Go From Bottom Mount To Butterfly Guard With Buchecha

The Pressure is Mounting

Part of learning Jiu Jitsu is learning to handle pressure from the bottom of any position you may end up in. At first, it’s not an easy task and even positions like half guard feel up close and personal. Eventually you learn to manage that pressure, but then the first time you’re in a tight side control feels like someone just dropped a refrigerator on your chest. Let’s not even reminisce about our first time in a crushing north-south. Of all these positions, mount takes the award for pressure. It’s the most dominant control position in our sport, and rightly so. 

What makes mount so bad? In addition to all the finishes that you may find yourself caught in, the pressure and control that can be applied from mount is absurd. For many new grapplers the response to this pressure is to scrabble, dance, wiggle, and generally freak out. These attempts to explode, we soon learn, are actually making it worse.

So we swallow our pride, and accept the fact that we’ll have to drill a few escapes that work to get out of any given position. Many mount escapes, however, are based on timing and easily preventable by a talented partner. Often, there isn’t even room to move and initiate the bottom escape you drilled.

Now what? If the opponent has you in mount and knows how to control you from the top, then they will settle their weight and take out all the space, which leaves you with nowhere to move. If they don’t allow you any space to move, how can you escape? We need to create a space and use it to our advantage before our partner knows it was ever there. 

In the video below, Marcus Almeida shows us how to generate the force needed to create some space from such an inferior position.Take a look:

 

Slowing it Down

Because we choose, or are forced by lack of alternative options, to initiate this move from such a poor position, we can’t rely on strength. In fact, relative to our partner who is on top of us with gravity at his or her back, we simply don’t have much strength at all! In order to solve this problem, we need to use proper body mechanics to create space and solid frames to preserve that space on our skeletal structure. This allows us to temporarily keep weight off of us without asking our biceps to bench press someone’s full bodyweight.

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Humans are strongest in our legs and hips, and no one in your own weight class is strong enough to hold those down indefinitely. To take advantage of that fact, you want to put your hands to your partner's hips and bring your elbows to your side. If you try it as you’re reading, you’ll notice that this naturally puts a small rotation in your arms and locks them into a very strong, compact position. It’s almost as if you’ve locked your elbows into your own ribs.

The next step is to bring your feet in as tightly as possible, stepping on the opponent’s ankles if necessary. From this coiled up position you’ll bridge to shoot your hips high into the air by pushing off of your feet. As your body lifts up, so will the connection between your hands and your partner's hips. When this connection is at its highest point in your explosion, it’s time to use your skeleton to do some heavy lifting.

Fall back to the mat while keeping your arms fully locked out and you’ll have bought some precious daylight with which to draw your knees back into butterfly hooks. Maintain the hand and hip connection with your partner as you extend your legs to off-balance them. Once they are just slightly elevated, you can sit up to push them back into a proper butterfly guard and begin working from there.

Steps to Force Butterfly from the Bottom Mount

• Wedge your hands into partners hips and your elbows into your own ribs
• Bridge with full force to elevate opponent
• At the maximum extension, lock out your arms as you fall to the ground
• Use the space that your locked-out arms are preserving to bring in both knees
• Stretch legs upwards to off-balance your partner and sit up to butterfly guard

Who is “Buchecha”?

Of the many Jiu Jitsu players we’ve had the pleasure of watching, Marcus Almeida, known internationally and in competition as “Buchecha”, is one of the most dominating and decorated. Born in Brazil, Marcus Almeida is a black belt in Jiu Jitsu who has been making a name for himself in active competition for nearly a decade. He first came to fame while competing in 2011, where he took gold in his division, other divisions, and the absolutes at multiple world-level competitions, such as the Pan American Championships and No-Gi World Championships. 

Since the legendary run in 2011, he has put nearly all of his time and energy into Gi-based competitions, many more gold medals and first place victories, both his weight class and in the absolute division. His total Jiu Jitsu record as a professional sits at an impressive 128-13-1, explaining his clout as one of the best teachers and practitioners of Jiu Jitsu on earth

Buchecha’s instruction is awesome because it’s battle-tested. These moves worked for him in competitions at the highest level and they will work for you too, whatever your current skill level may be.

If you want to learn more from Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida, take a look at the source of this video, his thorough instruction on getting out of trouble, The Buchecha Escape Series, on BJJFanatics.com. In addition to this escape to butterfly guard from mount, Almeida covers several ways to get out from underneath side control and the north-south position as well.

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