I think the fundamentals here seem very good for quickly getting out from under, especially if your attacker is trying to rain down blows right away rather than stabilize his position. Cover, bridge to shoulder, turn. If you train at this I bet you could get out of most real mount situations. If you add a little shrimping escape in case they somehow block the bridging and stabilize rather than trying to hit you, you’d probably get close to 100% and surprise even most people with some grappling skills.

One small but important point (for me) that he doesn’t emphasize in the video, he shows a variation grabbing the hips, with or without a pinch or squeeze. I think that’s very effective, but in all cases, you have to be careful when and how you extend your arms form the bottom. There’s a big difference that people don’t realize at first between reaching down for the hips (which is usually ok if he is not hitting down at the time) and reaching up for the arms or chest. That’s the more common thing for people to try to do. You have to be sure in training that you break the habit of reaching for his arms or trying to push his chest to roll him off. Those things are very instinctive under pressure but they get you in worse trouble in the mount. They may work on some people if you’re strong, but with only a tiny bit of skill, they can exploit it and hurt you.

Second, be careful to bridge first as in the video, before you try to turn, so he has to stop attacking and post to protect himself. That little shift from offense to defense on the attacker’s part is a big component of what lets you get out relatively safely. For example, be careful not to just try to log-roll him off by grabbing the hips and turning. That feels strong for a moment but it creates a very dangerous gap where he can attack you while you’re turning because he doesn’t feel destabilized like he does from a good bridge. Just my experience, for what it’s worth. Thanks again, I think this is a very helpful blog post and exchange of ideas.

If an even minimally _trained_ person is mounted on you and you reach up to grab their arms, they can slide up and trap one of your arms with their knee, then you’re really in trouble. Hopefully you never run into someone with that kind of training! That’s the sort of problem that led them to emphasize the importance of the “guard” in that system, so that the smaller person who usually ends up on their back anyway has better options for protecting themself and countering, whether they are looking for grappling counters or rips and gouges.

A little positioning savvy makes a big difference on the ground in any system I think. Realizing that the potential for protecting yourself is so different in different positions, it leads to putting more work in training into maintaining good position until you can get up and out. Not criticizing your successful strategy at all, just adding some thoughts. I suspect that these days it is becoming more likely that you might run into someone with just a little ground training.

I find it amazing that you feel you are the only educated person in this blog

Rick