Principle 2 — Fight for inside position

Source: Volume 01, §5.2 — ▶Watch at 00:24:16 (BJJ Fanatics chapter marker)   (full transcript)

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Verbatim from the transcript

Inside position is such an important overriding principle in all of the things we do. When I first began training with Mr. Danaher, this was one of those things that was drilled into me from the very beginning: if you can get to inside position, you have a great opportunity to keep your partner's arms separated, to insert wedges, and to dominate from the inside.

This ties back to concepts from our previous material, like the clamp — being able to dominate the space between your partner's two arms by putting your knee to the inside and your hand to the inside.

Inside position begins on a micro level, and that micro level happens with grip fighting. Same as when your partner is on your back: you're looking for inside position, usually with your thumb.

In front headlock (locked hands): we're usually looking to get our hands inside our partner's wrists — so my thumb can go inside his wrist. Even if his hands are locked, if my thumb can go inside, we can now:

• Separate our partner's hands from our chest.
• Begin the process of separating the hands from one another.
• Move around from inside position to outside, and then reclaim our own inside position in a more dominant fashion.

So keeping in mind that inside position — even at a micro level based on grip fighting — is critical.

When reclaiming guard, the focus is often again inside position. Example: creating a frame — often, when looking to separate ourselves from our partner, we claim inside position using this frame (right arm across the body). The frame then allows us to:

• Create inside position with our legs.
• Create separation.
• Take inside position with the thumb.
• Go from defensive to offensive.

In turtle: when he has hands locked in a seat-belt position, we're looking to take our hand inside. Start with the smallest possible gain — thumb inside the wrist. From there, use the second hand to take our four fingers to the inside. Another form: getting inside our partner's legs — swisher out, pass our leg through, and now we have a form of inside position with our left leg.

When you gain inside position on your partner's upper or lower body, it immediately slows down their ability to stay on the outside, break you down, or become offensively dominant.

[!PRINCIPLE] Inside position Whether it's the thumb at the upper body or the legs at the lower body, always look for inside position. It's one of the core things we return to over and over again.

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Connections

• Primary skill that enacts it: Grip fighting. Glick's "micro level" of inside position is literally the thumb placement that grip fighting optimizes for.
• Partner principle: Back to the floor. Glick explicitly pairs these two — putting your back on the floor without inside position leaves your neck exposed.
• Scales up: the same idea operates at the upper body (thumb inside wrist), the legs (leg inside partner's leg line), and structurally (frame across the body to claim centerline).