Below, you will find reflections from the stand-up grappling practice that I led at Fit Factory Jiu Jitsu, 3814 Boyd’s Creek Highway, Sevierville, TN on February 10, 2025.
I use a three phase approach to organize my thinking about stand-up grappling. This approach is predicated upon a few things:
I have written about the three phases previously, and I intend to do a deep dive in the near future, but for today, I want to do a quick overview, in particular because my perspective has shifted since I first wrote about them.
For starters, I’m drawing the lines between the phases in slightly different ways than I used to. The current conception is:
Phase 1 = Handfight to a minor tie
Phase 2 = Off-balance to a major tie
Phase 3 = Takedown
Phase 1
Handfighting happens at the hands, elbows, and head. Offensively, our aim is to get past the grips and frames that our opponent will implement at these locations.
Once past the defensive grips and frames, we can secure a minimum-effective grip behind their knee, inside their armpit, or behind their head (i.e., their control points). I refer to these grips as minor ties and I currently use five of them, though I have my sights set on at least one more more that may be added to the list soon.
The minor ties are tenuous. They shift the control in our favor, but they’re potentially exhausting, typically requiring as much or more energy to maintain as our opponent is expending in their attempts to escape/counter.
Phase 2
Minor ties afford enough postural control to begin off-balancing our opponent, threatening to take them down. It is totally possible to take an opponent down from a minor tie but it will typically come at the expense of control, increasing the likelihood of a scramble and decreasing our likelihood of landing in a dominant top position.
Instead, our aim during Phase 2 is to maintain our minor tie while off-balancing (push, pull, snap, trip, throw-by, knee pull, et cetera).
A competent opponent will react and reposition in response to the off-balancing, attempting to reassert their balance, clear our tie, and counterattack. These responses are what we are after. We apply pressure from our position of postural advantage and use the openings created by their responses to progress from our minor tie to a major tie.
Phase 3
The major ties all offer three important upgrades relative to the minor ties
a more secure grip upon our opponent’s control point(s)
even greater postural influence
and perhaps most importantly, major ties can be maintained at a lower energy cost relative to our opponent’s attempts to escape or counter
Once we have a major tie, we don’t need to rush. We’ve incrementally established an advantage that allows us to apply pressure efficiently while forcing our opponent to deal with that pressure inefficiently. Only now do we seek to bring the match to the ground, and true to the spirit the actions that got us here, we don’t want to give back any of the control we’ve secured. Landing in our opponent’s guard would constitute a loss of the control we’ve fought to establish. It is a defining characteristic of the major ties that they all provide viable routes to the ground that bypass our opponent’s guard.
The three phase approach is all about securely establishing control of the opponent before you ever attempt to put them on the ground. This reduces your exposure to counterattacks, increases your likelihood of landing in a dominant position when the takedown comes, and sets you up to immediately threaten submissions once grounded.
Good Hunting,
Charles
Blood and pain!