Phil Grapsas is a first degree black belt, who runs Leverage Jiu Jitsu in Melbourne. He was Pedro Sauer’s second Australian black belt.
The seminar was held at Higher Jiu Jitsu, in the City of Sydney Police/Citizens’ Youth Centre (PCYC). Hosted by the excellent John Smallios.
Grips, Base and a Simple Takedown
We start from standing. We get a grip on his R collar with our L hand. We have a good standing base, our forward L foot is always pointing at him. Our R foot is at an angle (right angle?) to our L foot so that we can keep our base against force in any direction.
W should pull down on his collar, using our bodyweight. We should learn to feel where his feet are and their orientation through this grip. We want the obligatory good structure with our spine, etc.
In effect, our opponent and ourselves become a quadruped. We want to be able to feel where both his feet are as well as both of ours. Our R hand can grab his elbow, other collar, underhook, etc., but we want to make sure we can disengage this hand quickly if necessary, for the next technique.
We should be able to feel when his weight is planted on his R leg. WE perform a small shuffle step so as to move so our hips are facing the same direction as his and our L leg is in position to hook his R leg.
We hook his R leg straight forward and up with our L foot. The action is like using our butterfly hooks, not like an instep kick or judo foot sweep. We elevate his L foot and pull him down and to our L with our arms to the floor.
If he steps out to avoid the Takedown, grab the leg
He may lift his knee and try to step his foot out of the sweep.
If this happens, we grab the inside of his R leg with our L hand. From her we can:
- Backstep with our L foot, pull his collar down and lift his leg to put him supine on the floor. Keep hold of his R leg and drive our R knee and shin across his L leg, to a “split pass” position, known by some as a “leg drag” position. Try for double underhooks and put our chest and weight on his, so our legs are light.
- Turn to our R and step our R foot behind his L leg. We can now use our R leg to trip him backwards, like a type of osotogari or taiotoshi. Again, we keep hold of his leg and move to the “split pass” position, Chest on his, legs light.
From the “split pass” position of our chest is heavy and legs light, he may try to kick his legs out straight to get out of the leg drag position. If out legs are light, it should be fairly easy for us to weave our legs into the mount position. Getting the back or side control are also possible, depending on how he moves.
Split Pass Leg Work
You have gained the split pass position with your R shin across his L leg and his R thigh trapped between your bodies. Bring your R knee up, pushing his R knee across, toward his head and out to the R. Move your L knee from your L side of his L leg to the R side. Grab his L sleeve with you R and pull his arm up to flatten his shoulders out. Step your R leg over his R so Your R knee is close to his L shoulder. Put your R knee on the mat. You could now slide your R L knee back to the other side of his L leg and be effectively in mount. Put your R foot right next to hi L knee, to prevent an elbow/knee escape attempt. Hook his L thigh with your L instep (like a butterfly hook). Drive your weight to your L and us the hook to pull his L leg down, straightening out his hips as you move to mount.
Learning this sort of leg weaving is a hallmark of an advanced student. It greatly enhances your passing abilities. This is far from the only leg weaving possibility from this position.
Split Pass – He Frames and Starts to Escape
You get the split pass position with your R shin across his L leg and his R leg between your bodies. Before you can properly consolidate the control, he manages to frame with his R forearm across your collarbones, his R hand grabbing your R shoulder. His L arm is forming a secondary frame with his L hand also on your R shoulder. He should use the frames to keep you down toward his hips and preventing the chest to chest control.
He can work an escape by holding your R hip in place with his R leg (don’t push him away), and sliding his L knee under your R knee out to your R, to go supine and then starting to turn toward you to escape and reguard.
As he moves, reach for his L thigh with your R arm. use it to pin his knees to the mat on his R. Slide down and use your R shoulder to pin his hips and upper body, tripod up on your toes and lift your butt in the air as you run around and over to the other side to a side control with him facing away.
You can make a drill out of it, by then driving your L knee under his L leg and over his R, to a split pass position on the other side. He starts to escape the same way on the other side, you pin his knees, tripod up and run around to the other side again repeat.
Timing is of the essence here, but you should be able to make this a smooth, well-timed transition with a reasonable amount of practice.
Keeping Side Control
Phil demonstrated a type of short base side control (which he calls a side mount) which is difficult to escape from and sets up the subsequent techniques.
If we are on his R side, our L knee should be right up near the top R of his head. Our R knee is down blocking his hip. We should not allow him to go hip to hip with us, as such hip engagement will facilitate his escape. We can place out weight across his hips or across his shoulders – in this case we want to control his shoulders by putting our weight squarely across his chest, at around the level of his collarbones. We should be able to control him reasonably well with our hands clasped behind our backs. But adding arm controls will majorly ramp up the effectiveness of the position.
We get a crossface with our L arm on the R side of his head, pushing his chin to his L with our L shoulder (“Shoulder of Justice”). Our L knee and L elbow are positioned so that his R humerus (upper arm) is trapped between our L elbow and L thigh. If this control is done correctly, it should be impossible for him to free his R elbow and start framing off our L hip.
