Heavy Top Pressure: How to Apply It Without Relying on Strength

Pressure! It’s one of the aspects of Jiu-jitsu I excel at, and not just because I am an ultra-heavyweight. One of the common misconceptions is that pressure comes from your size when it is more about angles, connections, and when and where to place your weight. Some of the best pressure grapplers I have rolled with are smaller than I am. Mostly what I am going to be talking about is from side control but I also utilize modified versions of these concepts from other positions.

The first step for me is finding the correct angle. Rarely do I sink my weight down when my opponent’s body and mine form a right angle. While you can sink a significant amount of weight this way, it is less efficient because your weight tends to be only on one plane or point. When I am trying to put pressure on someone, I utilize a concept I like to call Angular Pressure. This is regardless of position. What I am looking for is, if you draw the Letter X across someone's body with the crossing point centered on the middle of their breast bone, I want to ride my pressure across that line to spread out the connection and make it harder for them to bridge or move off their back. You can do this either shoulder to hip or hip to shoulder. That is not to say your weight is entirely on that line but that is where you want to center your weight and balance. I use this regardless of position when I want to put the pressure on my opponents and really make them work to get off the bottom.

To appropriately apply Angular Pressure, you need connection to your partner. What that looks like in practice is funding specific parts of your body to connect to your opponent’s body where you can control more of their body with less of yours. When I am in the side control position I generally use the point of my hipbone to either connect to my opponent’s hip bone or the ball area of their shoulder joint. Doing this while keeping my hips facing the mat and limiting their rotation allows you to guide your opponent’s body with your body and reduces the need to utilize your arms to control their positioning. Often when I am teaching this to people, I have them practice with their arms behind their back so they get used to using their body instead of their hands to control people. Once you are comfortable using your body to control someone, that frees your hands up to either defend or attack for you. I generally utilize my hip side hand to block my opponents legs from coming in and reclaiming guard. My head side hand I manipulate my opponent’s head to mis-align their spine and make it harder for them to generate force to escape. These actions combined with the pressure from the top position cause people to open up options for me to attack.

Maintaining and placing your weight or shifting your weight are important portions of the pressure game. Although many people think it is, the pressure game is not static, it is actually very dynamic, but the adjustments are all small so they are harder to see. I often do not sit on my knees when I really want to apply pressure. I tend to be up on my toes with my legs back behind me and my body as flat as I can, that allows me to shift my position and pressure quickly. This is great for responding to your opponent’s movements. When they shift to relieve the pressure from their body, you can reposition with them so the pressure stays on top of them the whole time.

The most common mistake I see when people try to put pressure on people is being too tense. Pressure is not about being rigid and pushing through your opponent. The analogy I like to use when talking to my students is, “How easy is it to move a 2-by-4? OK, compare that to moving a memory foam mattress. Which one of those is easier to move?” They will always say the 2-by-4 because it is rigid and easy to manipulate. So when we are applying pressure to your opponent we want to be like a memory foam mattress. We want our bodies to be loose and relaxed so we are harder to move and can conform our positioning to their movements. I teach this to my students and it is something I do, when you get to what you feel is the optimum position, take a deep breath in and then slowly exhale. This will help your body relax and sink into the best position. It will also make it easier to keep that relaxed state that helps you have great pressure.

Pressure is one of my favorite concepts for Jiu-jitsu because it is so misunderstood by people when they are learning. A lot of the concepts of having a good pressure game are counter-intuitive to how most people would think about it. When I learned how to manipulate and control my pressure like this, it created a noticeable improvement in my top game and my ability to get submission from top. I was also like 100 pounds lighter than I am now so it wasn’t just me being big. When I teach seminars, this is one of the most requested seminar concepts I teach. I have taught my pressure seminar more than anything else. Hopefully this is helpful for your and you start squishing more people, and if you want to bring me out to learn this in a more hands on situation just reach out.

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