GRAPPLING CONCEPTS LESSON 26: On Using Your Head! Welcome to Lesson 26, On Using Your Head. Once again I'm being joined by Ritchie Yip from www.infighting.ca. Last week we covered the concept of What Limbs Do I Have Left, and looked at using different parts of your arms and legs when you hit a roadblock in your grappling. We left out one very important limb though the head! It turns out that the head is very useful when you're grappling! (If you ve ever wrestled a high-level wrestler then you know what I mean because they re always grinding you with that head.) Here's the first example of what I'm talking about: as we've already discussed, putting the hand on the floor when you're in someone's guard is bad form it leaves you vulnerable to many different submissions and techniques, the most popular of which is undoubtedly the Kimura. Placing your hand on ground in the guard, even temporarily, often leads to a Kimura armlock attack.
Grappling is unpredictable: sometimes you just get unbalanced and, whoa, your hand goes on the ground. Given that you've screwed up, or that your opponent has forced you to screw up, what can you do to shut down the Kimura attack? One answer is to keep your elbows as tight as possible to his sides and most importantly - glue your head to his centerline. Head on chest prevents him getting close enough for the Kimura! So long as your head stays in the center of his chest it's very difficult for him to finish the Kimura. Are you 100% safe in this position? Of course not! If your arms are splayed on in bad posture and you're blocking the Kimura then he can still do other things, like the omo plata armlock, the triangle choke or a lapel choke. I m NOT advocating staying spread eagled and using your head to stop him from sitting up. But there are times when you need to recover from a bad position, and in that case, keeping your forehead on his centerline can be a very useful, temporary, tactic. The omo plata
You can also use your head to control his offense from the half guard. A lot of the half guard game requires the bottom man to come up onto his side and get under the center of gravity of the top man. In the photo sequence above Ritchie got on his side, then got deep under my hips, and then used the Half Guard Rollunder sweep to attack me. (Much as I love doing this sweep myself, I hate getting caught by it!) So how can we use the head to stabilize the half guard top position and shut down his attacks?
If I keep him flat on his back and away from my center of gravity then I'm off to a good start! Of course I can use my hands and arms to accomplish that, but sometimes they're out of position or otherwise occupied (grabbing his wrists, pushing his legs, etc.). If that's the case, then I can use my head to bulldozer him flat, driving against the shoulder and/or the chest area to stop him from coming underneath my hips. Using the head to keep my opponent flat in half guard The use of the head in half guard is very similar to using it in guard to shut down the Kimura. I explore this concept, and other ways to keep an opponent flat on his back, in this Youtube video about Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fidmnmisxqc
Now let's look at using the head to shut down your opponent's escape attempts. First I'll show you an escape from north-south position that's popular with flexible, wriggly types of grapplers. Then we'll look at countering the escape. I'm trapped in north south. One arm is under his arm, and the other arm is over. I can do this escape from this over-under position but it s usually best if......i circle my arms so that they come OVER his arms, either holding them together or holding his belt. The critical thing is that I pinch my arms together and squeeze his arms inward. Now I need to make some more room between our bodies. I do this by either a) bridging and pressing with my arms (like on the right) and/or swinging my legs from side to side (see below)
Once I ve made some distance I put my head to one side......and do a backwards somersault ending up in rear mount! Even if I don t get full rear mount I'll often end up with one hook in, or, at the very least, I'll end up on top of the guy with him turtled. So now let's change perspectives. Let's say that YOU'RE on top in north south, and your opponent starts moving his hips away from you... His next move is probably to backwards somersault for your back what's a good option for you at this point? One option is to shift your weight forward and drive your head into his belly.
Using the head to pin the hips to the floor Let's assume that Ritchie had me pinned in north south position. I started to set up the backwards somersault technique. Unless I'm freakishly flexible I can't take his back without lifting my hips off the floor, so he puts his head in abdomen to pin my hips to the floor. The inevitable next move turning to the side and trying to get half guard: be ready! Once you block the backroll, most opponents will turn to the side and try to capture one of your legs in half guard. Just be ready for this and be prepared to drop your hips low to the ground to counter this next escape attempt.
