As I mentioned in my last post, I spent the last three months with my principle goal being to attain mount.  This meant that anytime I was in side control I was working tirelessly to mount.  The only time I finished anyone from side control was if the sub was handed to me.  If they had good defense, I was working to advance the positional ladder.

Since I am changing my approach to attack more from side control for the next few months, I wanted to document a bit of what I used to transition to mount so I don't forget it.  Here are my favorite ways to get mount right now:

1. Quick Step Over: This is what Dave uses in his Jiu-Jitsu 101.  From side control you switch your base, weight your opponent, control the opponents knees with your free hand, and step over.  Your foot slaps on the mat and you take mount as you control the far elbow.  I would say that this is what I use 90+% of the time.

2. Sneaky Leg Trap: I learned this from Paul Schreiner and it's great.  You use your bottom leg to trap the opponents nearside leg.  Once trapped, you pull it back and then take mount.  I found that the more I shift my hips low, the easier this becomes.  It is also easier on guys who are lazy with their near leg.  I think this one is the most fun to do, and what I do when #1 doesn't work.

3. Foot Grab: I am not sure where I saw this one first (I think Royler or Leo Viera), but basically you grab your own foot and pull your leg over to mount.  This one is sneaky as well, but I find it a good option against tight defense.  I have better success the higher up I am on their body since it gives me more room to pass my foot across.

4. Reverse Step Over: This one is a bit fancy, but the idea is to bring your bottom leg over their head quickly, landing in mount.  Lots of times I end up in a mounted triangle position (or S Mount).  Sometimes it works beautifully.  I only do this one if I am playing.  I just can't get it to work in a high percentage way, yet.

5. Knee Drive: This one I use the least.  I still need a lot of practice with it, but the idea is to drive the knee across (like going to knee on belly) and then touching the knee on the mat (far side).  Note that you may get stuck here - that is why this one is more experimental for me - I need to look into cleaning my technique up on this one, but it is something I play with now and again and I know there is something there to discover as I have seen Leonzinho use it. 

I should also note that when using #1 above, I often will stop before completing mount.  I really like to trap their far hip with my heel and then ride out the storm from there.  I seem to have a lot of base with my hips still low.  Once they settle down, then I transition to full mount.

Two other quick mount things I have learned recently around mount transitions.  First was from Rener Gracie (online) and showed how not to be lazy with your legs from side control bottom.  Keeping knee pressure has made it much harder for people to use these transitions on me.  The second is that when I get mount, grabbing a collar immediately to threaten the choke has made securing a high mount much easier (cause they have to defend vs escape).  Duh.

See you on the mat!