Escaping Scarf Hold

27 Aug 2010

Posted by Utah Martial Arts Feeds

This Article comes from Arcanum Brazilian Jiu-jitsu Blog
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Great class tonight by Dave. We worked on side control escapes, which gave me a great chance to apply the things I’ve been learning from Gerald lately.

We worked three escapes from scarf hold. These sort of assume your opponent is controlling your head and one arm (judo scarf hold or kesa gatame), not both arms (what BJJ players call scarf hold), although I imagine the techniques can be modified for if your opponent has both your arms.

Rolling today was position training, and I paired with Ben and Matt (white), then Jerry and Jason (blue). The goal was escape from side control or submit from the top. I was on top nearly the entire time. Since I’m not doing submissions (more on that later), I focused purely on shifting my weight and position to maintain control, and experimented with moving between side control styles.

I was particularly happy with my roll with Jason. First, he helped me tighten up my side control by spreading my knees apart. This both helped trap the hips and helped trap the head, a double whammy! Later, I pulled off a slick crucifix hold. But the best was, I had a definite moment where a principle sank in and the angels sang “hallelujah!” As Jason was struggling to get out from under me, I found myself being pushed up off the ground and nearly swept a couple of times. I countered this several times by shifting my hips and allowing my body to roll with his efforts instead of against them, sort of like staying on top of a ball (am I sensing a reason for the popularity of Swedish exercise balls in jiu-jitsu training?). I was honestly very proud of myself for doing that intuitively. Six months ago I would have been swept.

TECHNIQUES:

Create a frame. With the opponent in scarf hold off to your right, create a frame with your left forearm against their neck and your right elbow against the floor, connecting in a gable grip. You may have to hip out and fight to free your elbow and place it on the floor, but this is the best place for it (keep control of your own elbows!)
Sweep One: Hip out and backward repeatedly, creating greater distance between your and your opponent’s hips, pushing with the frame until you can basically sit up and pull your own legs into a kneeling position, having reversed the side control. You can assist yourself with your left leg at this point by hooking it around his head and kicking down, like leg wrestling. If your hips are right, the momentum of kicking down helps you reverse and can bring you up into a kneeling side control.
Sweep Two: Gable grip right under their ribs, pull up sharply and arch upward and over your opposite shoulder. This rolls them and reverses the side control.
Sweep Three (my favorite): This is a new sweep that I don’t recognize from any previous classes. Which is cool since it’s been a while since Dave has taught something that I haven’t seen at least once.
To execute the sweep, you hip out strong, then come over with your top leg and hook your opponent’s top thigh, much as if you were throwing in hooks to take the back. Use the hook to pop your bottom knee through, and close the figure four on the leg. You can then arch your back while gripping your opponents head or gi, while rolling to the left. This does two things – it breaks down your opponent’s offensive posture and even their grip, and it allows you to defend from kesa gatame and go straignt into back control or mount. A very sweet sweep. I imagine this one would be a lot harder if your opponent does a BJJ-style scarf hold and not judo kesa gatame (the difference is in BJJ we trap the far arm and lie across the chest, instead of trapping the head and the near arm. Probably to avoid sweeps like this.)
Another technique I learned today from Jason. If your opponent has side control and is trapping you with his knees in, the basic tendency I have is to hip out. At this point, Jason switches very quickly into scarf hold. But there is a window of opportunity there. When hipping out, I can simultaneously put my lower knee into the space created when he switches positions. It’s a quick movement and preempts his attempt to close the space by switching to scarf hold.

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PRINCIPLES:

Hips are everything. Move, move, move the hips.
A failed effort in one direction can result in an opportunity for another direction. For example, failing to execute sweep one – let’s say your opponent follows you and keeps his hips close to yours so you can’t push him over – can create an opening for sweep two. He follows you, so when he comes into you, use the opportunity to hook the leg and go for sweep two.
Every transition leaves an opening (but you need to be fast and smart to exploit it!). Using this principle, I will be adapting my shrimping drills to include bottom knee in.

Post tags: kesa gatame, principle, reversal, scarf hold, sweep