I often end up in what I jokingly call 'head mount' when I'm passing the guard. Headmount I end up in head mount when my hands are occupied and, for some reason, I can't go chest to chest or to kneemount. I use my head here to skewer his body and put weight on him. A related use of the head to pin your opponent comes into play when you're taking your opponent's back from north south position. I start in north south and come under both his arms. I either clasp my hands together (no gi) or grip his lapels tightly (with the gi): Two starting grips for taking his back from north south position
Once you have your grips you pop up onto your feet and walk your feet forward while pinning his body with your head (the head serves to pin him down and stop him from moving). Then sit back and pull him onto you......and get your hooks in to take the back! This is a surprise transition, which means that you should be on the alert to sink in the choke as you're getting your hooks in. Remember, you can apply the Rear Naked Choke with both hooks, one hook or even no hooks in! In case you haven't already seen it, here's a link to my Rear Naked Choke tutorial on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=176sldbhj_a
There are some other, quite similar, attacks you can do from north south using the headmount position. Here's a way to use it to get to the armbar position: I'm in north south, but this time I'm controlling one of his wrists using both of my hands. I drive down with my head while walking my legs forward and lifting my hips into the air......then I sit back and, as my opponent attempts to spin out, I end up in the armbar position. It s the head pressure there that pins him while I m doing most of this maneuvering.
The head bone connects to the neck bone. That line from the children's song reminds us that sometimes when you're using your head you're also using your neck and shoulders to apply pressure to your opponent. Here's a concrete example of using head, neck and shoulder pressure to pass the butterfly guard. This looks like a dramatic, acrobatic technique, but it's not really that hard to do and it's quite high percentage, even against good opponents. I start out in Ritchie's butterfly guard I get my hands on his biceps and pummel him backwards, flat onto his back. It's hard to see from these pictures, but I'm also pinching his feet together using my knees.
I now control his legs and his hips by cupping his right leg from below and wrapping his left leg from above. His legs are folded, heels tight against his butt. I put my head to one side, and using my neck, shoulder and head for support, I jump my up into the air I end up in an bridged position. My weight is on my head/neck/shoulder region and my feet. I make sure that my hips stay as high up as possible.
Then, when the time is right, I turn towards his legs and start establishing side control. The crux of this guard pass is the 'leap of death' the flip into the bridged position. This part of the move is a little intimidating, so a lot of people concentrate on the jump and don't pay attention to the bridged position that you end up in after the jump. And do it wrong. When you're bridged like this, what is your base? Your most important points of support are your feet and one of your shoulders: a tripod of sorts. Even though your weight isn't directly resting on your head, your head and your neck DO serve a function here. Your head and neck cage his hips, making it much harder for him to move his body and hips away to scramble to a better position.
You can also use the head to tighten and activate submissions. Let's look at head and arm choke to demonstrate this concept. You start in the mount. Your opponent has his arms out of posture in an attempt to ward you off. You sit up a bit and pop his arm across. Drop your head down on the outside of his arm (his ear is pressed against his right bicep) and start to lock your arms in the 'lion kill' position. You can finish the choke from the mount, but I usually advocate dismounting because then it's more stable and easier to apply pressure. So circle your right leg off into a transitional knee mount, and then...
...sprawl out, your hips barely off of the mat, your right leg running parallel to his body, and your left leg outriggered to the side. (I still have to get the correct hand position here). To finish this choke I bring my free hand up behind my head, slide my body forward by driving off of my toes, and applying sideways pressure with my head. Using sideways head pressure to double the power of the choke This sideways head pressure is hard to show with pictures, but it's very easy to feel if someone does it to you; it makes the choke twice as effective! Over-exaggerating the head movement (hands not in position)
Think of the head movement in this way: use your ear to drive his arm sideways. You've got a loop around his head and arm (with your arms) and you can tighten that loop by using your head. This can really have a huge effect and it s so difficult to see that if you re just looking at it from outside. It just looks like a regular head and arm choke, but as soon as the guy does it on you with head pressure, you ll feel it instantly. Get your training partner to choke you with and without head pressure, and I guarantee that you ll notice a big difference right away. On a related note, some people like to apply the head and arm choke from this position: Head and arm choke kneeling on one leg This style of applying the choke while kneeling on one knee can work, especially if you have a lot of upper body strength. But I think that locking your hands, sprawling flat, and driving forward with your toes and sideways with your head is a much stronger technique.
This course is focussed on groundfighting, not the standup or clinching game. But I do want to cover a certain aspect of clinching because it's such a great illustration of today's concept. Head positioning in the standup clinch game is huge! Getting my forehead into my opponent's neck 'socket' can totally stack the clinch in my favor! Consider the overhook and the underhook. These are very common arm tie-ups in clinching: In the above picture I have the underhook, and Ritchie has an overhook. We each have a ton of options at this point. My underhook becomes MUCH more dominant as soon as I get my forehead into the socket.
With my forehead in the socket it's easy to drop down and hit a single leg takedown. And as long as my head is in position it's MUCH harder for him to shoot in and take me down. The same concept applies to the overhook. My overhook, with my forehead pressing into the side of the neck and jaw, is much more powerful than my opponent's underhook. Of course he does have a few options from his position (Uchi Mata with a whizzer grip, for example), but nothing is 100% foolproof. The important thing is that you've hugely cut down on his options You can also use the head in the socket concept when you're on your knees.
