# Takedowns For BJJ Are Easy Once You Understand This **Channel:** Josh Saunders **Source:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFkFOvCUAuE **Transcript page:** https://www.withtranscript.ai/video/WFkFOvCUAuE ## Chapters - 0:00 — Core Hand Fighting and Slide Bys - 4:34 — Underhooks Into Rear Body Locks - 6:40 — Elbow Control and Back Exposure - 9:31 — Breaking Down Rear Body Locks - 12:59 — High Ball Ride Finishing Options ## Transcript **[0:00] Speaker A:** Wrestling for jiu-jitsu often sucks. And the reason is is because most people don't understand the core principle of what you're actually doing and what you're actually aiming for. The highest percentage way to get the best takedowns that are the most advantageous is going to be covered in this video. So, if you want to revolutionize your standup and your takedowns and your hand fighting, stop eating your food, pay attention, and you're going to get exactly that. What we're going to be looking at is, in my opinion, the best way to execute takedowns in jiu-jitsu is by getting their arms out of the way and getting either to body locks or to their back. So, what we're going to start to look at is we're going to always lead with our uh rear hand, not ever reaching with our lead hand. If we reach with our lead hand, he just picks up a single. **[0:43] Speaker A:** It's a waste of time. So, we reach with our rear hand. When he tries to pick up a single, now I got my forearm in the way, and I can simply just take my leg back down and away. And if he leans too far forwards, I can just snap him down immediately. So, we reach with our rear hand. He's probably going to do the same thing to me. And this is where we're going to start to get to work. So, I want good head position. I want my forehead matching his forehead. And I want to start to move him around from this position. I want to start to use a a multitude of snapping him forwards and then starting to circle. Snapping him forwards, starting to circle. All I'm really doing here is looking at where his feet are going and where I can start to access either uh under hooks, uh whether I can start to access single legs to get him to sprawl back to **[1:24] Speaker A:** then start to access under hooks. There's a bunch of different options, but we're going to predicate these on on slide bys, throwbyss, and uh a duck under today specifically cuz we're getting behind the elbow and we're getting to their back. The first one I want you guys to focus on is a slide by. So, what I want is I don't want his legs to be opposite to mine in this in this stance. I want to start to pull him forwards so that I can get lead foot to lead foot. Now, the reason being is that if he puts that foot forwards and I try and slide him by, I kind of get jammed up a little bit where I can't rotate as much as I try and step here, it just seems not to work as well. Whereas, if I pull him forwards and his lead leg is kind of leaning into me on his side, on this side that I want to slide by, there's more weight dedicated to this side, which makes it easier for **[2:11] Speaker A:** me to start to come around the corner and slide him through. So, if you're not having success with these, likely it's because he's got his far side foot over here, of which you can start to reach down. He spraws it back and now I'm in a good position. Or simply, if he's in that spot, just start to pull him forwards, snap him down, pull him forwards. As soon as you see that foot's in the lead, now you can start to take your grip on the inside of the bicep. Lead foot to lead foot. Duck your head or your ear towards your shoulder and then slide him by. So rear hand, double up with the second hand. If he's in this asymmetrical stance that's away, you can start to reach down. Yeah, exactly. If he starts to move that leg backwards, perfect. We're in a good spot. **[2:53] Speaker A:** I would mention though, um, you're not going to do this while somebody's backing away from you. So, if you're just consistently moving someone forwards, forwards, forwards, and you try and slide him by, it's not going to work. You do have to have a little bit of a push back reaction, and this is why if you switch, if you start moving him this way, he's usually going to be moving towards you because you've pulled him in that direction. So, you're looking for footto, but you're also looking for a little bit of push in towards you. You can go in towards the bicep, take your ear towards your own shoulder, and then get round to the back. Let's give that a go. It's very likely your partner wants to resist this as much as possible, but that's going to open up the next chain of attack for us. **[3:31] Speaker A:** So, if you've hit this a bunch of times, try not to, I should mention this, try not to telegraph this by immediately reaching to the inside of the bicep here. That should send warning signals into his brain that he's going to get slid by in a second. So, even if I pull him forwards, he's probably going to resist pretty heavily. Start by extending yourself into the shoulder and then as you get him to step forwards then you can switch the grip because the grip is not the hardest part of that technique. It's the setting up of the the correct environment. So don't just set it here and leave it here because he's going to be going, "Oh, he's going to try and slide me by." Versus if I'm here, he doesn't really know what I'm going to do. I could start to go into the next technique we're looking at. **[4:08] Speaker A:** Or I could start to slide him by if I get the correct foot position. So, if