There are few worse scenarios in a real fight than being pinned underneath your opponent’s mount. Sitting astride your chest, your adversary is free to strike you as he wishes. His strikes can utilize the full rotational power of his hips and shoulders, generating tremendous power. Your shoulders and hips, on the other hand, are pinned to the floor, making your attempts to strike back weak and ineffective. Moreover, your opponent can easily enter into a vast array of devastating submission holds, arm locks, neck cranks, and strangles while you lack the necessary position and leverage to respond. If you do not know exactly what to do, the chances of you emerging without serious injury are slim indeed. One of the most fundamental and important means of escaping the mounted position is the “upa” method. This involves rolling your opponent onto his back. The chief advantage of this method compared to others is that it can take a wild-punching street fighter off your chest and onto his back, where he is unlikely to have the technical skill to resist you. Against a skilled grappler, however, the completed “upa” technique still leaves you locked in the guard position. Still, this is far better than being pinned under the mount. The “upa” escape combines extremely well with the “elbow escape”. Whenever “upa” fails, it almost always generates enough space to allow you to switch easily into an elbow escape by pinching his legs together (thus narrowing his base) he becomes vulnerable to “upa.” In unison, these two techniques can get you out of all but the tightest mounts.
The “upa” is based upon a simple, yet very effective principle. The idea is to trap your opponent’s arm and leg on one side of his body and then to roll him over on the side of his trapped limbs. Since he cannot base out of his trapped arm or leg, he has no means of preventing himself from being rolled over. Your opponent can hold you in many ways while mounted. No matter how he holds you, there is always a simple method of trapping his arm or leg on one side of his body as a prelude to rolling him over.
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