[wenispinkle]

i cant believe no one brought up the fundamental 5s of escapes that aesopian posted.

heres the whole thing, i saved it in notepad. courtesy of aesopian:

"
#1 The H&H position, aka: 'Beachball' position.

The HH position is the crucial escaping posture the body needs to move to without conscious effort if you want to escape effectively.

The first H stands for HIP, and means simply, be on ONE hip, and never caught flat with two hips on the mat. So the shrimping motion and hip movement occurs as the person is passing. Starting flat on your back will make any escape much harder, so learning to automatically go to your side is crucial.

The second H stands for hunchback. . .that means that you want to be a BALL on the mat, and never a board.

What you want to do is try and touch the insides of your shoulders together, while at the same time bringing them up as if you where also trying to touch your ears with your shoulders. So your back becomes rounded out, and your shoulders ball up creating a turtle neck. This makes you at least 50% harder to pin down alone.

So at the same time as you move to one hip, you also ball up into the hunchback position. So hip & hunchback, or H&H.

#2 Hands between you and your opponent. The most common mistake, after simply laying flat on your back, is to reach around your opponents body and grab them. When your arms become extended they are weak, they are easy to 'kill' and they are vulnerable to submissions. But, on top of all that they also greatly restrict your ability to move by shrimping or working a hip heist. In addition, when your arms are outside your opponents body you are also leaving your own torso unprotected. That means your opponent now has a nice table top to place his weight on to. This mistake, more then any other I can think off, will make your opponent feel twice as heavy then if you where to keep your arms between you and them properly. When your arms stay in then your opponent is forced to lay his weight atop your forearms and elbows. This makes it MUCH easier for you to create space. While at the same time making it MUCH harder for him/her to dig for underhooks, kill the arms, and generally hold you down. These first two principles, H&H position, and hands between you and your opponent, are crucial steps that need to be acquired before we can properly begin working the fundamental escapes.

#3 See & Feel: Now that your on one hip, your shoulders are tucked, your back is rounded, and your hands are in between you and your opponent, it's time to notice how they are holding you, and feel where their weight is placed.

Often times beginners attempt the same escape over and over, and the escape attempt being attempted is not even a functional one when considering how the person on top is holding you. This is a tremendous waste of energy. So before exploding with your escape take notice of where your opponents hands are at. Are you in a crossface? Does he have two hands on the near side? Is your far arm underhooked? etc. This will help to keep you from wasting precious fuel. That way you can attempt the proper escape, for the proper hand position. As you do this, use your elbows underneath them as a kind of ball bearing, rocking them gently up or down, and feeling where the most resistance is at. Is their weight more towards your head, or your feet? Or is it perhaps sitting back into the mat, or to far forward over the mat? All this can be done solely be feel, and after a few hours of drilling you will automatically process all this information in less then a second or two. Doing these two things everytime you find yourself stuck on bottom will allow you to escape in the easiest manner. That is, not fighting your opponents weight.

#4: The 90%-10% rule: Once the first three principles are achieved how well you will be able to escape against a bigger, heavier, stronger athlete will be predicated on something we can sum up in two words: HIP MOVEMENT. The general rule therefore must be 90% - 10%. That means that in the Gym, and in all training sessions, the athlete must use 90% hip movement (hip heist or shrimp), and 10% upper body strength to work all escapes.

#5 The three primary escapes:

there is three possible way you can ever escape from bottom:

1- Pull Guard.

2- Get to your hands and knees, (hip heist-quarter position).

3- Reverse the position by rolling them."

[Tom Hishon]

Every place is different. But I learned three techniques for each position and one escape. Drill these on a dummy for the submissions. And practice escapes and position contorl with a partner. Good luck.

[Brendon Katz]

spray and pray. this doesnt mean spaz out. rather, as has been said, chain your escape attempts together. the 1st escape almost never works. dont force it, and dont choose your escapes.move around, shrimp etc till you feel your opponent shift his weight or move his hands or legs anything that gives you some space and then take the gap. most important , dont get anxious and dont panic. in jits , u can lie on the bottom and wait for your opponent to do something silly if you cant escape any other way.

[elcapitan]

Originally Posted by Zankou

The key to escapes is (a) chaining them and (b) timing. This is why beginners are terrible at escaping. They only know one escape for each position, and they can't time to save their life.

For example, you will almost never knock a good opponent off mount if you just keep trying to upa them over and over again. But if you upa them and combine it with an elbow escape, that is a VERY powerful escape combo (probably the best way to escape mount IMHO). If he tries to fight the elbow escape, you upa him again. Then you whip onto your side and try to spin under him, attack the foot, upa --- you just keep coming at him until something sticks. Keep him off balance and flailing as you fight for that opportunity to succeed with one of your attempts.

It will come with training. The best escapers never let you get a good pin, and are constantly coming at you with combination escapes where each escape is executed with timing to take advantage of weaknesses in your position.

Don't get frustrated if you don't escape well at the beginning. It just takes time. I know that sucks to hear when you are trapped under a suffocating mount/N-S/side control, but it's how it is.

this should go on a sticky. . . u will understand timing and leverage after a while. .it will all get better. .

[strange619]

wow, great replies. good lookin out yall. I'll definitely work on chaining my escapes together and ill also pay attention to my hip movement.

So upa is a good way to keep them off balance while i try other escapes right after?

also can anyone comment on that idea about submission escapes? my instructor said a few times that when youre caught in a submission you should just aim to survive, and that escaping the hold or move is only a bonus. has anyone else heard this?

oh and i'll keep at it and keep rolling. thnx yall

[Zankou]

Yeah, upa is generally a great way to create some space and get things started. Bridging in general is a good way to make space. Space lets you start trying things, even though it rarely solves the problem by itself. The only downside to upa'ing is that it can tire you out real fast.

Submission escapes are a different thing entirely. They are complicated. I think what your instructor is saying is that if you just survive, the sub will often be abandoned. This is usually true. Eventually something will open up if you wait long enough.

It's because it's usually harder to put a sub on than it is to escape a sub. The longer it goes on, the more likely you are to get out one way or another.

For me, the most important key for escapes is to escape EARLY and NOT GIVE UP. The beginning is the critical time. Do not let somebody get a crushing side control or mount and then try to escape. Do not be lazy. Fight when it matters.

[Brendon Katz]

i pretty much agree with everything zankou said. upa'ing is a viable escape in itself, thats important not to forget though. sometimes another escape attempt opens up an upa escape.

about subs , this is were i disagree. do not fuck around in submissions. prevention is better than cure and all . if u do get caught in a sub get the fuck out of there dont fart around and hope your opponent gives up the sub. you can abandon 50000000 sub attempts and still win but you only need to get caught 1 time and you lose.