Operation knee on belly

So whilst I'm not training so much, I thought I'd spend some time going through some bjj technique I need to work on, and log it on here.

So protect no 1, knee on belly, a few solid long form videos





There's a great rolled up with ryan hall (I think?) with a great kob series, I can't find it right now.

Basic transitions



Defence _

 

Mauricio Gomes... knee on soul

He places more of his shin across the chest, rather than the knee.

 

Shin across diaphragm is my preferred method too.
I usually mix it in with vegan/frog mount for guard passing too.

 

I am I the only person crappy enough to use knee on chin with a twister for control?

 

I sometimes drop knee on chest and slide it towards the neck to turn the chin. But only with people I like, if you just drop knee on chin. You'll probably damage someone eventually and at best make them want to hurt you.

 

I never use knee on belly on my team mates. It just suuucks. Unless the roll gets really fun, recently had someone pass my guard by shoving my knee to the ground then giving said knee a knee ride of its own.

We both lol'd but rules went out the window and it turned into... "who could get the other in a silly position despite of pain infliction" roll.

 

At the BJJ gym I trained at for a few months, people definitely liked the knee-on-belly position.
Maybe its because I was much bigger than most of the folks I was rolling with (think ~170 lbs vs ~290 lbs)?

At least 3 different people regularly tried to get into that position when I rolled with them. It wasn't horribly uncomfortable for me (so long as I kept my abs/core activated), but I did have trouble doing anything from there--even when my opponent was 100lbs lighter, I found it hard to escape from. Though I never actually learned the appropriate techniques for doing so, so mostly was just flailing around trying random things.

I tried getting into this position a few times as well, but my balance was never very good in it and I couldn't maintain it very long before my opponent escaped.

I found my comfortable top position for being most annoying to my partner to be my whole weight on one side of my pelvic bone, all driving down into them. (So sort of floating over them in a sense, using my arms & legs for balance but not really putting any weight on my limbs, its all on my hips.)

I assume with more practice & maybe learning some specific techniques for that position, that I'd be able to do the knee ride ok.
I guess I'll see in a few years if I get back to BJJ. (I hope to go back after I focus on Muay Thai for a while.)

 

From an MMA perspective, I really like knee ride as a place to land in after dropping a sparring partner with a shot or in the clinch. I find it quite effective to establish a good knee ride with the shin over the chest and my butt over my heel, while I try to open up the opponent with some shots. From there I can some times take an arm or slide into mount or side control. If I'm in 16oz gloves I just try to land a few while I catch some breath then disengage back to standing.

I think knee on belly is a great position as it is really versatile. You can float in it, you can crush with it, you can enter into ground work from it, you can disengage from groundwork with it and it has good visibility if multiple opponents are a concern.

 

Classic BJJ approach is shin across line of hips so that bottom person's hips are immobilised and they can't bridge or shrimp away. The instep is close in to their hip so they can't hook their hand/arm in behind it. The other leg is planted out far enough to dissuade attempts to hook it and to provide a good wide stable base.

Higher up the body (eg solar plexus) can be more unpleasant to the underneath person but is inherently a little less stable. I think most people work out their own preference.

 

I trained last night, and used this transition when rolling with a newbie, with some judo experience, and then tried it with a brown belt and messed it up!

I've always found the windscreen wiper from knee on belly transition useful, so I'm going to spend some time in training my hip mobility so that I can also use it in knee shield top etc

 

After being destroyed by a black belt doing windshield wipers till I tapped out made me release how horrible yet effective for movement it is.

I asked him to teach me and I drilled it continously - it works well on other white belts!

 

since we're talking about knee on belly, wanted to post a video of the escape i usually go for first. originally, i got the technique from saulo's book, so i looked for videos showing the same thing.



it's important to note that after you get the elbow in, you can't stay there, you have to immediately turn in and get the underhook. if you linger, the attacker will be able to either re-compose or do something different from the top. yes, this is the escape but once someone has you in this position, you're going to struggle getting out of it. i got for it as an attacker. it's a terrific spot to launch attacks from.

the best defense is, don't let the other guy k-o-b you.

 

In my last comp, the opponent tried to knee on belly me (apparently you get lots of points for it in No Gi)

But I managed to defend it by constantly shrimping, and was essentially holding his entire weight in my hands on his knee and shin. Keeping him off me, in the end, I managed to shove him, to force him into trying to get me into a scarf hold and escaped that way.

 

It's a nice escape. Id say you have to be super fast with that undertook as you said. I can see you getting sprawled on if not.

 

Thats the classic "mistake escape" to armbar that everyone used to teach, but it's actually pretty hard to get if people have a good bridge in their hip escape.

I always struggle escaping a good knee in belly, I end up escaping to side control bottom, and then escaping again from there, or bait mount and trap a quarter guard/ankle lift from there, either way it's always a lot of work

 

I remember vaguely learning a windmill escape but it never worked for me.

 

I kept my elbows in

But yeah, I spent a lot of time underneath building up the strength to shove and then explode and scramble. In the end, I was knackered and got D'arced anyway....

 

If it helps, I always think d'arces are from doing the right thing, slightly wrongly!

 

2nd time ever I got caught in that. Lazy single from me. Plus no energy = bad results.