Matt Thornton calls this “killing the near side arm”.
Or R arm should be underhooking his L. We can join our hands in a Gable Grip or grasp his L shoulder somehow.
If necessary to apply extra pressure or keep control, we can engage the toes of our R foot on the mat. Or we can put our R shin on his R hip.
This position should be very difficult to escape from when done correctly.
An Armbar and Far Cutting Armbar from Side Control
It is ESSENTIAL for this move and the next that we keep his R humerus trapped between our L humerus/elbow and our L thigh, If he can free his R elbow, the armbar is gone.. His elbow can only move in an arc from his shoulder. AS long as we can keep control of his humerus inside that arc, his elbow remains trapped.
We have side control on his R as above. Use the fingers of our R hand. working on the end of the lever that is his humerus, near the elbow, walking our fingers like a spider (some call this “magic fingers”) to drive his elbow away from his torso and up toward his head, to preemptively limit that arm’s defensive capability.Your R elbow or hand stays on the mat while you are doing the next part.
Put your R shin on his R hip or rib cage. Keeping his R humerus trapped between your L thigh and upper arm, come up on your L foot and drive into him, at the same time somewhat cranking his neck forward with your L arm to restrict his movement and defensive ability. Walk your L foot heel-toe in an arc around the top of his head and over the the R side of his face. Sit down on your L hip and L elbow, keeping his L humerus trapped the whole time, so that your R shin ends up across his throat, more or less. Some “facial massage” for your training partner with your shin here is probably unavoidable, so go easy when practising. You could turn on your side slightly and bring your R knee up toward his chest for extra control of his R shoulder.
His R arm should be trapped under your L armpit with his elbow near your L knee. Try and get the wrist under your armpit, grab your L knee with your R hand and pull the knee up and towards you, thus applying the armbar. You could fall directly on your side and not the elbow and be really nasty, but you will probably break something in your partner’s elbow, so, not in training.
If he reaches for you with his L arm, you will have to opportunity to grab it, trap his L wrist between your R ear and shoulder, and apply a cutting armbar by attacking the outside of the elbow. This is a follow up possibility if for some reason the forst armbar on his R arm proves ineffective.
Moving to Mount, Same Armbar
From the previous side control, we want to look at moving to mount.hume
We have his R humerus trapped between out L thigh and arm as before.
We use our R underhook and the “magic fingers” movement to drive his L arm up over his head per the last technique.
Now we put our forehead on the mat above and to the L of his head. We take our R knee over his chest and place it right in his L armpit.
Do not let the control on His R humerus go for even an instant!
We should now be able to consolidate a beautifully nasty high mount, his L elbow trapped well out in open space away from his torso, and his R humerus still trapped between our L humerus and thigh.
Sit to the side on our L hip and elbow – keep his R arm controlled!. Use our R arm to lift his head and shoulders so we can free our L leg. Extend it out on the R side of his head. Be careful that he cannot sit up and roll you from here
Now use our R hand to push his head away and turn his face to his L, allowing you to take your L shin over his head and rest it on his throat.
We are now in a very similar position to that we attained for the previous armbar, We apply the submission the same way, grabbing our L knee with our R hand and lifting it up and towards us.
The same cutting armbar on his L arm will also be available as before.
That concluded the planned part of the seminar, which took about two hours. Phil then invited questions from the participants.
Side Control Counters and Escapes
Problem: A has side control on B’s R side, his L elbow next to B’s left ear, his R hand on the mat blocking B’s R hip. B gets a frame with his R elbow on B’s L hip, and grips inside B’s R elbow inside. This gives him frames/levers from which to turn toward him, hip away, and recover guard.
Counter: A should grab B’s pants with his R under the thigh or at the hip and pull his elbow to his hip, forming a frame of his own and killing B’s frame attempt.
Re-counter: B should take his R hand and grab A’s elbow underhand, thus keeping A’s new frame where it is. His L arm should now underhook A’s head. He brings his feet up on his toes and bridges A up over his head, then reaches out and grabs the mat with his heels to pull himself down and out from underneath A, creating enough room to free his head and slide out more or less parallel to A. B can now attack B’s back, or lift his hips and legs in the air and put A in his guard.
Problem: A has side control on B’s side. B gets an underhook on A’s R arm with his L in preparation for an underhook escape.
Counter: A brings his R elbow back to his R hip and puts his R hand at B’s R hip, thus killing B’s underhook lever, and perhaps cranking B’s L elbow.
Re-counter: B grabs the pants at his own L knee with his L hand, and uses the power of his leg to free his elbow. If he can overhook A’s R arm with his L elbow, he may be able to trap A’s R arm and roll him overB to B’s L, B ending up in a top position.
It is essentially a battle for who has control of who’s elbow here. Whoever gets control of the other’s elbow here wins that part of the match. The initial counter works A’s weight and pecs against B’s comparatively weak deltoid. B needs to bring his much stronger hip flexor and abs into play by connecting his arm to his leg, to turn the tables.
There is a similar battle possible when you try a kimura from bottom half guard. If the top guy reverse elbow control on you, he can submit you from there.
