Escape the Dangerous Side Mount
The 2 most common places to wind up on the ground will be the full mount – which I describe how to escape here – and the side mount which we will go over in this post.
In both of these positions your attacker is going to be on top of you raining down punches.
If you don’t have an answer for this it won’t be long before you are knocked unconscious and unable to prevent what your attacker does next. No bueno!
It is actually quite easy to escape the side mount against an untrained fighter but you must be well trained so your reactions can be quick.
How to Escape the Side Mount
1st off we will start from a rather crappy position to be in. Our version of the side mount escape will be done as follows:
Easy!
So first things first… we have to stop those elbows from hitting our face as you can see in the image above.
To do that you will need to find a way to get your arms wrapped around your training partner ASAP. Find the space and get that arm out and then wrap it around in an overhook. You can learn how to do overhooks here.
Ok you have the overhook to stop the strikes. Now to get our escape.
Ultimately to escape the side mount we must turn towards our opponent. But we can’t because our training partner is digging their knees under us preventing the roll.
What shall we do?
Make space by scooting your pelvis away from them.
In the image above I have dug my elbow into my partner’s hip so I can push them away to make space.
You can see that I have also scooted my pelvis away from him and turned towards him. We call this shrimping.
Depending on how tightly your training partner is sticking to you you might have to scoot or shrimp repeatedly to make enough space as you pry them away with your elbow.
Next start working your knee between you and your training partner. This will ultimately put a shin guard between the two of you which you can use to control him and roll him.
You should be able to do all of this very quickly in 2 moves. But if your opponent is sticking tightly you might have to pry and make space and work that knee in against resistance.
If you have made it to the position above congratulations! You have escaped the side mount.
But we aren’t done yet.
Notice in the image above my knee is sticking out far from his hip? This will help prevent him from reacquiring the side mount if he tries to simply pivot back to the side. That knee had better be sticking out and pointing up just a little to wedge him in.
Also note that my pelvis is right underneath my training partner.
If you leave it out to the side you will not be able to do the next move, which is to roll him.
You must get completely underneath him.
In order to roll it is simple. Just imagine putting your knee (the one sticking out) on the ground on the opposite side.
Don’t worry about anything else. Don’t try and roll, don’t hip thrust… just put your knee over there. If you do it right it feels pretty effortless.
You can roll on top of them to the full mount or you can stop your roll and get to your knees so that YOU are now side mounted on them.
By the way, you kept that overhook tight so their arm couldn’t escape right?
In the image above I am in the side control position but I haven’t locked it in by digging my knees under him and I haven’t turned him away from me yet.
Why?
Because I’m going to transition to the scarf hold for a bad ass finish!
I’m sliding my knee underneath my body to get to the scarf hold position. You could totally finish them from the side mount but since I have an overhook on their arm the scarf hold just falls right into place.
By the way, you still have that firm overhook, right? Don’t let that arm out!
In the image above I am in full scarf hold glory dropping some nasty elbows that will knock the opponent unconscious.
Make sure to drop big elbows not a bunch of short ones. We are trying to knock them out ASAP not cause a lot of damage to their face.
The knockout comes from the brain bouncing around inside the skull cap.
Conclusion
Now you know how to not only escape the side mount but how to roll them into your own side mount or a scarf hold to quickly end the fight.
Remember, like always, it is one thing to learn something and it is another to accumulate repetitions with training partners who can offer resistance.
If you – God-forbid – need to use this in a real fight you want it to be automatic.
Until next time,
Brian
