How To Develop The Best Back Attacks In Your Gym│Part 3

Take the back, retain the back and finish on the back.

Finally, we come to the last part of this series. In the first part you learned how to expose the back, how to break the turtle and how to get the back. In part two you learned how to hold the back and the mechanics of different configurations. Today you will learn how to submit your opponent from the back.

The Rear Naked Choke (RNC) is the highest percentage submission in the sport of No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu. This is because it can be achieved without sacrificing much control over your opponent. Therefore, it's critical to develop the hand fighting skills necessary to attack this submission.

In addition, if we can't attack an RNC, we can attack other submissions such as triangles and armbars. Today I'm going to focus on the RNC, but we'll also touch on some of the other submissions.

Finally, none of this will matter if you can't expose, take, and hold the back, so if these skills are lacking, be sure to check out my other two parts of this series. That said, let's dive in.

Rear Naked Choke

A good RNC covers both sides of the neck, allowing for a clean choke. Even if your opponent has his chin down, if you continue to cover both sides of the neck, you'll strangle your opponent.

In order to effectively cover both sides of the neck, you must have the correct elbow position. This means that your elbow must be aligned with your opponent's throat. That doesn't mean you can't finish without it. When you get under the chin, your elbow position doesn't matter as much if you still have the arm wrapped on both sides, and you can finish a neck crank if you can't get under the chin without perfect elbow positioning. But being able to choke your opponent will always be the better option.

Notice how the elbow is aligned with the chin and throat of his opponent.

Proper elbow positioning will also improve our finishing power, allowing us to finish even if we lose the hand battle (more on this shortly, and also look at this by LIMI BJJ).

When we are trying to get the elbows in the right position, the main form of resistance we will face will be our opponent's hands. We want to clear the hands to get to the neck. As Greg Souders said: "We attack the periphery to gain access to center mass." Here the hands are the periphery and the neck or face is the center mass.

Hands On Top

How do you clear hands? You do it by gaining top hand position, which means having your hands on top of your opponent's hands. Your opponent will try to do the same, he will try to keep his hands on top of yours.

So your first task is to keep your hands on your opponent's hands for as long as possible in any way you can.

You can do this by playing a game like this: you start on your opponent's back (any side) and both of you have the task of keeping his hands on top. No escapes, no submissions, no arm traps. Just that. By just doing that, you can get so much better at it, and that's the foundation of the RNC.

If you can keep your hands on top of your opponent's hands and follow them as long as you can, then you can attack the neck or face once we start working on that skill.

Another Way To Clear Hands

The top hand position is the first method of clearing hands you should learn, but it doesn't stop there. You can also force your opponent's hands elsewhere so they can't defend the neck.

This can be done by forcing your opponent to turn. If he turns and gets belly down, then he has weight on his hands to base and they are on the mat. If he resists the turn, you can fall back and lock your hands around his face for an RNC. Look Andrew Tackett doing it here.

If you can force your opponent to extend, retract, base, and/or rotate, you can clear his hands and get right to the neck.

Attacking The Face

Once you can clear the hands any way you can (by getting yours on top or putting them somewhere else), you can attack the neck.

Look, more often than not, you're going to get to the face and not be able to finish, and you're going to have to reset everything. That's okay, because you're in control of the situation, so the goal of the first attack isn't necessarily to finish the fight, but rather to create some reactions that you can use to your advantage.

Your focus from here should be to get your primary hand (the one that can choke) on your opponent's back shoulder. If that's too easy, try aligning your elbow with his throat instead, which will be harder, but will increase your finishing power once we get up to it.

Again, you can play this as a game. Your goal is to clear the hands (for example, by getting yours on top) and get your choke hand on your opponent's shoulder and hide it with your head in any way you can so your opponent can't grab it back. If you can do this and hold it for 3 seconds, you win. Now I want the defensive player to try to escape by facing you (see part 2), so the offensive player also has to work on his retention.

Also, as I said, you could focus more on elbow positioning, so feel free to play however you want.

2 Back Attacks Approaches

There are two different approaches to hand fighting in the back.

• Straight Jacket System.

• Hand Switching System.

The first one you probably already know from the DDS, and the second one is pretty self-explanatory. So I'll go ahead and give you tasks on them.

Straight Jacket System

In this one, once you get your top hand position on the underhook side, you want to trap the top arm with your top leg. So that's your goal. Easy, right?

Well, it's not easy, especially against good guys. You probably won't be able to do it for a while, but you'll get better with time.

There's no real secret to it, you just have to keep working on this skill.

It's important to know that it's unlikely that you can trap the top arm from the overhook side of the back, so while you can try, I personally don't recommend it at all.

If you can trap the upper arm, go for the face. If you can get your strangle hand on your opponent's far shoulder, you win.

Warning

As I explained in part two of this series, the top hip must be emphasized on the underhook side for strong diagonal control. If you try to catch the top arm with your top leg, you can lose control for a second, which is often enough to start turning and escaping. That's why you need to double your control on your opponent's lower shoulder.

