. If I manage to attain side control on someone, if they’re much bigger than me, whether they’re skilled or not, they can probably just sit up or bench press me off. I only weigh 52kg. For an 80kg+ guy, lifting me off them is not a particularly difficult issue. Yet, if I’m on their back, clearly the bench press is useless. Muscles are no use when somebody is clinging to your back like a monkey.
I’ve been told by all my instructors that I should seek the back at every opportunity, rather than anything where strength and weight could be a factor. So (just for the purpose of this blog), say that you’ve got to the back – what do you do once you’re there? And how do you stay there?
The key principal is to keep your hips in line with the other persons hips. All their escapes come from them manoeuvring out to the side, down or up, so that their hips are no longer in line with the person attacking the back. In doing this it makes it a lot easier to escape the position and to negate any submission attempts. So for the attacker to be able to progress to a submission, it’s important that their position is maintained long enough to be able to see it through.
One of the key ways of doing this is by maintaining the seatbelt grip.
So called the seatbelt because you’re effectively strapping yourself to your opponent like a seatbelt, one arm under theirs and one arm round their neck to meet in the middle. An over-under hug from the back if you like. Key point to the seatbelt is that your choking hand should be on the bottom of the grip to hide it from the defenders attempts to pull it down. Another key point is that your grip should be high with your elbows squeezing together. Clearly you can’t actually make your elbows meet ’cause your opponents body is in the way, but the tighter they are, the tougher it is to break the grip.
A lot of people say that the key to back control is the hooks on the legs, and yeah sure this is very important to complete control, but it is not impossible to stay on someone’s back without hooks, as long as the seatbelt is maintained. We have a drill that we do at Kaizen sometimes where upon getting the seatbelt grip the attacker tries to stay on the opponents back without the hooks. It’s surprising just how effective this is if the grip is tight and correct, and you follow your opponents hips with your own (manoeuvring your opponent to make the most of a back take is a whole ‘nother post).
The seatbelt grip isn’t everything, clearly, but it was amazing how much easier it became for me to stay on someone’s back once I’d figured out how to use it alongside the principal of hip alignment. Sometimes I still fall off if I lose my grip, or am too hasty attempting a submission, but my back control taking has certainly become a lot stronger since making minuscule adjustments to the way I fastened my seatbelt.
This weekend was BJJ 24/7’s Manchester International Open. Once again this was the biggest competition I’d ever done, with over 300 competitors, and eight mats running at any one time. The venue was a cacophony of noise and people. I actually found that this took the pressure off compared to smaller competitions, because there’s so much going on that no one really has time to focus on you and your match, other than your immediate team members. Everyone is too busy concentrating on what they’re doing.
Anyway, got down to Manchester and weighed in. I was in the <56.5kg no-gi white belt category. I weighed in at 52.3kg. I had considered dropping down to the weight category below (<51.5kg), but Kaizen already has a girl in that category. Hopefully when I start weight training again I’ll put a bit of muscle mass on, and be closer to where I should be within my category. I also want to start competing in the gi come the autumn. Anyhow, I was supposed to be competing at roughly 11.30, with Kasia (my team mate) on just before me in the weight category below. We warmed up and then headed to the mat.
Kasia put on an absolutely stellar performance, despite saying she wasn’t going to remember anything before hitting the mats! From what I can remember, she was taken down by her opponent, but then proceeded to absolutely dominate on the ground. The final score was 16-2 to Kasia, and despite this massive score difference she continued to search for the submission throughout the match. In the end she didn’t get it, but with that big of a point difference it was totally insignificant. So she got gold! One more for the Kaizen treasure trove…
Kasia dominating her match, photo courtesy of the Jits Art Project.
After Kasia’s match it was my turn. Only one girl in my division had shown up, so I only had one fight in my weight category, when I was supposed to have had two. The girl I was against, Becky, was extremely good and very strong. She won by submission at around the four minute mark. I was still quite pleased, however, because I managed to play my game plan up until that point. I pulled guard into reverse de la riva – I tried for half guard but she immediately moved to knee slice, making me adopt reverse de la riva. If I’d have had a bit more forearm strength I may have been able to hold onto this, but as it was my arm gassed out and she passed into side control with a strong knee slice. I turtled up (sadly too late to avoid 3 pts being awarded to her) and she attempted to take back mount, but she couldn’t get her second hook in, therefore missing out on the four points. There was a lot of rolling involved and me balling up to resemble a hedgehog in order to prevent her getting her foot in. It worked though.
Becky on my back, but without her second hook in.
