hip on hip side control

[mrh80]

I have been recently playing with hip on hip side control (shown in Saulos Revolution 1 dvd) and am having mixed success.

Against white/blue belts my weight and below ok success, higher belts and heavy guys not so much.

If I am on the opponents right side with my right hip on his hip and right elbow blocking his far hip (caging his hips). The oponent will often try a hip escape, if I am quick enough I can snag up his arm and move into kesa or isolate his inside arm for a more dominate side control and work from there. However, bigger opponents can simply explode away and reguard. The dvd does not go into a lot of depth in preventing this, but Saulo does advocate switching base, however being low on the hips makes this feel awkward and rolling over the opponents arms seems to give him ample space to escape.

My questions:

1. Aside from Saulo what other guys use this method of side control and are the any good matches or video of it being utilized?

2. I cannot seem to get as heavy as I like on this, any tips to feel heavier in this position.

3. Is this position really just there to get into a more dominate side control if the opponent makes an obvious mistake or just to transition to KOB or mount?

4. Any general comments on the submissions/contents on the side control dvd?

Saulo seems to suggest this side control for both gi and no gi.


P.S. At the moment I have an injured knee and can not train for a couple more weeks and am yet to find an instructor in Sydney as I have justed moved here. I will obviously talk to an instructor about this, but in the mean time any comments.

[Petter]

Caveat: I suck; read this as talking points rather than authorative.

I have been recently playing with hip on hip side control (shown in Saulos Revolution 1 dvd) and am having mixed success.

I haven’t seen the DVD. I assume that you simply mean side control with the arm on the far side of the opponent, using your hip to check his hip instead of your arm?

I cannot seem to get as heavy as I like on this, any tips to feel heavier in this position.

I find this curious—maybe I misread something. I generally start my side control with my hand on the near-side hip (e.g. the opponent’s right if I’m on his right side), then once settled switch to using my hip to check his hip in order to free up my arm to attack. If the opponent starts turning in very forcefully, I’ll switch my hand back because the arm forms a physical barrier even if I’m bumped—but generally, I feel that I can apply more weight and pressure with hip-on-hip. I just make sure my knees are off the ground and my legs pretty much straight, and push off my toes/balls of my feet to drive into my opponent (cross-face, cross-face, cross-face!). This lets me get much heavier than any form of side control where my knees are under me, as in those cases part of my weight rests on my own knees rather than on my opponent. Here, the only part of my weight that rests on the floor without my opponent pinned in between is that on my toes, and there I’m actively pushing off.

But, as I said, in my experience there will be cases where the opponent hips out so explosively that my hip pressure is no longer enough to check his hip. Then I just bring my hand back to check the hip—even if he’s started to bring his knee in to reguard I can usually block it and get back to side. Got to be ready to do this, though; I used to have huge problems because I relied entirely on hip-on-hip and was not sensitive to the opponent’s hip escapes, and didn’t respond in time to catch the hip.

[beardedtaco]

I've got the same video. If I remember he said one of the main benefits of this position is that it frees your hands to do what you want with them.
This is my take on it, if any guys with more experience want to correct me on anything, please do!
The way I am taught, side control is not a collection of fixed positions, it encompasses a variety of holds, pins, and transitions. I have a good side control for my experience level, and for me the thing that helps me the most, is when I feel I'm about to start losing the position, I will transition to a position with better leverage ( ie another variation of side control ).
So if I do it Saulo's way, it is because I want to free my hands for something, but if I feel the position is being compromised, then I will transition back to chest on chest or wherever feels like the path of least resistance.
A good purple belt taught me a good principle for side control for settling your weight against his resistance is what he calls flopping your weight. So if I was passing to side control, and he frames or braces against me with his arms and a knee or whatever, instead of hanging my weight on him, which makes me easier to sweep, I will loosely twist from side to side in a flopping manner ( if you are a lot bigger than your partner be careful how hard you land on his ribs with this one ), this normally digs my body back into a good side control with minimal energy used on my part. Of course if you can get your knee ride in as you are passing this is less likely to happen, but **** happens.

[Kintanon]

Beardedtaco: We call that "mudslideing". You move your shoulders and hips to kind of slide off of and around whatever they are trying to brace against you with.

I know at my weight side control is a dynamic position, and I generally avoid the hip to hip side control because I feel like it's much more work to maintain. I prefer a more standard side control with the knee closest to their feet pressed to their hip. That gives me an easy transition to KoB and lets me maintain mobility.

[jnp]

Can someone throw up a photo, or maybe the proper Judo term for this position? I don't have any grappling DVD's, and I've read the OP three times and still have no idea what he's describing.

[judoka_uk]

I've read the OP three times and still have no idea what he's describing.

First time round I thought maybe some kind of Ushiro kesa gatame



On second reading though he says his right hip on uke's right hip. So like you I have no idea.

[Kintanon]

It's the one described here:
Saulo Being Awesome in General

And I personally have gotten rolled a lot when trying to use it because I find I have to get too much of my weight across most of my opponents into order to get my elbow in firmly at the hip.

[judoka_uk]

This position?



I'm not much of a newaza man, but it looks like you have very little control over your opponent. So its no wonder people are easily shrimping out or escaping.

[Kintanon]

Yup, that's the one he's talking about. Saulo uses it and seems to crush people from there, but when anyone seems to be shrimping out of it he transitions, so I don't think it's meant to be a static position. In that picture he immediate afterwards is going to grab the guys near elbow, jerk it up and switch to a standard side control with the elbow control. I'm pretty sure he shows that on his DVD RIGHT AFTER he shows this position.

[jnp]

This is a transition position. That's not to say you can never hang out there, but you had better be one hell of a newaza badass to stick around that low on someone's hips.





Notice how much higher top guy is in this picture. This is the position you need to practice if you want to learn the fundamentals of this hold. Trying to learn the example shown in the first photo is like trying to learn to surf in a hurricane.

And before you can learn that position, you should be more than proficient at scarf hold or kuzure kesa getame in my opinion. Seen below.




You have to learn to walk before you can run.