Snap Down For Victory

It seems the art of taking your opponent down to the ground in is lost all significance in modern jiu jitsu.

The best way to take down a person with jiu jitsu is still with wrestling or good judo, but there is still the problem of taking down someone who’s dictating the rules of engagement when standing

If you’re interested in dominating every moment of the fight while you’re on your feet, then learning the wrestling the snap down is something that might greatly change your game

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A lot of jiu jitsu practitioners actually skip the snap down entirely, especially because a lot of people end up getting it terribly wrong. It’s a real pity, because the snap down actually fits into jiu jitsu perfectly. The snap down allows you to dominate both positional dominance and grip fighting, and get the fight to the ground whenever you want.

Plus, it really isn’t that hard to learn… just as long as you’re patient enough.

So what really is the snap down?

The snap down is a simple and effective means of taking your opponent's head out of alignment. It gets your opponent’s head really lower than yours, and your energy on top of your opponent.

The whole point of a stand up grappling is to ensure that the opponent’s posture or base is dominated by your will. With both circumstances, a significant role is played by the grip. With the snap down, you will have to get one arm on your opponent’s biceps, and another behind their head. The important thing with this move is that it provides an awesome control over your opponent’s posture. As such, it provides the proper base for you to pull of various jiu jitsu / grappling techniques.

Using the wrestling snap down to take someone down is straight forward. As soon as you can get the grips in, all you have to do is step back and a little bit to the side and their base is destroyed. Then, you can use your arms to pull down your opponent’s head and shoulders. If, in the process, you end up on one or both knees, then you’ll get your opponent to the ground, and typically can easily scramble to the back.

Also, apart from the direct takedown, you can also make use of the snap down as an entry to unite various BJJ takedown techniques. One of the certainties that you get with the snap down is that your opponent will end up being bent forward. If they don’t fall for the direct takedown, or you decide to cut the process short, then they still have just a few options left.

The instinctive thing will be to try straightening up in order to regain control of the posture however, considering the collar grip, doing this will be a herculean task, if even possible at all. The snap down can also open all gridlocks, Judo throws, double and single takedowns, arm drags, and even some submissions.

However, you should also note that the snap down is more of a starting position for launching a Jiu-Jitsu attack. Inasmuch as it might be a viable takedown n its own, it actually works much better if you use it to launch other attacks.

Considered the fight genius of our lifetime, John Danaher shares how he gets the snap down.

In this short video excerpted from the Front Head Lock System, John Danaher explains the use of off balancing one's opponent using side to side snap down as a variation to the push/pull style snap down.

If you learned anything from the John Danaher Snap Down video, then check out the rest of the jiu jitsu instructional videos in John Danaher's Front Headlock System DVD.

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