I then somehow managed to reclaim guard (it’s all a bit hazy if I’m being honest!) and ended up on the bottom, on the defensive again.
Me trying to keep my structures in play
I think I’m attempting some kind of deep-half here, but with her head control, I’m not going to get far.
In the end she got me with a kimuora from half guard (maybe?), which was well deserved because she played an extremely strong game. I tapped as soon as she put it on because – as you can see from the picture below – no way was I getting out of that! So I took the silver and she the gold.
End Game
I then decided that I might as well have a go at absolutes, where all the weight categories are in together. I’d never done that before and I wanted more than one match in the day, so signed my name up. I was easily the lightest one in the bracket.
Anyway, my first match in absolutes was against a girl called Rachel and she got me with either a head and arm choke, or a darce choke. To be honest, I can’t remember, all I know was something was around my neck and I couldn’t breathe. Once again though, I wasn’t too disappointed. I pulled guard at the beginning, managed to secure half guard, I worked my way to deep half at one point and nearly swept, but couldn’t quite finish it.
We were even wearing the same rash guard!
My bronze medal match in the absolutes was the one I was most proud of that day. It was 0-0 and it went to refs decision to the other girl. That might as well have been gold to me. She was significantly taller and heavier than me, and the fact that I managed to prevent any points being scored and play my game was a massive victory to me. She won refs decision because I pulled guard, and therefore was on the bottom. Her passing attempts were more sustained than my sweep attempts as well, and she ended up in ¾ guard a few times, although I managed to reclaim half guard from them. Either way, it went to decision and she took it due to her dominating position. Becky won the absolutes by beating Rachel.
Thank you to all my opponents (Becky, Rachel and Oyinda) for giving me invaluable experience on the day. It was a pleasure to meet you on the mats, and I hope we do so again at some point. Two other team mates of my Jack (in the adult mens division) and Kenzie (in the boys division) both took medals home as well; silver and bronze respectively. Another clean medal sweep for Kaizen Academy!
Moving forward I have plenty of goals to work towards. After I left Newcastle I had two clear goals in mind for Manchester; 1) Don’t get swept by doing anything stupid, 2) Don’t end up in closed guard. Neither of those things happened, so I count that as a victory. I have multiple new targets to work towards:
Work on my half guard sweeps from the bottom. I really want a chance to play my half guard top game, but to do that I’ve got to get there first! If my bottom game is strong and technical enough, it shouldn’t matter how much they weigh. Michael said he had some things for me to work on, so we’ll go through those and I’ll strive to improve.
Work on my wrestling somewhat, so I perhaps have another option other than pulling guard.
I want to improve my muscles. Every one of those girls was physically stronger than me. I don’t want to bulk up per say, but working on my overall athleticism can’t hurt.
Attempt to figure out where the subs came from, and how to not let that happen again. As there aren’t any clear videos, this could be challenging, but I’ll rack my brains and see if I can figure it out.
Anyway, I really enjoyed the day and all of my matches. I was happy with how I played, and I’ve got a lot to focus on now. It’s the Kaizen comp in a couple of weeks, and then I’ve got a break for a bit, but I know there’s some comps in late summer that I want to take part in.
Thank you to my coaches Michael, Adam and Kieran for being awesomely epic, and to all my training partners (especially my BJJ girls – Kasia, Cosima, Natalie, Jo, Amy, Kayleigh and Andreana) for being supportive and awesome.
So it’s the competition tomorrow! I’m a bit nervous, but I’m just interpreting that as excitement. I feel ready. I went to the Open Mat at the gym last night to just do some last minute technique run downs, make sure everything was crystal clear in my mind, including my game plan. I did my last hard rolling on Wednesday and had some absolutely epic rolls, I felt like I was flying! In that vein last night was all about just being careful not to get hurt, and making sure I felt at the top of my game. I do feel good about tomorrow. It’s a test and I’m ready to take it.
BJJ Fam hard at work at the Open Mat last night.
In terms of what we were actually doing, I was working on my guard pulling (I know this divides opinion!) when faced with the pressure of an aggressive opponent looking for a takedown (thank you Adam!), and that seemed to go fine. For technique I ran through all of my commonly used subs, troubleshooting any potential issues. I also worked on my kimura to back-take with Kieran, which is one of my favourite moves if the opportunity arises.
Anyway, I’ve got to go finish packing. I’ve got about four pair of spats with me; just so I have the choice tomorrow! I’m heading off to Newcastle tonight and then be all ready and fresh in the morning.
Still have to decide whether to do absolutes or not…
Girl On A Mission 