I was recently reading the requirements for Brown Belt that Roy Harris puts on his website.  Roy has always done a great job laying out a clear and complete curriculum for his students.  One of the lines that struck me was this one:

I want the student to be able to effectively and efficiently use their feet, shins, knees and thighs for MOST of the control.

I found it interesting since over the last month our club has been working a lot on using the lower body much more from every position.  In my experience, when people realize they can work with more than their hands and arms it is a big day for their game.  Everything gets better for them, and much harder for their opponent.

Using the lower body can come into play in a ton of positions, but I used to just think about it for passing the guard, sweeping my opponent or performing some escapes.  We have been finding a good amount of success with using the legs to create attacking advantages as well.  In this case, I mean advantages in the sense that you can gain a superior attacking position by eliminating some defenses of your opponent. 

Here are two examples:

First is finishing from the back position.  My inspiration on the back has been the Demian Maia set.  He shows a simple way to use your overhooking arm (assume a harness grip) to control the opponents wrist just long enough to trap it with your leg.  This is pure gold and sets up an immediate attacking advantage.  You can now work your armlocks, chokes, etc with both your hands while the opponent has just one to defend.   This is now what I do immediately when taking the back.

Second is finishing from side control.  My inspiration here has been the Robson Moura set.  Robson gives a few ways to trap the opponents near side arm with your knee/shin.  From there you begin your attacks.  I can tell you attacking and controlling gets a lot easier when you have this type of control.  Becoming proficient at this is a bit harder than the back control discussed above, but when you get it you become a nightmare.

Obviously, the ideas of using your whole body or removing opponents defenses are not new ideas, just something we have been doing with good success recently at the gym.

I want to give a special thank you to Alicia of AliciaPhotos for letting me use this image.  She takes the best BJJ and Submission Wrestling photographs, so check out her site for some fantastic images!