Shoulder Crunch Escape

Words I Like – “The strong are those who adapt when their first plan breaks.”

Outlier Mat Minute: Shoulder Crunch Escape

The shoulder crunch is a strong attack from guard, so it’s important to know how to shut it down.

• #shouldercrunch - If your hand get posted on the mat above their shoulder, they can lock the shoulder crunch and threaten submissions or sweeps.

  • Submission example

  • Sweep example

• #shouldercrunchescape - An early escape to the shoulder crunch is to bring our head over their head to free our arm.

  • Mica Galvao example

• Pass to the side of the shoulder crunch grip - If you can’t free your arm, pass to the side of their shoulder crunch grip. Just make sure their foot isn’t outside your hip—control it if needed.

  • Diego Pato example

• Pass away from their shoulder crunch grip - If their foot gets to the outside of our hip, now we need to pass away from the shoulder crunch grip.

  • Diego Pato example

  • Owen Jones example

The idea is we first look to get our head over their head to free our arm to escape. If we cannot do this, then we weigh our hand to bring our hips high to beat the legs of the guard player, making the shoulder crunch useless.

As promised, jiu jitsu insights in under 1 minute!

P.S. You can search any of the above #s on the Outlier Database to dive deeper. Happy studying!