Open Hand Close Elbow: One Concept That Changes Mount Offense

You are in mount. Elbows tight, hands covering the body. That defensive structure is the main obstacle between you and the submission. The way to address it is not what you might expect.

The elbow is the thing you want to open. But the elbow is not where you start. You start with the hand.

Two Joints One System

Open your fist and your elbow closes. Close your fist and your elbow opens. Those two joints are linked. What happens at one end of the arm changes what is available at the other end automatically.

This is worth sitting with for a moment because it changes the whole approach to the problem. When your opponent's elbows are tight, the instinct is to attack the elbows directly. Pull them apart, wedge something underneath, use an underhand grip for leverage. All of that works to some degree. But it requires force against an active defense.

The wrist is the other end of the same lever. Work there and the elbow responds without a fight.

Load the Hand Not the Elbow

From mount, when your opponent's hands are covering his body and his elbows are tucked, here is what changes things. Put weight on his hand. Push it into his chest.

When the hand is compressed against his chest, the elbow has nowhere to go but out. It opens on its own. You are not pulling the elbow away from the body. You are creating a condition where the elbow has to leave. The physics handle the rest.

The top arm is the most responsive to this. That is the one to start with. Push the hand down, then address the elbow. The sequence matters. Weight on the hand first, then elbow. In that order the movement is easy. In reverse it is a fight.

This leads into the Americana. It leads into the armbar. The path opens because the elbow opens and the elbow opens because the hand was loaded first.

Chest Pressure Changes Everything

Using your hands to create this pressure has a limitation. Your hands can be grabbed. They can be moved around. The pressure is inconsistent because hands are active tools and active tools can be countered.

The chest solves this. When you channel pressure through your chest instead of your hands, you are using a broader and heavier surface. The pressure becomes structural rather than active. Structural pressure is harder to address because there is nothing to grab and nothing to redirect.

Roll your chest forward onto the hand, then down. The weight is consistent. Your hands are free. From there the arm becomes available and your opponent has fewer options to defend and fewer options to escape.

The Principle Transfers

The wrist and elbow relationship does not only apply to the classic mount scenario. The same concept applies to the overhook position.

When you have the overhook and you are focused on pulling that hand into your chest to secure it, you cannot. The arm will pull out. But when you focus on opening your fist out, which closes your elbow around his arm, the hold becomes tight. The same physics that open his elbow also close yours. One principle working in two directions at the same time.

This is what makes it worth exploring beyond what the video shows. The wrist and elbow are linked in every position. Once you understand the relationship, you start finding applications that were not shown to you.

What to Watch in the Video

The fist and the elbow moving together. Watch the relationship between what the hand does and what the elbow does in response. The connection is direct. You do not need to be convinced of it. You will see it immediately.

The weight on the hand before the elbow moves. Watch the sequence. The chest comes forward onto the hand first. Then the elbow opens. That order is the whole technique. The elbow does not open because it is pulled. It opens because the hand has nowhere to go.

The chest replacing the hands. Watch what changes when the chest takes over the pressure. The quality of the contact is different. Broader. More consistent. Notice how that changes what becomes available from there.

The overhook application. Watch how the same concept appears in a completely different position. The fist opens, the elbow closes, the arm is secured. One principle. Two positions. The video shows both. The lab will show you more.

I have been teaching this concept for a while and the thing I find most useful about it is how far it travels. Start with what the video shows. Then take the idea of the linked joints into your next roll and see where else it shows up. It tends to appear in places you would not think to look for it.