Back to Your Feet
Standing up against someone who is holding you down, without giving up your back.
Back to Your Feet
Video · 11:00 · coming soon
In this lesson
- Create space with frames rather than pushing
- Execute a technical stand-up without turning away
- Use the cage to stand when there is no space
Coaching cue — Frames first, then the hips, then the feet. In that order every time.
The order
Standing up under pressure fails when people do it in the wrong order. Frames create space, space lets the hips move, and only then can the feet get underneath you.
Trying to stand before you have space just puts you on all fours facing away from them, which is the worst position in the sport.
Frames
A frame is a bone structure — forearm, shin — placed between you and them, held by skeletal alignment rather than muscle. Frames do not push; they occupy space so that their weight cannot reach you.
- Forearm across the collarbone or into the hip.
- Knee or shin across their midline, the single most valuable frame from bottom.
- Never a straight arm against a chest. That is a push, and you will lose it.
The technical stand-up
- Post on one hand and the same-side foot, with the other foot flat.
- Frame with the free forearm against their hip or shoulder.
- Hip away, lifting your hips off the floor and sliding backwards.
- Bring the trailing leg through and stand, keeping your eyes on them the entire way.
- Finish in a stance, hands up, at an angle — not directly in front of them.
The eyes are the part people get wrong. Turning your head to look at the floor while you stand is what turns a stand-up into giving up your back.
Wall walking
Against the cage, there is no room to hip away. The cage becomes the tool instead.
- Get your back to the fence and sit up against it.
- Frames in place, elbows inside their arms.
- Walk your feet up the cage, sliding your back up as you go.
- Once standing, you are still in a clinch on the fence — go straight into the escape from the clinch course.
Getting up is not the end of the sequence. Getting up and then immediately being taken down again is a worse outcome than staying down and working. Have the next move ready before you stand.
Drill it
Two rounds of technical stand-ups with no partner, twenty each side, checking that your eyes never leave the imaginary opponent. Two rounds with a partner applying light pressure from the knees. Two rounds of wall walking against the cage or a wall. Then two rounds live from bottom, where standing up scores and being flattened resets.
The last course covers what happens when you do not get up.