The first thing to understand about the mount: is the mount is a fluid

position.

So in order to maintain the mount, against a skilled or an unskilled

opponent, the ideal is to always be adjusting to what your opponent
is doing.

In this checklist, you will find out how to do that.

There is also a simple one-page version at the end of this PDF that
you can print out for reference as you train.

Enjoy!

Henry

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 The 4 Goals You Should Always Have in Mind To Maintain The Mount:
The first thing you always want to do is to have your feet tucked underneath your opponent’s
glutes. This prevents your opponent from being able to get their knees underneath your legs,
and thus shuts down their ability to escape (especially the elbow escape).

You also want to have your knees pinched tight against your opponent’s body- always engaged.
Any space you leave between your knees and your opponent’s body can quickly be filled by your
opponent’s elbows, and once the elbows are inside, your opponent is only a quick shrimp away
from creating all the space he needs to escape the mount. So knees pinched tight, always slightly
engaged (meaning not hanging out lazy).

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 Make sure you’re sitting up - One thing we always used to say is, “my opponent’s not a chair,
don’t sit on him!” The reason why is because If you’re connected to him, anytime he lifts his hips,
it affects your balance.

So by sitting up and killing the connection, no movement from his hips will affect you.

This concept of connection is so important to understand in Jiu-Jitsu.

When you create a strong connection to your opponent, it means ALL of the energy of your
movements go STRAIGHT into them… there’s no wasted energy. And when you learn to KILL
your opponent’s ability to connect to you, you can completely deny their ability to transfer
energy meaningfully (they’ll wear themselves out while accomplishing nothing).

Last, you don’t want to sit straight up - because if he pushes you back and you’re straight up,
you’ll fall.

Instead, you want to be leaning forward about 5 to 10 degrees, enough so you have solid base
and posture, but not so dramatic you’re off balance.

Most people who don't know Jiu-Jitsu are going to spaz and throw you off, so practically
speaking, dealing with untrained escapes from the mount is actually far more important to
develop skill with in the context of a fight.

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 There are four basic ways your opponent can push you off the mount.
They are listed below:
Pushing straight against your chest - this looks like they’re trying to bench press you off
the mount by connecting one or both of their hands to your chest.

How to shut it down: what your opponent needs to successfully push you away by connecting to
your chest is a flat surface. So what you need to do is shift your body so that your opponent’s
hand cannot connect to your chest, and instead, his energy is wasted out to the side.

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 Pushing your hips away: This is one of two places the hands will go when pushing against
your chest doesn’t work.

How to shut it down: When your opponent connects the hands to your hips, the escape depends
on the angle of your hips as a hinge, as well as your opponent’s arms extending almost fully, into
their strongest range of motion, in order to have leverage to move your body. So what you need
to do is fall onto your opponent and spread your knees wide, so your body flattens out. One
good way to do this is to touch the bottoms of your feet together as you lower yourself, so not
only does your opponent now have to deal with all of your weight, but if they try to connect
hands to your hips to push you away, they will have nothing to connect to that has any leverage
to move you. Also, they won’t be able to get their arms into the strong range of motion, or to
straighten their arms while maintaining contact with your hips, so they can’t use their body
either. Instead, in order to connect to your hips, their arms will be bent, in the weakest range of
motion, and they’ll be stuck with a very weak angle to apply pressure. No escape here.

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 Pushing your knees away: If pushing against your chest fails, and the hands don’t go to the
hips, typically they’ll go to your knees to push your legs away to create space.

How to shut it down: This technique for maintaining the mount is all about timing. Because the
best way to kill their connection to your knees is simply to pluck the hands away. What you do is,
as soon as you feel their hands touch your knees, you scoop their arm upward by the wrist, and
kill the connection. You don’t have to be lightning fast, but you do have to do this at the right
time, or else you lose the opportunity to kill the escape. This is a very important thing to
understand in Jiu-Jitsu, the difference between speed and timing. You don’t have to be Speedy
Gonzales to develop high level Jiu-Jitsu. But you do have to move at the right time.

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 Pushing you off to the side: This is a desperate, panicked move that is usually explosive,
where your opponent connects their hands to your ribs or lats and tries to push you off to the
side. It’s extremely effective even for untrained people, unless your mount maintenance skills
are razor sharp.

How to shut it down: This escape takes the most practice to be able to counter, but it’s worth it,
because once you have this down, there’s really not much anyone can do to escape. At least not
by pushing you away. What happens is, you have to become skilled at using both of your arms to
shut this down. One to post to the side, and one to act like a grappling hook on the back of your
opponent’s neck. CRITICAL NOTE: for the hand that posts out to the side, you CANNOT let your
shoulder move further away from your opponent than your hand on the ground. Once your
shoulder moves over the plane of your hand, you lose all leverage to post against the push. So
throw that hand out there FAR to maintain the proper angle.

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 There are two fundamental Jiu-Jitsu escapes from the mount.

The bridge and the elbow escape.

The answer to both is the same: transition to side mount.

What happens is, when you feel which side the person is escaping to, you want to lift that same
side leg up, so you knee is pointing to the sky, foot flat on the ground.

Your other knee will bite against their back, with your shin still flat on the ground.

Transition to sidemount checklist:

Foot comes up - whichever side you feel your opponent moving to, whether they’re using the
bridge or the elbow escape, your foot on the same side they’re escaping to will come up.

The reason for this foot coming up is to recover your balance.

You also want that foot close to the hip, pulling your heel into his hip, so there’s no space for his
leg to get inside, and start to escape.

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 The other leg will have your knee tight to his upper back, behind the shoulder blades.
Keeping your legs engaged, and everything tight, will help you to maintain control and prevent
his escapes.

Transitioning between the side mount and the full mount is a constant effort, and you will adjust
as you feel your opponent moving to one side or the other.

That’s it!

Now you have all the basic concepts in a clean, organized list, in order to maintain the mount.

If you would like to see me walk you through each of these concepts, and even some drills to
develop your skills with these to a razor sharp level, then click the link below to review your
Mount Maintenance course in your dashboard.

If you don’t own the Mount Maintenance course yet, you can get lifetime access here:

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 Your Goals:
1. Feet tucked
2. Knees pinched tight – engaged
3. Don’t sit on your opponent (kill the connection - they’re not a chair!)
4. Slight lean forward - 5 to 10 degrees - to maintain balance

4 Methods of Pushing
1. Straight against chest - Shut it down: turn your shoulders to change the angle, and take away
the flat surface they need to push effectively
2. Push against hips - Shut it down: skydive! Lean your weight onto your opponent, knees wide
and off the ground, bottoms of feet touching.
3. Push against knees - Shut it down: pluck the arm at the wrist and kill the connection to your
knee!
4. Push to the side - Shut it down: grappling hook + far out post. REMEMBER: your shoulder
cannot be further than the wrist of your post, or you will fall!!!!

Transitioning to side mount to counter technical escapes:

1. Foot comes up, heel tight to opponent’s hip, knee to sky - same side as they’re trying to
escape.

2. Other knee pinches tight against their back to give them no room to wiggle or shrimp.

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