BGWG BJJ Lab #1 - Side Ride to Crucifix: Set-up and Submissions

Since jiu-jitsu is always evolving, it's nice to put certain moves to the test and see if your personal hypotheses work or not. You might be pleasantly surprised or generally disappointed. This is my first BJJ lab!

Some of the best training mornings starts when my coach Ramsey Dewey discovers a new move by watching YouTube or rolling into something super effective during a training session. So, when I walked in one morning to him saying “Do you want to learn something that looks weird but totally works?”, I was intrigued. The morning’s session had all to do with Side Ride to Crucifix.

The situation that one might fight themselves in this side ride position is from sprawling out on someone or if your able to get them on all fours going into turtle. After, you need to move towards their side while always keeping pressure through the transitions (which is a given, but sometimes I forget).

Step 1

Putting pressure. But also trying not to go over his body too much

While applying pressure to their upper back (keeping their head towards the ground), hook their near side arm with your near side leg and grab their far side arm and bring it in towards their body so they can’t base with that arm. After, roll over their back, while keeping their both arms tight for the crucifix.

Step 2

Roll out!

This Move for MMA:

In the entry and positioning of this move for MMA, there are some points of great control where you can use your free arm to punch your opponent's face or roll into the crucifix and drop a few elbows. In my opinion, this position isn’t difficult to get into and as long as you keep your legs and arms tight and apply good pressure, it’s easy to maintain. The intro to this move started with my coach showing me a video of his friend Kalyn Schwartz using this move in a beat down position in an MMA fight.

After that, besides beat downs, there are so many fun submissions you can do! Including:

• Triangle (by throwing your bottom leg in the crucifix over their head and closing it up). This requires a bit of flexibility.

• Neck crank (by throwing your top leg around the person’s head and closing a triangle in this way). You don’t need so much flexibility for this.

• Rear-naked, one arm around the neck one arm pulling their arm choke (not sure of the technical name). If you’re quick, you can also get a choke with an S-grip while applying pressure on their upper back in the starting position

• Americanas

• Kimuras

• Wrist locks

• Various amounts of leg locks

The submissions you can get from this bjj position

If you’re really fancy (like my coach), you can probably get a knee bar, arm bar and toe hold at the same time. (Known as the K.A.T., which I made up of course)

All these moves were put to the test in 5 one-minute, top-bottom switch rounds. Although we worked the move in no-gi, I'm sure this works in gi, too.

I’ll definitely be incorporating this move into my game and hope to be more efficient with it.

What about you? What positions do you use to get into crucifix? What submissions did I miss that are really easy to get from this position? Let me know via my instagram @blackgirlwhitegi_bjj