you've done this a bunch of times and you go to slide him and he's he's giving you a lot of resistance by pulling his elbow down, we're now going to go instead of going to the inside, we're going to take our head backwards, and we're going to cut our elbow underneath towards the inside. Don't leave your elbow wide because he'll beat me to the race of his rib cage. No, just pull your elbow in. Yeah, like that. **[4:34] Speaker A:** If I cut underneath, beat me. He can't. He secures my underhook for me. So, it's an important detail when you're in this position. The slide by is becoming a little bit more um less appropriate because of the way that he's pulling his elbow down to his ribs. I don't want to pull him out of the hole too much. I take my hand out. I cut my elbow underneath and I start to come straight through. Now, this is the biggest problem I see with most people with their under hooks. They get to this spot and they've got their hand down low. They don't get their shoulder underneath and they just stand here and they don't really do anything with their under hook and they let it get dominated and pulled down into a lot of that mirror lock. um situation. Once you get the under hook, that's your time to go, not to wait and to admire your work. **[5:14] Speaker A:** So, you cut underneath, you get your ar shoulder up underneath his armpit as high as possible, and then you start to go either knee taps or what we're going to look at today, far side knee tap into near side throw by. And then we can start to expose his back. Now, it's the same motion if Spilly is not there. It's the same motion as the slide by. When I start to go like this as the same motion as the near side throw by with my under hook, I'm doing the exact same thing. It's just my arms on the the bottom side, not on the top side. Now, so if I slide him, I'm doing this. If I'm using a near side throw by, I'm doing the same thing. Think about bowling a cricket ball. That's the easiest way to to describe it. And once I get to this position, I faint the far side knee tap. **[6:00] Speaker A:** I get him worried about his far side of his body. And then I go near side and then I start to throw my hand all the way over to clear his whizzer out. And then I can get into this rear body lock situation where I dance around to either side. So one more time, rear hand. I'm looking for the slide by not maybe he's not even coming forward with his foot, so it's not available. I cut underneath by taking my head away and under. And as soon as I get here, I go fast side, near side, and I can start to come in towards all my rear body lock territories. Let's give that a go. **[6:40] Speaker A:** And I just want you guys to think about this, like if if I took his arms off his body, we just cut his arms down here. I know he wouldn't be missing much if we did cut him off, but how is he going to stop me picking up his legs or starting to get towards body locks or getting around him if he can't utilize his arms? Now, obviously, we can't cut his arms off would be unfair fight, but we can always get elbows out of the way. We can start to shift off this direction and start to expose these parts of the body. Whether I get to the to the uh rib cage or whether I get to the hips or maybe even behind the knees. So really all we're doing here with these techniques is I'm getting the elbows out of the way so I can get towards my preferred grips of this this like center piece of mass here. **[7:22] Speaker A:** Whether I'm using arm drag techniques, whether I'm using under hook throwbys, like getting to towards this situation, they're all just leading me to get his upper limbs out of the way so I can access this in the middle, which is what I want. The final one we're going to look at before we look at some finishing is I take this initial collar tie except this time he's pretty aware that this is not necessarily a good thing for him. He takes his hand up in a thumb down grip at my wrist and then he starts to strip this down and away. Now ordinarily this would be pretty bad for me cuz it opens up arm drags which gives him the same opportunity to do what I'm doing to him. So what I want to do from here is I actually want to put my head in the way so that when he tries to arm drag me here he can't. **[8:04] Speaker A:** I've defended it quite well by having my head in the right position. If my head's on the other side of his body, I give him the arm drag. Don't do that. Silly. So, I take my collar tie. He takes a wrist. He get very common grip, a thumb down grip. I start to get my head into a good position. And I'm going to start to reach down for his knee here. Once I reach down for his knee, I get his weight committed to that side. He's probably going to take that leg back down and away of which I'm going to duck my head and start to take his arm and hand over the top getting towards my same grips in my body lock in my in my rear body lock. I've exposed his back. So I take my initial collar tie. He takes the thumb down grip. **[8:40] Speaker A:** I just make sure that I've got my head in this right position. I take the drag away from him. I start to reach down towards his knee. I get him to sprawl that leg back. Then I reach towards his hip as I duck underneath. taking this hand past all the way around to the other side. And now I'm in my rear body lock. So is a little bit more advanced, but if you can do this well, it's off his advantage initially. I'm pretty happy if I have this grip. I like this grip a lot. I can start to go to arm drags. I can start to pummel under hooks. It's