That's something your instructor should teach, as they are basic moves. Here's a few tips in the meantime: 1) Don't panic!!! He wants you to waste energy trying to escape. Take your time, but don't get lazy. You should be controlling the pace not the other person, as always. 2) When making space, but one forearm on the hip and the other on either the closest neck or armpit. Then push with your elbows not your hands. This (1) gives you more power (2) safer from armbars/keylocks/kimuras. 3) Bridge to make more space, but not too much. Gotta be quick so a pocket forms. 4) Shrimp away to get even more space and to get a knee in. You can shrimp back while keeping your knee in and get half-guard. Then do one of the million half-guard escapes. 5) If he puts his knee on your belly, DO NOT try to push it off with your hand. That is an error; although, I forgot the reason (sets up an arm bar or cheese gratter I think). I'm not anything but an average white belt, so perhaps someone more experienced can confirm these tips or offter better ones. Good luck!
frodo hit the nail on the head with his tips when i first started i kept getting my guard passed and ended up in sidemount(not a good spot for someone overcoming claustrophobia). after a while i figured side mounted was where i was supposed to be in my training so id let folks pass just so i could work escapes. trust me, the more youre there, the better you escape and the more relaxed you become in that position. the key for me is/was working to stay on my side and not get flattened out so that i could move my hips and have slightly better leverage against sub attempts. its still a work in progress though but the key is to stay relaxed
The following advice is cut and pasted from this thread: http://www.sherdog.net/forums/showthread.php?p=7253929 From side control, almost all of the escapes involve you doing one of three things: 1) Hip out while turning towards him (either establishing full guard, half guard, or to your knees if he gives you the space). In order to do these escapes, you cannot allow him to control your head. 2) Hip out while turning away from him (either continuing the motion to get to your knees or slipping out of his grasp while he's over you). You have to be careful with him taking your back with these escapes. 3) Some sort of bucking movement (either to create space to insert your legs in between or as a sweep).
this is something you need to practice in class over and over before you'll get it to work on a resisting opponent so ask your instructor not people on a forum and drill what he tells you to do
I usually dig both my hands under his body and buck up while throwing him away with my arms spinning to guard or turtle. This might work for me 'cause I'm big though. Another one is to turn on the side with your belly towards him and hook one of his legs with your top leg and drag it into your half guard.
If they have the regular sidemount where they are laying on top of you and they have their arms locked together, with one arm underneath your neck and the other underneath your far arm (to them), the following escape works GREAT. Close the distance between his arm that is underneath your head and your body by using your bicep to "clinch" his arm tight to your body. Then, get your forearm/elbow facing upward underneath their body, which you will use to push your opponent's body with. You will now explode/bridge upward and then towards the direction of your arm that is trapping your opponent's arm. You'll land in sidemount now. If that escape doesn't work, try this one. Say they close the distance between their body and your forearm/elbow that would be used to push them over in the previous escape. Instead of trapping their arm that is underneath your head with your arm, you will take your arm and grab the wrist of the opposite arm that is grabbing the hand of the arm that is underneath your head. Then, you will stretch out your other arm and place it parallel to your opponent's legs. Bridge upward and then turn towards the direction of your opponent's legs, while sweeping them with the straight arm that is parallel to their legs. You'll wind up in full guard.
side mount is the hardest to escape, I think you want to 1) defend any attacks 2) create unstability, create space, create, as many angles for you to move as possible 3) mix in various escapes and movements so that each movement adds on to making more openings 4) get guard or go to turtle 5) to pull a reversal is very hard
good point. i'd go to turtle as well because in submission grappling, there's basically two things most guys go for from the back . . . either rnc or armbar. and those are easy to defend if you know what you're doing. and it's not as a bitch to escape IMO (just spin into theier guard).
In BJJ, it's the 2 most common side escapes. turn in to get guard, or belly down - turtle and start over from knees. usually depends on their hand position. If they have upper body control on you, you can work for guard. If they have that arm defending your legs, or grabbing your gi pants, you have no choice but to go belly down and start over on the knees and put them back in your guarrrrrrda