If your opponent can touch the mat with his elbow, he can turn. (look at this example in which Langaker actually traps his own arm on purpose). So your priority should be to keep his bottom arm off the mat in any way you can. That way your opponent won't be able to rotate and once you have the arm trapped you will have even better control of your opponent's shoulder line.

Hand Switching System

So I first learned this from Ethan Crelinsten and it was a game changer. I'd finish more people in the back with it than with the last system. Now lately I've been having more success with the Straight Jacket, so you need both.

The goal of this system is to threaten the face with your strangling arm, and once your opponent gets his hands on top, you switch hands and start attacking with your other arm. At this point your opponent has his hands on the wrong arm and no hands on the now strangling arm. Look at this example right here.

So after attacking the face, if your opponent is able to grab your arm again, your goal is to now use your other arm as a strangling arm and place the hand on the opposite shoulder that you initially attacked.

As in the other system, this method can be difficult to use against good opponents and requires hard work and consistency, just like any other skill in jiu-jitsu.

Finishing The RNC

Once you're able to get your hand to their far shoulder, and hopefully your elbow to their throat, it's time to finish the choke.

Everyone reading this knows how to lock an RNC, so I won't give any information on that. The hard part isn't finishing it, it's getting into the finishing position. That's why I've focused so much on hand fighting so far.

Anyway, once you get into your figure four or palm to palm grip, try to keep your chest in alignment with your opponent's back and focus on getting your bottom elbow to the mat (overhook side) or your top elbow to the sky (underhook side). Then just squeeze until you get a tap.

At this point, you can do a full round of positional sparring using only RNC. It goes like this:

The offensive player starts in his opponent's back with standard hooks on any side he wants. His goal is to get an RNC to finish his opponent. To do this, he will use all the skills he has worked on. Remember, it all starts with top hand positioning.

The defensive player will try to face his opponent in any way he can (see part 2). If either player achieves their goals, they win.

Auxiliar Systems

So while the RNC is the best option, there are other submissions you can attack from the back, especially from the underhook side. Let's take a quick look at them.

Rear Triangles

When looking for rear triangle chokes, your goal is to create an "arm in arm out" scenario, just like in any other triangle. This means putting one arm inside your legs and the other outside. So just try to do that in any way you can.

By the way, any time you have the top arm trapped from the underhook side, you have accomplished this task. So the next time you find yourself there and you can't get under the chin to get the RNC, go for a rear triangle.

See how in this example there is already one arm inside and one arm outside.

Your next goal should be to get the trapped arm between your legs into your chest (see the picture at the beginning of this section). If you can do that and hold it for 3 seconds, you win.

Finally, you want to trap the head and shoulder together between your legs in a figure four configuration. The lock of this configuration can be any way you want, the choke will be there. Once you get there, just try to squeeze until you get tired and let go (loss) or you get a tap (win).

Arm Bars

The goals from here can change their order, but they are always the same when looking for an arm bar. I will suggest a specific order, but do whatever works best for you.

Your first goal is to get your hips attached to your opponent's shoulder and get (and keep) his back on the mat. As you can see, we lose the back position by doing this, so better make sure you can finish this (or use it if you are already losing the back).

Then your next goal is to get both legs on top of him in any way you can. This is just to help you secure the previous goal, but make sure you do it. Remember, your focus is to stay attached to the shoulder (which means staying as close as possible) and keep your partner down.

Now you want to keep his arm isolated from everything else. Your opponent will try to connect it to something (the other hand, the biceps, his leg...), you need to separate it and keep it isolated.

Finally, you want to put something behind the elbow (usually your hips) and control the end of the lever (the hand) to extend the arm until you get a tap.

The End

Thank you for staying until the end of this series. Hopefully your understanding of the back position has increased. That doesn't mean you're any better at it, at least not yet. There's a difference between "knowledge of" and "knowledge about". However, "knowlage about" is a thing, so don't be discouraged.

Now it's time for you to work hard and consistently to develop the skills you need for your back attacks. Be sure to keep your goals in mind when you find yourself in these positions. Also, if you can play games to achieve those goals, great, that's even better.

I have tried to avoid giving specific step-by-step techniques. However, if you find value in them, feel free to look for them. Just keep the goals in mind as you look at the technique, that will be helpful.

That's all I have to say about this series. Enjoy the process.

A Little Bit About This Newsletter, And About Me

Thanks again for reading the whole series, it means a lot to me. I enjoy writing and jiu-jitsu, so writing about jiu-jitsu is the best. That being said, it can be stressful at times and this series shows it, especially this last part.

Usually I just try to post as much as I can, but I think it's time to have a schedule. So every Wednesday and Saturday you will get an article from me (hopefully this will be released on Wednesday).

As I said before, I love to write. Writing allows me to put all my thoughts into something that makes some sense. That being said, writing is hard, and my environment right now isn't the best for long periods of concentration. Sometimes I can find a peaceful time to write (like right now), but more often than not that's not the case. I've been trying to write anyway, but it's not working. I guess I go to cafes or libraries, but I don't plan to stop.

I know there are not many people reading this, but if this series helps you develop your own skills or the skills of your students, it would be great if you would share your experiences with me. As I said, these skills take time, so do not expect anything soon.

Anyway, thanks for reading and have a great day!