Frames

Brian Glick's full breakdown of the knee-elbow escape: the diagonal bridge that lets you get the elbow inside, then walking the hips away to connect knee and elbow and recover half guard.

Short version of Brian Glick's knee-elbow side control escape, ending with the knee inserted and the leg back in play.

Danaher's three most important white-belt skills, the 1.9 million-view lesson on what to drill before chasing submissions.

Danaher on guard retention: frames, hip movement and making the passer start over instead of chasing a single recovery.

John Danaher walks through the fundamental side control escape: elbow position, building the frame, the bridge to create space and the hip escape to get the knee back in. The definitive beginner lesson on the position.

Adam Wardzinski on how not to get smashed in butterfly: staying seated and keeping the hooks alive.

Gordon Ryan on the basic principles of butterfly and open guard, including not getting flattened.

Lachlan Giles and Ariel Tabak list the five most common guard retention mistakes, including playing too close and having no backup guard when the first layer is beaten.

Tom DeBlass on the frame he uses in bottom half guard to stop the pass before it starts. Simple and suits beginners.

Xande Ribeiro shows a frame-based mount escape that works against heavier opponents, with Bernardo Faria asking the questions. Gi, but the mechanics carry over to no-gi.

Xande Ribeiro teaches a general system for escaping any variation of side control, built around protecting the near elbow and using the far leg to turn the top player's weight.

Henry Akins argues the legs are 90 percent of open guard and that defence starts before the passer touches your legs. Conceptual, with a contrarian view on seated guard.

Chewy's seven reasons your butterfly sucks, mostly retention and posture problems before any sweep is attempted.

Chewy diagnoses the five habits that make mount escapes fail: bad frames, no bridge, escaping too late, wrong timing. As much about the priorities under mount as about any single technique.

Chewy on the sequence that has to happen before any mount escape works: free a leg so you can bridge, get the hands together for inside frames, then start the escape.

Eight reasons guard retention fails, and Chewjitsu's fixes for frames, hips and inversion.

Chewjitsu lists the seven most common reasons side control escapes fail - bad frames, wrong timing, flat hips and so on - and how to fix each one. Good diagnostic viewing for beginners.

Chewjitsu's advice for white belts who keep getting flattened in side control: how to breathe, frame and stop the position getting worse before working on the escape itself.

Knight Jiu-Jitsu on escaping a heavy side control: where the frames go, how to bridge without exposing your arm, and getting the knee in to recover guard.

Rob Biernacki shows the layered upper-body frames (hand, elbow, wrist, torso) that stop a top player getting chest to chest and crossfacing you, then how to convert that space into an underhook or knee shield.

Stephan Kesting and Ritchie Yip on what to do when your arms are already trapped under a tight pin: recovering arm position first with a bridge-and-club motion before attempting the actual escape.

Stephan Kesting on the first side control escape to learn: rebuilding knee-elbow connection, framing, bridging and recovering to butterfly guard, plus how to stop the top player running round to the back.

Twelve guard retention concepts explained through alignment and frames, including when straight arms are fine and when they get you armbarred.

Step-by-step RDLR tutorial: staying on your side so the hook bites, the arm under the leg that blocks the knee, blocking the shoulder before you grab the ankle, then spinning under to the back.

Why seated guard suits older or less flexible grapplers against a standing passer: match their lead leg, keep the arm in front and attack with simple sweeps rather than relying on retention.

Jon Thomas' simple, effective leg-drag defence: hip movement and inversion to recover the dragged leg.

Jon Thomas breaks down the one principle he believes drives every side control escape, then shows how the standard frame-and-shrimp and turn-in escapes follow from it. Longer, conceptual lesson.

Lachlan Giles on frames as a concept, not a specific technique.

Lachlan Giles's fundamentals class on RDLR: why the knee cut needs the space you are denying, foot on hip or shoulder to make distance, and never letting them get the cross face.

Absolute MMA fundamentals class on side control bottom: preventing the pin from settling in the first place, then the frames escape back to guard. Part one of a series.

Andre Galvao on escaping the leg drag from the Atos guard-retention system.

Andre Galvao teaches an extended class on defending and escaping side control, covering arm safety, frame structure and how to stop the top player advancing. Long but thorough.

Analysis of Gordon Ryan's own body-lock defence: a white-belt concept (frames and hips) done at a black-belt level.

Building structures and frames: a clear conceptual look at why frames work.

Quick tip: add a bridge before the shrimp so the passer's elbow disconnects from the mat and there is room to bring the knee inside.

Three ways to defend the body-lock pass: frames, hip movement and wrestling up before they walk around.

A beginner's guide to staying safe under mount before trying to escape: where the hands go, how to breathe and what the top player wants you to do.

Priit Mihkelson's full camp class on side control bottom: staying on your side, elbow and wrist positions that deny the underhook and crossface, and why he rejects the classic flat framing posture.

Surviving knee on belly: the objective and the mechanics of keeping the far arm and neck safe while you escape.

The BJJ Project on the objective and mechanics of surviving side control: what the top player needs, and how the bottom player's structure denies it.

Short lesson on how to build frames that hold up under side control pressure, and the frame positions that lead into the escapes.

SBG's three fundamentals for surviving the bottom of mount: posture, frames and not letting them climb. Concept-first rather than a single escape.

Brian Glick on using their body lock against them: turning the passer's own lock into a sweep or stand-up.

Seated and butterfly guard fundamentals against a defensive opponent: long, mid and close range with the feet, and pushing or kicking them in four directions to open their elbows for underhooks.

Renzo Gracie's favourite escape from knee on belly, which also keeps the far arm in.

Fundamentals of the Z guard: where the knee, foot and grips go so the structure holds, and the basic reactions when the top player pressures in.

Beginner tutorial on americana defence: recognising the setup, hiding the wrist and re-establishing the frame to escape.

Rosie Rollz (Rose Miller) on why escapes stall: survival and frames have to come before the shrimp, or the pin just resets.