Back Take Against Turtle

By Ismail Safi, February 25, 2019

The turtle position may seem like a bad idea for many grapplers, however, lots of high level grapplers are able to defend from the turtle position very well and even use it for attacks. Often times people will use turtle as a means of preventing the guard pass, meaning that if the top player gets close enough to passing the guard, the bottom player will invert and force themselves to turtle.

The Cross Choke is an old-school mount choke that is typically ignored after a BJJ students first week of class. But it is one of those old school fundamentals techniques that just work. Too many students (especially blue belts) focus on the new fancy techniques, guard sweeps, etc. But don't ignore the old school fundamental jiu jitsu that just works.

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Dealing with the turtle against big grapplers and small grapplers is very different. When dealing with a big grappler, you have to worry about them standing up or grabbing your leg and forcing a wrestling exchange. With small grapplers, the danger is with them sliding back into guard by using an under hook or granby rolling. The first tip I have for you is that when you are on top in turtle, maintain a lot of pressure and be patient.

The most common form of attack against a turtled grappler is taking the back. There are numerous ways of taking the back from turtle and they all kind of work in specific scenarios. The biggest problem you will face when taking the back of a turtled opponent is getting your hooks in and/or off balancing them. The second problem will require and intricate understanding of balance from turtle that comes with experience.

Lets look at a scenario where you are looking to off balance the defender towards you. The two posts the defender uses are their elbow and knee, and if we can get rid of one of these, we can off balance the defender.

In the following video by BJJ Fanatics, you will see a back take that involves a hip grab and gripping of the elbow to prevent the defender from basing towards the attacker.

What is interesting about this off balance using the hip grab is how well it works. It seems that the defender will just be able to hold himself still, but when done correctly, that is difficult. This can also be done without the gi by gripping the far hip and blocking the elbow on the same side.