Henry Akins a Teaches Side Contorl Escape At Dynamix BJJ In West LA 

I have a good trick to protect me from arm bar even with my arm outside.

There’s a really easy way to defend that. Henry would be good at showing it.

+prodigypenn lol... mine too. he's a snapper.

+prodigypenn Snapping their students fingers?

yes . . . he was constantly breaking peoples fingers during training . . .

+prodigypenn That sucks, here Humaita guys were know it all kind of guys, bashing non Gracie academies and Judo dojos ...

I dont know about the newer generation guys, but the old school guys definitely had some of that going on, especially if they trained at the Academia de Gracie in Rio

the other positions are the easiest

me everytime lol

People trying to learn the technique. Dugh

I think you miss the point of the escape. An underhook is always optimal for side mount escapes. To protect against armbars and be ready to shoot an untelegraphed underhook, our far arm should be flat on our chest. The problem is, a good side mount player on top of you will ALWAYS find a way to pry open your far arm. When he does this eventually, and secures an underhook, it is only a matter of time before he inchworms his hand up the mat to secure THE EXACT same grip shown here. At this point on the bottom, you have two options. You can bridge as shown by Henry and escape while framing his hip with your near side arm, or you can move your far side arm to frame underneath his neck while cupping his shoulder. This frame is stronger than leaving your arm extended as shown in the video, but it's hard to get here against a good top player. Not only that, but if you can frame under his neck, you may as well slide your arm along your chest until you get in the position I explained first; ready to shoot an untelegraphed underhook. So the question is, once he corrodes your bottom side mount defense to this vulnerable position, what do you do? Do you attempt this escape, (which Saulo Ribeiro teaches verbatim in University of Jiu Jitsu) or do you try to improve your defensive positioning and framing?

I couldn't disagree more. Saulo teahes this escape as the wrestler escape but he always puts conditional statements with it (i.e this would be your primary side mount defense this would be secondary but let's say he traps the arm and hand with his head and keeps it tight to his shoulder; then use the wrestlers escape) he doesn't show it as a go to move... Henry Akins does show this as a go to because he simply talks about different hand positions and doesn't mention fighting for optimal defensive positions

Hmmm. I wonder now if Akins actually does teach this as a primary escape. Putting your arm in danger to open up an escape is obviously risky. He is a Rickson black belt, I don't think Rickson would advocate that. I always see Rickson shrimp and grab the pants leg to recover guard. Oh, and when I said the underhook is optimal, I meant that it is optimal if escaping with our far arm hidden is not an option. In my mind, shooting the underhook is begging to have omoplata or Marcelo's pressing armlock applied. And I was saying exactly what you said in regards to Saulo. I think you misunderstood. Good luck on the mats!

Anthony Maloney I only posted the comment so new comers to BJJ don't assume this is a primary move. Because for me, Akins didn't explain that in this video clip. Agreed on the underhook comment. Same to you!

He does say in the video this is worst case scenario

Cross-train in striking preferably boxing 1st otherwise then muay thai. I do that. Boxing helped me against 2-3attackers but Bjj trumps 1 on 1, and with strict country law here we have to be careful wit striking