Conventional wisdom holds that you turn into your opponent, or bridge into him, when he gets sidemount, and work to escape from there. For a good while now I turn away and turtle as soon as he gets sidecontrol, then immediately (or belatedly) roll out to replace guard/half-guard as they are going for my back or trying to control me as I go to turtle. Sometimes I even roll right into triangling them. This has been super high percentage for - it almost always works. This is against blues and purples. My instructor takes my back when I try this, however, but he's a black belt. He tells me not to do this, for obvious reasons. But this approach works way better for me than bridging/turning in. Has anyone tried to develop this escape with good success?
when my opponent blocks my near hip with his arm vice his knee I turtle. I double shrimp out to get my head underneath him almost N/sish then turtle up hard. Other then that, I've tried to get away from my turtling up in side control moment, or if I do I go right into a turtle roll instead of sitting back (sitting back against black belts ends with them knee on bell and in mount).
I've been taught to do this, or at least something similar to what you're describing, when the opponent moves his far side hand to block my near side hip. EDIT: TacWar beat me to it ... sort of.
Telles demonstrated a few moves from there in the latest graciemag. I was playing around with it and I think it has potential for me. Thanks for reminding me about Saulo's vids.
i dont think tacwar is describing the running escape seen here, heath herring use's a turtle/roll to guard amazingly against nog and others. YouTube - Saulo Ribeiro Jiu-Jitsu Revolution 2 Running Escape
This has become a very bad habbit of mine. I have really good choke defense and a very good defense from the turtle, but people at my gym are becoming better at controlling a turtled opponent because of it. I find now when i am turtled i am having a much more difficult time replacing guard/sweeping/taking a single leg.
there are times when the "conventional" escape of bridging towards him and working to your knees doesn't work, instead of turning away into turtle, I swivel away from him (kinda like ur moving him towards north south) and helping that spin by swimming my "nearside" arm under his hip and getting to my knees from there. you might get caught in turtle if you don't do it fast enough but it's less predictable than just turning away into turtle
the turtle is one of my best escapes and I rarely ever get my back taken from there, I would not recommend it for anybody who has not wrestled before and is not a conventional escape. but like I said I've had a lot of success with it, I like to use it to gain hand control and escape with a standup or a switch, I don't like rolling back and regaining my guard especially when I can avoid being on bottom again.
you can also grab his leg thats closest to your arm facing him, and turn into him attempting the takedown from this position, i prefer this when caught on the bottom in side
Coming from a wrestling base I do this often with pretty good success. But like you, I get caught by my instructors. Recently I've been forcing myself to try and regain guard.
It's in my repertoire of moves. I use it when simple stuff fails (like 60-70% of the time). It's especially useful in MMA to avoid strikes from being on bottom. IF you can't move one way, try the opposite way. I recently bought a Genki Sudo dvd from eBay highlighting all of his fights and he ALWAYS does this with great success. The guy is never under side control. I think it's because he's very fast and is in constant motion when doing this, freezing at no points whatsoever (also a good wrestler). See if you could find some of this on youtube... er get the dvd. It's awesome anyway.
Its good if you're up on points... But as others said, your turtle defense better be good cause a high level guy is automatically going to attack hooks, which puts you at risk for 4 points and subs, I typically do this against lower level guys to force me to work on back defense or against a high level guy with really good side control game.
What happened to me was, if I'd shrimp and try to get my (half) guard back, It'd take too long and my opponent would get points for the sidemount. Now, Ive been working on my turtle defense and even sweeps from the turtle guard just to prevent giving points away. In a competition I went to recently I turtled to avoid the pass in two matches. The first one I was able to defend the hooks, attacks, and I got a sweep from the turtle (didn't get any points). The second time I ended up in an armbar and had to tap out. I guess turning to your knees to avoid the pass is possible, but it takes a lot of hard work and training regarding your turtle guard. It's all about preference I guess. If you feel like you can manage on your knees, its worth a shot, if you're insecure and willing to give up the points, then dont. Eduardo Telles has an instructional DVD about the turtle guard. Also there are plenty of matches where fighters get to their knees to avoid the pass. Check out Tarsis Humphreys in the ADCC Absolute 2007.
Escaping side control to the turtle is legitimate and nowadays orthodox. You want your head to be pointing towards him instead of having him in the back control turtle position. Your arms here work like your legs do in guard. The difference between having them in the back control position of the turtle or in front of you are like the differences between being under somebody with your guard between you and them or being under them in side control. Unless you have a good reversal position pulling half guard or guard from this turtle puts you in a better position. In Mastering Jujutsu Renzo Gracie puts the turtle between bottom side control and bottom half guard which I think is quite good although again I think there is quite a gulf between the two turtle positions mentioned. It is harder to learn the turtle position than bottom half guard or guard especially because you can't see much when you're facing the ground but in the end it is far better than being under side control. High level grapplers actually have subtleties built into their passing game to prevent the guy immediately rolling to the turtle. Especially as even intermediate grapplers (very loose classifications here) have their passes developed to prevent easy guard replacement.
I use this quite a bit too. I learned it as an escape from knee on belly and started trying it from side. You just have to avoid getting your back taken (duh) and your positioning during the escape is key. People have posted the better videos on it.
this is a good thing to use to prevent your opponents from scoring points i use it all the time to replace guard but my instructor destroys me when i try it on him then again my instructor destroys me when i try ANYTHING on him
mix it up is all i can say. I dont use it too much thats because im probably at a much lower level than you. Also I train bjj solely for mma so i do many things differently. Its a great move but make sure its not your only escape.
