Last Ditch Guillotine Defense With Malachy Friedman

By Fanatics Authors, March 31, 2021

In Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, a question that a lot of beginners ask is “what do I do when I get caught in x submission.” The general answer to this question is just don’t get caught in the submission in the first place. While this is 100 percent true it can also be fairly annoying to newer BJJ players, especially since they don’t know the difference between almost getting caught in a submission and having a submission really be applied. If you are quite new to BJJ, check also Basic Wrestling Concepts For Jiu-Jitsu Athletes by Fred Leavy.

The truth is there are a lot of espaces to most submissions even if they are getting closed to locked in, or if you are at least defending it in some way. One of the most common submissions that newer BJJ players find themselves in is the guillotine. Now there’s a ton of escapes, defenses and movements that you can do before getting caught in a deep guillotine and you should learn and practice them.

The problem is that even if you train those really hard, you will probably find yourself being caught in a pretty tight guillotine. This is why it’s important to know how to escape the guillotine, even at the last possible moment. Well don’t worry we have just the man for the job.

In this video, Malachy Friedman goes over how you can escape from a guillotte at the last possible moment.

Who Is Malachy Friedman

Malachy Friedman is a second degree Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under Ricardo Liborio of the Carlos Gracie lineage. He has 20 years of experience with the art of BJJ. He’s also trained in other martial arts like wrestling, boxing, muay thai and MMA. He’s also done a lot of work with top MMA fighters for their fight prep.

Last Second Guillotine Defense

The video starts off with Malachy being in a full guard, arm-in, guillotine. If you’re in this position, you are going to want to do everything that you can to turn your opponent so their back isn’t on the floor.

What you’re going to do first is get your free on onto your opponent’s hip. You ideally want to get your arm inside your opponent's leg so you can put your hand right on top of their hip. Keep in mind that if you get to this position, that you are in danger of triangles by your opponent.

From that position you can now roll to the side that your free arm is on. Now that you’re opponent is in mount, you can now push off your opponent and throw them over you to escape the choke. Make sure that your arms are strong and framed to actually get your opponent high enough off of you for you to escape and they don’t just regain mount.

Learn More From Malachy Friedman

IF you like this technique breakdown and want to learn more from second degree Brazilian Jiu Jitsu blackbelt Malachy Friedman then you should check out his complete video instructional series “Systemic Winning BJJ Concepts by Malachy Friedman” available exclusively on BJJ Fanatics.

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