Apply pressure in BJJ – Make them suffer!

Tired of getting crushed in bjj? Has he ever just finished rolling with his instructor and wondered how heavy he felt? Have you ever asked yourself, dammit, my instructor is fat! They’re not big and they’re not in charge, they’re just in charge. They just know the best ways to apply pressure in bjj.

We hear it all the time. How important it is to have strong hips, fast or flexible hips to grab. Just like training your hips to be more dynamic, you should train with the idea of ​​creating and applying pressure in bjj. From takedowns to sweeps, control and just plain suffering, bjj pressure plays a huge role in the success or failure of your grappling game. This post will focus more on the idea of ​​controlling with pressure, which in turn makes them suffer. Hurrah.

Be a pressure sensor

During takedowns, randori, sweeps, you should be able to instantly feel where your opponent is pressing you. He can also set them by applying brief pressure in the opposite direction of where he wants them to go. For example, during takedowns. If I want my opponent to back up so he can catch or throw a low single, he might give him a quick forward jerk so he instinctively tries to recover and back up, giving me a boost in forward momentum. The same goes for a sweep. Detecting, responding to, and dishing out different pressures and applications are crucial to any fighting game. Now though, on to how I mainly focus on applying pressure in bjj, to control and suffer. Muah, ha, ha.

Apply pressure in BJJ
Have you ever seen those guys who can lay on a bed of nails? Related? Wonder how they do it? Not that I’ve tried it myself, but aside from the pain, pretty much everyone should be able to do it. For a true feat, they should attempt to rest on a single nail, or a single row or column of nails. That would be something. Why not? Because it would foolishly prick their skin. Why?

What is an equation for pressure? The pressure is equal to the force on the area. Which means that pressure is equivalent to the amount of force applied over a certain amount of area. Have you heard the term atmospheric pressure used during a weather report? That is simply the measure of how much force is applied to objects that are surrounded by air, such as your entire body. Or imagine that you are completely submerged in water, it would be the measure of how much force the water molecules were exerting on your whole body. Why does sitting in the bottom of a 12 foot pool hurt more than sitting in a 3 foot pool? Because you have an additional 9 feet of water from all directions pressing down on you.

Referring to the bed of nails above, this is precisely how they can pull off the trick. Take two 150lb people, one with a bed of nails made up in a 25X25 arrangement, the other with a single nail on his board. Can you say punctured lung? For both examples, we have a 150 pound person being pulled towards the Earth due to the force of gravity, straight down. The person on the 25X25 board has 625 nails to spread out those 150 pounds. The other, only one. So on that tiny tip of the single nail, we still have to account for the 150 pounds being applied. It’s not pretty.

You can use this same concept when applying pressure in bjj. I don’t really hear this too much in jiu-jitsu, but it’s one of the most commonly yelled phrases in junior wrestling. “On tiptoe!” “On tiptoe!” Why is that? Because it applies more pressure. This is how you make people suffer so they will give up what you want, maybe a better pozesh (position) or submission (just get this over with). for a pin and has chest-to-chest control of his opponent. In bjj, think of having lateral control but without the knees against his shoulder and hips. If he is on his knees as well as on his chest, some of his force is transferred to the mat through his knees as they touch it. In wrestling, we put our feet back all the way and that’s when parents and coaches start yelling “On tiptoe!” Now the only contact you have with the mat is your little toes, the rest is on your opponent’s chest.

I’m not saying to change the fundamentals of lateral control in bjj, you still want to lock his hip and slightly lift his shoulder with your knees since you’re not going to reach for a pin. Not kneeling is vital to applying pressure in bjj.

What I’m saying is notice why the amount of pressure applied changed. We had less area in contact while applying the same amount of force. You can use this concept during passes, establishing lateral control, during takedowns, and pretty much anywhere else.

One of my favorite times to apply pressure in bjj is during a pass when trying to get away with half guard. I place my head on the mat, on top of his body, almost like I’m going to make a triangle with my arm. I also have head control on my opponent. When he feels the time is right, I’ll get on the tripod with my leg still caught in half guard, applying shoulder pressure to his neck, all the while threatening an arm triangle. All my weight goes back down through my foot which is still on the mat, my head which is still on the mat, or his neck through my shoulder. And if you lean forward, it puts even more pressure on your neck. They almost want to give up the pass or the triangle just to take the shoulder off their neck.

And you? Do you plan to apply pressure in bjj in this way? Or is it secondary to another concept you like to focus on? Let me know by leaving a comment or sending a message. Personally, I think applying measly pressure is one of my focal points during the shoot. I wonder if this concept is reserved for fighters and the like. Not reserved but applied more routinely. Thoughts on applying pressure in bjj?