You know that moment when your opponent shuts down completely in turtle and you can’t get a grip in to choke them, let alone set up the seatbelt to take the back?
In the video lesson below I show a transition from turtle to side control (the “100kg”), giving you new options to attack and score again.
Curious? Then put on your gi and let’s train!
Turtle to side control transition
Pulling out and grabbing the lapel
To do this transition you need to pull out your opponent’s lapel. Position yourself on one side of your opponent and pull out their lapel on the same side you’re on. To make it easier to follow, I’ll assume you’re on your opponent’s right side, the same side I showed in the video lesson.
Now grip it with your right hand, palm facing up.
Lapel position
To make it clear where you should place the lapel, I need you to look and tell me: where is your opponent’s weight and main point of balance?
If you said the hips, you’re absolutely right. In this case, we should run the lapel toward our opponent’s hips, which will give us the leverage we need to turn them over.
Stepping over to the other side
Stand up and step your left leg over to the other side of your opponent, then quickly bring your right leg over and drop your weight right onto the lapel. That gives you enough leverage to tip your opponent’s hips to the side and complete the reversal.
A very important detail is how I position my body during the movement. Notice that I turn sideways so my weight really sits on top of the lapel, and as I feel my opponent going over, I walk with them to the side until I reach side control.
Points for the movement
The turtle to side control transition doesn’t score points, because at no point was either athlete playing guard, which rules out scoring for a sweep or a guard pass.
If you’re interested in the rules, I recommend the article Where are the points for the reversal?, where I talked about scoring during reversals.
Questions
So that was today’s video lesson. I hope everything was clear, but if you have any questions, just leave a comment here on the site or on YouTube and I’ll reply as soon as I can.
Don’t forget to drill it until you really get the dynamics of the movement and, of course, share it with your training partners too.
OSSSS
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