Mount is a hip pin

Position and problem

You have passed the guard and climbed to mount, and it lasts a few seconds. They bridge, you post a hand, they turn onto a side, a knee appears under your thigh, and you are back in half guard with the whole pass to do again. In no-gi the position feels lighter than it looks, because there is no lapel or belt to hold and the hands find nothing to hang on to. Mount is held by the hips and the legs, not the hands, and the thing that keeps undoing it is the same thing that undid the pass: a knee getting back between your body and theirs.

Objective

Keep your hips over the bottom player's hips, with your knees pinched to their ribs, so that neither the bridge nor the turn can bring a knee back inside.

Core concept

Mount is a pin applied to the hips, and everything the bottom player can do to escape starts at the hips you are sitting on. They have two engines. The bridge lifts your weight up and over one shoulder, and the turn onto a side brings a knee under your thigh and back inside. Your hips low over their belt line, with your weight forward of your own knees, make the bridge lift your chest onto theirs rather than throwing you anywhere. Your knees pinched to their ribs stop the turn, and your feet tucked near their hips or hooked under their thighs close the channel a knee would slide into. Passing is getting past the knees to the hips; holding mount is keeping those knees out once you have arrived, and the moment their knee gets between your thigh and their body, the mount has become half guard with the name unchanged. Many gyms call the version with the hips low and the feet hooked under the thighs low mount, and the version with the knees climbed up under the armpits high mount; the first holds better and the second attacks better, and much of the skill is moving between them.

Key mechanics

1. 01Keep your hips over their belt line with your weight forward of your own knees. Weight sitting back toward the heels lets a bridge lift you; weight forward lands the bridge on your chest instead.
2. 02Pinch the knees to their ribs and keep the feet tucked against their hips or hooked under their thighs. The knees stop the turn, and the feet close the channel a knee needs to slide inside.
3. 03Post early on the side they bridge toward, and return your weight over their hips as the bridge collapses. A late post is a roll; an early post turns their bridge into effort spent lifting nothing.
4. 04Climb when they turn, and stay low when they lie flat. A hip that escapes sideways has moved out from under your knee, so step that knee up toward the armpit before their elbow arrives to fill the space.
5. 05Let the hands attack and post, and let the hips do the holding. A hand gripping the head or an arm carries your weight into the arm and out of the hips, and the pin lives in the hips.
6. 06Take away the elbow the escape needs. The elbow-knee escape works by getting an elbow inside your knee, so a crossface on the far side or a wrist pinned to the mat removes the frame before it is built.
7. 07Follow a hard turn toward their back rather than fighting it flat again. Forcing the turn back is a strength contest they will simply repeat, while following it arrives at the back or at the position many gyms call s-mount.

Common errors

• ×Sitting up tall with the weight on the heels, which turns every bridge into a lift and every post into the start of a roll.
• ×Holding the mount with the hands on the chest or the head, which moves the weight out of the hips and into two arms that tire.
• ×Leaving the feet flat and wide with the knees loose, which opens a channel for a knee to slide into and turns the position back into half guard.
• ×Attacking a submission the moment the mount lands, before the hips are pinned, so that the attack itself becomes the space the escape needed.
• ×Staying low and heavy after the bottom player has turned onto a side, which hands over the space under your thigh their knee is looking for.
• ×Fighting the turn back to flat rather than following it toward the back, which spends effort on a return the bottom player will repeat.

Safety

Training progression

1. 01Static: partner lies still under mount. Place the hips over the belt line, pinch the knees and take both hands off them. Hold for thirty seconds on hips and legs alone and notice where the weight sits.
2. 02Cooperative: partner bridges slowly to one side each repetition. Post early, let the bridge run out, and settle back over the hips before they try the other side.
3. 03Cooperative: partner turns slowly onto a side and begins to slide a knee under your thigh. Climb the near knee toward the armpit as their hip moves, before the elbow arrives.
4. 04Constrained: partner may bridge and turn at full effort but may not use the arms. You may hold and climb but not attack. Restart every time a knee gets inside.
5. 05Positional: full-resistance mount, both players free to attack, restarting at any guard recovery or any submission.
6. 06Live rounds: after each round, recall whether you lost the mount to a bridge or to a knee, and which of your own hands was holding something at the moment it went.

Related entries

• The elbow-knee escape from mount
• Pressure passing versus loose passing
• The knee cut pass
• Inside position