Full Mount – Submissions & Escapes

Full mount is the arguably worst position to be in, certainly in self defence.  Or the best, if you’re on top.

When in mount, many will establish ‘grape vines’ by lacing their legs underneath the other guy’s knees and then hooking the feet – kinda looks like frog-legs.

Establishing Full Mount

To get into full mount – you don’t want to just ‘throw your leg over’.

Put your knee on your partner’s belly and slide it across

If they block you with a ‘high knee’, you can also look for a wrestler’s crade.

Once in mount, I personally like to get ‘grapevines’:

Grape Vines are shown here:
https://youtu.be/G7_eMcYpYeY?t=18s

From here you can wrap one arm around the underneath of the head, and place your free hand out to the side to stabilise yourself.

If the opponent frees himself from the grapvines, then establish a high mount, with your knees near his armpits.

If you are high up on his body, he/she will struggle to use his/her hips to bridge you off and escape.

From mount you can punch, elbow in MMA and look for submissions.

Submissions From Mount

From mount you can look for a head and arm triangle (my fave) an americana, an arm bar or a mounted triangle.

Here is a vid of me securing an arm triangle:

Mount Escapes

Keep your elbows in his legs, so he can’t get a high mount.
Shoulder walk backwards if he gets a high mount.

Bridge and roll

– still the most popular and effective technique.

Bring your feet as close as possible to your bum
If you are bridging to your left, bring your head to near your right shoulder
Drive your feet down into the mat, and raise your hips and bum as high as possible.
Drive again with your right foot and try and roll to the left at a 45 degree angle – keeping your hips raised.
Much of your weight will be on your shoulders as your bridge.

A good time to bridge is when an opponent hugs your head, or tries to pin one of your arms.
If his right arm hugs your head, bridge to your left/his right.

Bridge into Hip Escape

Bridge to get opponent off balance (not always required but a nice set up in MMA)
Then push with both hands on his hip (near hand first, far hand reaches over and pushes on top of your nearest hand to his hip), and pull your knee up towards your own face.

https://youtu.be/69faPsaykw0?t=4m7s

Other Mount Escapes

Here is Martin Kampman showing a few more variations.

Tips –

For Top Mount
If you can trap an arm, before moving to mount, it’s near impossible to escape

If you establish grape-vines initially, make the opponent tire by escaping them, then establish high mount.

Once in high mount, push opponent’s jaw to one side by pushing your forearm into it. He can then only escape one direction.

For Bottom Escapes

Have a sequence of escapes, that flow one into another.

Bridge (or hip escape) the very second your feel your opponent establishing mount

Use a stiff-arm on the opponent’s elbow and/or armpit to help finish off a bridge-mount-escape attempt.
I sometimes bridge twice, in the same direction.  The first one gets you 80% out, you just need to go again to finish it off, or you’re back to square 1.

If you bridge to your left, placing your head near to your right shoulder, somehow makes the bridge more powerful.

See our Post about Side Control