BJJ Positions Guide
Understanding positions is fundamental to BJJ success. Learn the key positions, their attack options, and how to escape from each.
Guard Positions
Guard positions are played from the bottom, using your legs to control, sweep, and submit your opponent. Mastering various guards gives you versatility in your bottom game.
Closed Guard
A fundamental bottom position where your legs are wrapped around your opponent's waist, controlling their posture and movement.
Open Guard
Any guard position where your legs are not locked around your opponent, offering more mobility and attack options.
Half Guard
A versatile position where you control one of your opponent's legs between yours, offering both offensive and defensive options.
Butterfly Guard
A seated guard with your feet hooked inside your opponent's thighs, excellent for sweeping and off-balancing.
Spider Guard
An open guard using sleeve grips and feet on biceps to control distance and create angles.
De La Riva Guard
An open guard hooking one leg around your opponent's lead leg from the outside.
X-Guard
A powerful sweeping guard with both legs forming an X under your opponent.
Lasso Guard
A gi-specific guard wrapping your leg around your opponent's arm while gripping the sleeve.
Rubber Guard
A high-guard system using your own flexibility to control your opponent's posture.
Worm Guard
A modern lapel guard where you thread the opponent's lapel around their leg and grip it, creating strong control and sweep options.
Z-Guard
A variation of half guard where the top knee creates a frame across the opponent's body, also known as knee shield half guard.
Deep Half Guard
An advanced half guard position where you scoop deeply under your opponent, using their weight against them for sweeps.
Quarter Guard
A minimal guard retention position where you only have a foot or ankle hook on the opponent, the last line of defense before full pass.
Inverted Guard
An upside-down guard position used for retention, attacks, and creative transitions, requiring good flexibility and spatial awareness.
Seated Guard
A sitting open guard with hands and feet acting as posts, serving as a neutral starting position for various guard pulls and entries.
Top Positions
Top positions give you control and scoring opportunities. Understanding how to maintain, attack from, and transition between top positions is crucial for a complete game.
Mount
A dominant top position sitting on your opponent's torso with both knees on the ground.
Side Control
A dominant top position perpendicular to your opponent, controlling their upper body.
Back Control
The most dominant position in BJJ, controlling your opponent from behind with your hooks in.
Knee on Belly
A mobile top position with one knee on your opponent's stomach, creating pressure and controlling movement.
North-South
A top control position facing the opposite direction of your opponent, chest to chest.
Other Positions
Turtle
A defensive position on hands and knees, protecting vital areas while looking to escape or counter.
Single Leg X Guard
A guard position controlling one leg with both of yours in an X configuration, excellent for leg lock entries and sweeps.
50/50 Guard
A symmetrical guard position where both fighters have equal leg entanglement, commonly used in leg lock exchanges.
Reverse De La Riva Guard
A guard hooking your leg around the opponent's lead leg from the inside, excellent for spinning under and taking the back.
Collar Sleeve Guard
A gi-specific open guard controlling one collar and one sleeve, creating effective distance management and attack angles.
Shin to Shin Guard
A seated guard position with your shin pressed against the opponent's shin, providing a base for single leg X and leg lock entries.
Crucifix
A dominant position where you trap both of your opponent's arms using your legs and arms, leaving them completely defenseless.
S-Mount
A high mount variation where one foot is posted near the opponent's head creating an S-shape, ideal for armbar setups.
Technical Mount
A mount variation with one hook in and one knee posted, providing stability and back take opportunities when opponents turn.
Truck Position
A leg entanglement position from the back where you thread a leg through creating access to twister and calf slicer attacks.
Saddle (Inside Sankaku)
A powerful leg entanglement where your legs form a triangle around the opponent's leg, providing access to heel hooks and kneebars.
Ashi Garami
The fundamental outside leg entanglement controlling the opponent's leg with yours, the basic position for straight ankle locks.
Kesa Gatame
A judo-derived side control variation where you sit with your hip against the opponent, controlling the head and arm in a scarf hold.
Combat Base
A kneeling posture with one knee up and one knee down, used for passing guard and maintaining a stable base while engaging.
Dogfight Position
A scramble position from half guard where both fighters are on their knees battling for the underhook and positional dominance.
Crab Ride
A back control alternative where you hook one leg from behind while seated behind the opponent, used for back takes and leg entries.
Body Lock Position
A clinch and passing position where you lock your hands around the opponent's torso, commonly used in no-gi passing and takedowns.
Headquarters Position
A standing or kneeling passing position between the opponent's legs with inside control, serving as a launching pad for various passes.
Lockdown
A half guard control technique where you figure-four your legs around the opponent's trapped leg, stretching it to break their base.
Wrestling Stance
An athletic standing position with a staggered stance, bent knees, and hands forward, used for takedown offense and defense.
Over-Under Position
A passing position with one arm over and one arm under the opponent's legs, creating an asymmetric passing angle.
Double Under Position
A stacking pass position where both arms are hooked under the opponent's legs, allowing you to stack and pass to either side.
Submission
The end state of any finishing hold that forces the opponent to tap, representing the ultimate goal in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Standing
The neutral standing position where both grapplers are on their feet, engaging in grip fighting, clinch work, and takedown exchanges.
Track Your Positional Game
Log which positions you train from and track your improvement over time. MatTime helps you identify gaps in your game and build a complete skill set.