From Kimura To Taking The Back With Ante Dzolic

When anyone first starts to learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, the first thing they want to do is learn about how to do submissions. They don’t really care too much about proper position or transitions. Eventually, once they start to roll with other, more experienced students, they begin to learn just how important positions and the ability to move between them are.

It’s just like the old saying goes, “position before submission.” if you aren’t in a proper position, then you aren’t going to be getting a submission. Even if you have proper positioning, sometimes you still won't be able to get a submission. 

This is why it’s good to know how to trainstions from a submission back to position or even to a whole new one where you can work a whole new set of attacks. This can be pretty hard for newer BJJ practitioners as they tend to keep the ideas of positions, transitioning and submissions pretty separate. Being able to integrate these three things will open all kinds of doors for you in your BJJ career. So that’s why in this video we have a very credited person show you how to transition from submission to dominant position. 

In this video, Ante Dzolic shows you how you can trainstion from a kimura in North-South to taking the back. 

Who Is Ante Dzolic?

Ante Dzolic is a first degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt who has been training in the art since 1999. He is currently the head instructor at the Rio Pro Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Cleveland, Ohio. Dzolic also has experience with a ton of different martial arts, including Jeet Kune Do. One of his distinguished course is Escaping From Side Control and Knee on Belly. 

Kimura To Back Take Transition

 

The video starts off with Dzolic talking about the troubles you might have when you’re trying to get the Kimura from the north south position. There's a ton of different issues that could stop you from finishing the submission that Dzolic goes into in the video. 

One of them is that you just feel like you’re not ready to submit the guy. This brings Dzolic back to his philosophy, that being if you can’t get a great submission, then you should try to go for a better position. 

Dzolic then goes into the north-south kimura. His partner is defending the arm and Dzolic can tell that he isn’t going to get the submission here anytime soon. From there Dzolic back steps with the leg that is in front of his opponent and on the same side of the arm in the kimura. He does this and gets himself entirely behind his opponents head. 

As you step back you should put the arm that was behind your opponent in front of their belt. You want to go at least elbow deep with this if not more. From this position push forward with your chest and grab a seat belt from the back. 

From here you have a lot of options to fully take the back. You can slide your knee up and step over, which is what most people are taught first. You can also just work from the original seat belt position and do what you will. 

The important thing that Dzolic wants you to do more than anything else is to experiment and learn to recognize when your opponent is going to be submitted but they are also giving you a good opening for another position. 

You shouldn’t be so obsessed with finishing your opponent if it’s too hard. If you do this you might not see the forest for the trees and eventually you will not only lose the submission and the position that they were giving you but also the first position you had.

Learn More From Ante Dzolic 

If you like this technique breakdown and want to learn more from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Ante Dzolic then you should check out his complete video instructional set “The KNTA Side Control System by Ante Dzolic” available exclusively on BJJ Fanatics!

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