very advantageous for me. So he's doing the right thing by assessing and coming towards this position. Except we're just one step ahead. I take my head into the side of his head here. So he can't arm drag me effectively. **[9:19] Speaker A:** Then I start to reach down towards this far leg. As soon as he takes that leg away, I reach for the hip. I take my knee down to the floor, guide myself all the way around the corner and put him into a rear body lock. Let's give that a go. **[9:31] Speaker A:** So now we've got three different methods, three different grips to be able to get access to rear body lock situations, of which we're going to start to put him down to a fourpoint. Most of most of the problems are going to come in this situation when you do not put weight in their hands. The the highest percentage thing that Spewy can do here is to immediately fight my grips. You'll see this a lot in MMA. They push him up against the cage and then they immediately go to separating the hands and now you don't have contact with them. He can turn in, readress me, start to punch under hooks. Try and do the same thing if I put your weight into your hands. So, we start to take this posture guiding everything we can down to the floor. Try and strip my grip. Try and strip my grip. **[10:12] Speaker A:** Yeah. Exactly. So, we can see how ineffective this strategy now becomes. The best way to get somebody down with the most efficiency from this position is by shortening the grip towards the near side of where your leg is on and then starting to use your forearm as a buckle in towards their hip. If he tries to widen his right foot as I do this, he simply can't. If I focus my grip being deep on this side and I try and do it, he can just widen his right leg whenever he wants. But if I come towards this near side, collapse his hip, and then drive all my body weight over that direction, he cannot widen his right leg, and I can get his hands down to the mat every single time. So, we're going to look at two options from here. Why do you insist on keep standing up? **[11:02] Speaker B:** Just stay there. It's It's okay. **[11:05] Speaker A:** If his knees and elbows are disconnected sufficiently, I'm always going to have a shot at taking the back. Typically from this rear body lock situation, it's going to be my knee side hook first and then we'll jump into a high ball ride. Once we're in our high bell ride, I wouldn't be putting my hands on the floor. I'm just saving Spiey's tiny little shoulders. But as soon as you get to this position, you'll want to look to take hands off the mat so that you can start to weigh down on top of them. Getting him down towards the mat. Now we're in a really good attacking position for high ball. if they're keeping their body weight upwards. I won't put too much weight into him while we're here. But you take these hands off the mat and then he has to fall. If we get to a rear body lock situation in a fourpoint and his knees and elbows are connected, we're not going to throw hooks into this person because I'm going to go over the arm and he's going to **[11:52] Speaker A:** be able to stop me from getting a proper connection. My feet will likely never get locked underneath his glute and I'll probably fall off. So, if he's in this tight little four-point position, we're not going to throw hooks. We're going to start to spiral, right? I'm going to take this hand on the far side to his hip, this hand on the near side underneath his tricep, and I'm going to start to hit a spiral where I pull this direction, I push this direction, usually breaking him down to a hip. Once I break him down to a hip, I'm going to put significant tension in towards his top hip so that when he goes to retle, it's extremely difficult. Now, I can measure how much time it's going to take him for him to retle. I'm going to force him to scissor his legs because if he doesn't, he will not be able to get up. **[12:33] Speaker A:** And when he's when he goes, I'm going to let him go slightly slide my knee hook in. And now I'm in that same high ball ride position. But I got there in a different way. Same again. I can utilize power halves if I'd like to or I can take his hands off the mat and I can usually get him down to bottom position where we can start attacking from high balls. So, we get towards the rear body lock **[12:59] Speaker A:** using one of our methods. I'm in this long short position where I shorten towards the side of the body that I'm on. I buckle his hips so he can't widen his right leg. And if there's a significant gap between his elbow and his knee, I simply jump on top, lock my feet underneath his far glute, not in the middle, cuz I'll fall off. If it's of his, sorry, if it's on his far glute, I'm pretty well connected. I'm going to reach down, take one of his hands off the mat and start to pull him down towards the floor. And now we're in a high ball ride. If his knees and elbows are connected, I'm not going to do the same thing. I'm going to spiral ride him. So, I'm in my rear body lock initially. I'm going to take this hand and pull this hand and push. **[13:38] Speaker A:** I'm going to start to break him down towards a hip. He doesn't want to stay here. He's going to fire over. When he scisses his legs, I pull my knee to my chest. I throw my near side hook in. And now we're in a high ball ride again. Take his hand off the mat. Start to get him down towards the high ball. And now we're ready to attack. Throw our hooks in and win the match. Let's give that a go. **[14:02] Speaker B:** You wish you could do that?