Rethinking the basics part 1:the omoplata battle

I’ve often found myself in the omoplata battle and I thought about something the other day that might be an alternative to it.

Let’s say the opponent is passing to your right. His right hand is on the mat and you’re trying to set up an omoplata by getting your left foot underneath his head. A lot of guys on top will step over the right leg, almost putting themselves in a butterfly hook and drive their head into you.


The battle becomes me pushing the top players head away or trying to yank my left leg under their chin or a combination of both. The top player pushes him hard to prevent this and for a long time I’ve either yanked extra hard on my leg or tried to push even harder on his head. Sometimes I’d get my foot in position and sometimes I’d get passed.
I’ve never liked this battle for a few reasons.

First, against big strong guys, I’ve always felt like my knee was in danger of getting hurt. Even times that I got the foot in successfully, it still felt like I was playing Russion roulette with my knee. It makes me squirm watching other people do this as well as I’m always terrified to hear that “POP!”

And the other thing is it never felt like jiu jitsu to be pushing directly against someone pushing against me. It seemed like the finesse had been taking away and now it was a battle of wills and strength.

So I was watching Rener show a basic side mount escape and realized that he would end up in the same position, but with a different goal: to get back to full guard.
Once he ended up in this position, he was basing off his butterfly foot (right), scooting his hips out to the right, then getting back into full guard.

So I’m wondering if, rather than meeting the top players head with direct force, maybe the goal could be to redirect that force and concentrate on keep weight on the butterfly foot. If I push the head away enough to get him to really push in hard, then if I take away my pressure and shift my hips so I’m slightly on my left side, his passing will be somewhat nullified.

From here, I’m thinking right forearm under the chin, grabbing the right shoulder and looking at my watch to prevent a follow up pass.

It also seems to me that once I get this space, my left foot could get on his right hip and my right foot would be free. I almost think that I could attack his left arm now with an omoplata, and be able to use my feet on the hips, so I could move my body away and into position while destroying his base and structure.

In my mind this might be a better way of getting this attack and more in line with my current training philosophy. I just had never put together the idea of using the basic hip escape in that position before until now.