Cross Collar Choke from Mount
There are a few common problems with this choke:
- Not being able to get the first choking hand in deep enough, so it is easily countered by the opponent grabbing our wrist and pushing it down toward his hips
- Getting bucked off or bridged and rolled by the opponent
- Finding it difficult to get the second choking hand in because the opponent knows it is coming and will try everything ot stop it
We have a nice high mount. If we just try to drive our first hand in from here we may have difficulty because the ground is in the way and the angle is all wrong.
Move the L knee out slightly and sit on our L heel. We do not want ot put our L hip on the ground – we want ot be in a position so that if we lose balance we will fall onto the opponent.
Only our R leg is over the opponent now. Keep it and the hip fairly relaxed, so that if he bridges only our leg will move and not the rest of us. We should hook his L hip with our R heel for control.
We can post out on our L hand. We should now be able to see and drive our R hand in a straight line right in deep the very back of his collar. Once we have secured a deep grip, we can square up slightly and drive our R elbow into his chest, lifting his head and putting pressure on him.
We do not attempt to go for the other collar straight away. The ball is in his court. We want to encourage him to think he may be able to escape by pushing our R knee down and perhaps pulling half guard. Keep the leg relaxed and let him push the knee far down. The further he pushes, the longer he will take to bring it back to protect his neck. And if he feels resistancce, he may stop pushing.
If his collar is tight to his neck and not open, we may wish to just open it up with our L hand so it will be easy to grab when the time comes.
Our opponent takes the bait and pushes down on our R knee with his L hand. His neck is now unprotected!
Our L hand is in a hook formation as we punch it over and grab that L collar overhand. We bring our elbows out, and put our head on the floor over his L shoulder, pulling our elbows out and behind, as we flatten him with our chest.We should not need to keep pulling hard, holding the choke and our weight on him should be sufficient to get the submission.
Even if he manages to push our R leg all the way down and catch it in half guard, the choke will still work perfectly well. So this is not a significant concern.
Phil demonstrating the choke 
If he refuses to take the bait, and keeps his L hand up protecting his neck, we place our head on the floor over his L shoulder Our L elbow comes over the top of his head and around next to the L side of his jaw. We drive our elbow along the base of his jaw and down toward our L hip, our forearm following the same line, “shaving his face” until our L hand is in a position to grab his L collar. We clamp on the grip and apply choking pressure as before.
The choke seems to bias towards a type of forearm choke with the L ulna rather than a symmetrical choke with both forearms used equally. Iit allow for more of a push-pull, bow and arrow type application of the choke, which is probably stronger than the traditional lat pull type energy.
I have heard a number of instructors, including Anthony Lange and Chris Haueter, discuss and demonstrate using angles to get the first choking hand in really deep when performing the collar choke from the guard, and various strategies for getting the second hand in from there. But I had not come across this approach used for the collar choke from mount before.
Inverted Triangle from Crossover Guard Position
I only caught this briefly, and Phil did not show it to the entire class, but this is a position I work from a lot so I liked it.
The starting position is him kneeling. We are on our R side with our R shin across his hips, and our L foot on his R shoulder. This is a transient position of a guard retention move called the “crossover” in Will/Machado Jiu Jitsu.
We may have grips or be posting on him with our hands.
We hook our L leg over the L side of his head, and shoot our R leg out to our L bringing our R knee up under his R armpit and triangling it over our R foot, to form an inverted triangle. Ideal choking pressure comes from our bling on our L side. and doing all the right triangle details with our legs and feet.
I am not much of an inverted triangle guy, so need to experiment with this. But I am definitely a crossover guy. Besides retaining guard, there is a nice sweep and armbar from here as well. One more arrow in my quiver from here.
The Hyundai and the Roller
Phil talked to us about building our own Jiu Jitsu s like building and maintaining a classic car, Like a Rolls Royce. Something to take pride and in curate over decades. Not something that will wear out and be unsustainable after five or so years, like a Hyundai (see below).
You also want to keep in mind the Grandmasters like Helio Gracie, who trained until he was 92. You want to spend some training time building your Jiu Jitsu in a way for which your future, 92 year old self will thank you. Precision, leverage, technique, strategy, flow, etc. over brute force. Don’t wreck yourself with trying to power your way using poor technique.
I drive a 2013 Hyundai i30. It’s a good car! And nearly six years old! Got GPS, Bluetooth, reversing camera, proximity sensors, etc. It was NRMA small car of the year the year I bought it. I know what Phil means, but, hey …
My personal choice of classic vehicle would be not a Rolls, but a 1969 Dodge Challenger, a star of the films Vanishing Point and Natural Born Killers. Either that, or a Bugatti Chiron. Or, levelling up further still, an X-15. They are still around.
Dodge Challenger 
Bugatti Chiron 
X-15
I really enjoyed this seminar. Phil Grapsas is a top bloke and a great instructor, with excellent Jiu Jitsu. Train with him if you get the chance, you will definitely find it a valuable experience.
The mat culture at Higher Jiu Jitsu is first rate. Check it and John Smallios out if you get the opportunity.