Simple Mount Controls with Bernardo Faria

The mount. The concepts may come easy to some, but the mount has always been a dark spot in my game. It seems that for me, getting there isn’t an enormous problem, but maintenance and attacking is where I fall short. When we take the mount, there’s a very important list of things that need to happen, but first and foremost we need to actually be able to stay there.

Mount legends of the sport seem to acquire the position easily, and no matter what the bottom person does they are able to ride out the defensive efforts and ultimately create a scenario where a submission is possible. Obviously, there are a ton of hours and hard work driving this kind of skill level but there is also superior technique. 

So, what are we missing? How can we make our stints in mount a little more fruitful? What are some things we should be focusing on when we first acquire the mount, to make it a position that serves us, rather than one that gives us fits?

Bernardo Faria has a devastating mount and with that comes the knowledge of knowing how to maintain it. In this video, he shares with us a few ideas on staying in the mount position. Have a look at this and see if you can pick up some new concepts or any critical details you’ve been missing!

 

Lucky for me, this particular video is going to cover mount maintenance. As Faria states, the great majority of the time, the bottom player is going to be using the bridge or the hip escape, or a combination of the two, to try and defend in the position. We are all familiar with these types of escapes, as we are well versed in them very early in our training. These will be the two biggest threats to keeping the mount and they must be managed!

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Faria keeps his attention focused on the hip escape in this particular segment of instruction. The goal here will be to keep his partner from getting to his side and preventing them from connecting the knee and elbow together to begin trying to escape. 

We know that when we attempt to hip escape, we must get on to our side. Any successful hip escape seems to always begin with this detail. So, it would make sense that if we can keep our training partner flat, this will aid in dismantling the hip escape. 

To do this, Faria’s partner will begin to turn to his side start hip escaping. Faria answers his partner by reaching under the head and inserts his thumb into the collar. He also places a bit more weight in to the opposite side that his partner is trying to hip escape. As he moves his knee back a bit to create some room, Faria extends his arm that’s controlling the collar, forcing his partner to look in the opposite direction of where he hopes to escape. 

His partner’s next obvious course of action will most likely be to turn back in the other direction to see if he can make an exit on the other side. Here, Faria shows us how we can turn this simple concept into a drill to gain some muscle memory and help us work the controls on both sides. 

This is incredibly simple and user friendly, which is very true to Faria’s style. And it makes sense, right? Keep your opponent flat and limit their ability to look in the direction hey wish to go. This is a great approach to stopping the hip escape!

In a second variation, Faria forgoes control of the lapel in favor of a cupping action with his hand, coupled with the use of his bicep. He throws what can be referenced as a tiny punch under his partner’s head, digging to the far side for the armpit and applying some heavy shoulder pressure. He also drops his hips down a bit lower on his partners body and spreads himself out. Don’t forget that as you begin to work this variation the goal is to get our partner flat, and you’ll need to remove your knee from under the back as you begin to flatten them back down to the mat.  This technique looks a lot like the other one, but as you can see here, Faria is sucking up all of the space between him and his partner and really doling out the pressure. 

This method could also be turned in to a drill, similar to the previous technique and repeated for multiple repetitions to create some muscle memory. 

These are two great concepts for dealing with the hip escape. As Faria stated earlier, 90% of the time you’re going to be dealing with this style of escape or a bridging style of escape. Id venture to way that the hip escape is probably the biggest problem we will face when mounting, and a strong one can really throw a wrench into your plans. Keep it simple! Bernardo Faria is one of the most successful BJJ players on the planet and his methods are also some of the simplest in the game. This is solid mount control at its finest. Just add hard work and some refinement! Good luck!

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