Elbow Escape

What it is

The elbow escape is a mount escape that uses your hips, not your arms, to slide a knee back in front of the top player and recover guard. You turn slightly onto your side, frame against their hip and knee, push off your feet to move your hips out, and bring one knee through at a time. It is the escape you fall back on in every mount, because it does not depend on them making a mistake.

When to use it

• They are in mount and you have survived the first attacks: elbows in, chin tucked, no arm exposed.
• They base out to stop the upa. Their weight moves forward or wide and a hip opens up.
• They sit up tall in mount with their weight back on your hips, which is easy to turn against.
• Use it with the upa in a cycle: bridge to make them post, then shrimp into the space they give.

How to do it

1. Get onto one side, even a little. Flat on your back the hips cannot move.
2. Frame: the elbow on the bottom side pushes against their knee and the forearm on the top side frames across their hip.
3. Plant both feet, then push off them to scoot your hips out from under them, away from the side you framed.
4. Slide the bottom knee through the gap toward your chest until it is in front of their thigh, which gives you half guard.
5. Switch sides: frame on the other hip and knee, shrimp again and bring the second knee through.
6. Close the guard or set up an open guard with both feet in front of their hips.

Key details

• The frame holds the space; the legs make the escape. Push with the feet, not the arms.
• Elbows stay tight to the body between movements, or they find an arm to attack.
• Small shrimps, done twice, beat one big one that leaves you flat and tired.
• Think knee to elbow: when the knee touches the elbow of the framing arm, the leg is through.
• Bring the knee through low, scraping the mat, so there is no room for them to step over it.

Common mistakes

• Mistake: pushing their body with straight arms. They let you push, then trap the arm for an armbar.
• Mistake: staying flat on your back. The hips move nowhere and every push just tires you out.
• Mistake: lifting the knee high as it comes through. They drive their shin over it and settle back into mount.
• Mistake: stopping at half guard and going flat. They crossface you and the whole fight starts again from a worse spot.

What they will try

• They slide up to a high mount with their knees under your armpits so your frames have nothing to push.
• They grapevine your legs with their feet and stretch you flat so the hips cannot shrimp.
• They block the knee coming through by dropping their shin across your thigh.