Here's a few things to thing to be careful of when using this concept. First of all, look AT your opponent, NOT at the ground. This will make it a lot harder for him to snap you down into a guillotine ( a LOT of people make this mistake)! Use your FOREHEAD to apply pressure, NOT the top of your head! Using the top of your head and looking down at the ground is begging your opponent to guillotine you! I encourage you to train this aspect of your clinch game. For safety's sake I highly recommend that both you and your partner wear mouthguards while training this. Also be very aware of any separations if your heads separate and both of you lunge in to get a good head position you're going to have a major headbutting on your hands! If you're training head positioning be careful not to accidentally headbutt your training partner!
We talked about using the 'sit-out' to counter the front headlock earlier in the course. We're going to take one more brief look at this technique, this time concentrating on the role of the head and head positioning. I am caught (once again) in our old friend, the front headlock! In preparation for the sit-out I post up on my left foot and move my head slightly outside his ribs. When I sit out I also drive backwards and then down with my head. My head puts weight onto his back which slows him down and also provides me with extra kinesthetic feedback If I leave out the head pressure then the technique will be less effective. It might still work, but I'll have less control and I'm much more likely to end up in a giant scramble!
To close this lesson, I'd like to show you a really cool half guard pass that relies heavily on head pressure. I learned this pass from Chris Brennan and it s worked really well for me so far! I start in the 'standard' cross-face shoulder pressure half guard neutralization position with my hands clasped. Without unclasping my hands I shift my head to the other side of his body. I arch my head to my right, while walking my legs to the left. This puts Ritchie into a twisted position, making him a lot weaker and less able to counter the guard pass. Maintaining the backwards-arching head pressure at all times I escape my knee as much as possible, and then I bring my other foot into play to kick his leg away (what limbs do I have left?)
I maintain the head pressure even after my legs are free. It's still very uncomfortable for him. He should actually feel relieved when I finally release the head pressure and switch to conventional side mount! So that s some ideas on how you can use your head as a limb in grappling. Today I've showed you some of my favorite techniques, tricks and details. When you're grappling keep looking for opportunities to harass and pressure your opponent with your head. You ll find tons of situations where using your head can make the difference between success and failure on the mats! USING YOUR HEAD TO TRAIN INTELLIGENTLY! At the risk of being cute, the most important use of your head is to use your brain and keep thinking. Keep thinking during the match. Keep thinking before training (e.g. what am I going to work on today?). And think after training (e.g. what worked for me today? What didn t?).
A lot of people go to class blindly: they just show up at class, do the techniques, spar and go away. If they were more analytical about their training they'd make much faster progress! The role of thinking during sparring changes as you get more advanced. As a beginner you re initially thinking about the minutia of everything. If you re doing an arm bar, you re thinking: my left leg goes here, my right leg goes there, pinch my thighs, hook his arm, grab his hand, etc. etc. But the brain can only concentrate on 5 or 6 points at the same time, which means that your entire mental energy is being used up by the little things. As you get better, you can still only think about 5 or 6 things at a time, but you can lump lots of different things as one 'thing.' For example, instead of worrying about the position of each arm and leg you'll only think about 'correct position' as one item. That then frees your mind up to think about higher level strategy, like, Boy, this guy s big. He looks like he pumps a lot of iron. How should I adjust my game to deal with him? Or, He s getting really tired. I should speed my pace up. And I can t emphasize enough that you should have a plan when you go to train. For example, you could say to yourself I'm going to work on my side mount escapes. I will start all my matches today trapped in side mount, or I want to work on the knee mount to kimura to arm bar combo. I m going to try and nail that as often as I can, or I m not going to stay in any position more than 2 or 3 seconds. I m always going to be flowing to another position.
These are examples of training plans you could formulate before you actually train. Of course it's OK to go without a plan once in a while. Everyone deserves to be on autopilot occasionally with the only goal being to have fun, that's OK too! Don t worry about it. After class, think about what worked, what didn t, and what you can change the next time. This brings us to the official end of the Grappling Concepts Course I d like to thank you very much for participating in it. I m honored that you chose to come along and I had a great time producing it for you. It really forced me to think about and clarify these concepts in my own mind! I m certain these concepts will help organize your training, allow you to discover new techniques, enable you to retain material much easier and give you a different way to think about grappling. It s very, very liberating to become more independent and selfpowered in your training. If you re always relying on somebody to give you the next technique, then you re dependent on that person. What if that person goes away? If you have the concepts then you can go from concept to technique, rather than just having a bunch of individual techniques. That's why a single concept is worth a thousand techniques. Thank you very much and good luck in your training. Be an intelligent grappler!!! Stephan Kesting www.grapplearts.com www.grapplearts.tv www.beginningbjj.com