START HERE
The hierarchy tells you where you stand
Every ruleset rewards the same thing: a place your partner cannot work from and you can. Learn the ladder before you learn any finish.
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MECHANICS FIRST
Position comes before submission.
Control, leverage, frames and angles — the mechanics that every grappling art shares, explained plainly and in the order they build.
A discipline-neutral grappling guide: positions, guard, passing, submissions and takedowns treated as shared mechanics rather than as the property of any single art, with the small details that decide whether control actually holds.
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Positions & Hierarchy
Beginner
The Positional Hierarchy Every Grappler Shares
Grappling positions form a ladder from worst to best. Knowing where you are on it, and which direction to move, organizes everything else you learn.
Positions & Hierarchy
Beginner
Side Control and Mount: Holding What You Earned
Holding a pin is a separate skill from arriving in one. Chest connection, hip height and near-arm control decide whether the position survives real resistance.
Positions & Hierarchy
Intermediate
Back Control: Seatbelt, Hooks, and Finishing
Back control is the strongest place in grappling, but only while your chest stays glued to their back. Every attack from here depends on that connection.
Guard & Bottom Game
Beginner
Closed Guard: Control, Break, and Attack
Closed guard is the most controllable bottom position because your legs set the range. The real work is breaking posture and finding an angle before attacking.
Guard & Bottom Game
Intermediate
Half Guard: Underhooks and Knee Shields
Half guard is decided above the waist. Whoever wins the underhook and the head position controls the exchange, no matter how the legs are tangled.
Guard & Bottom Game
Intermediate
Open Guard: Hooks, Grips, and Entries
Open guard trades the security of a closed guard for reach and attack options. It only works while your grips and your leg contacts agree with each other.
Guard & Bottom Game
Intermediate
Guard Retention: Recovering Before You Lose It
Retention is the habit of noticing a pass early and moving your hips before your partner arrives. Late recovery is an escape; early recovery is retention.
Passing & Top Pressure
Intermediate
Pressure Passing: Weight, Angles, and Patience
Pressure passing wins by removing options rather than by moving quickly. You take away space, wait for a leg to be surrendered, and then advance one increment.
The library
Every category, every guide
THE LADDER
Positions & Hierarchy
How grapplers rank control positions, why the ladder exists, and what each rung offers the person on top and the person underneath.
Positions & Hierarchy
Beginner
The Positional Hierarchy Every Grappler Shares
Grappling positions form a ladder from worst to best. Knowing where you are on it, and which direction to move, organizes everything else you learn.
Positions & Hierarchy
Beginner
Side Control and Mount: Holding What You Earned
Holding a pin is a separate skill from arriving in one. Chest connection, hip height and near-arm control decide whether the position survives real resistance.
Positions & Hierarchy
Intermediate
Back Control: Seatbelt, Hooks, and Finishing
Back control is the strongest place in grappling, but only while your chest stays glued to their back. Every attack from here depends on that connection.
FROM UNDERNEATH
Guard & Bottom Game
Using your legs as a barrier and a weapon: closed, half and open guards, plus the retention work that keeps any of them alive.
Guard & Bottom Game
Beginner
Closed Guard: Control, Break, and Attack
Closed guard is the most controllable bottom position because your legs set the range. The real work is breaking posture and finding an angle before attacking.
Guard & Bottom Game
Intermediate
Half Guard: Underhooks and Knee Shields
Half guard is decided above the waist. Whoever wins the underhook and the head position controls the exchange, no matter how the legs are tangled.
Guard & Bottom Game
Intermediate
Open Guard: Hooks, Grips, and Entries
Open guard trades the security of a closed guard for reach and attack options. It only works while your grips and your leg contacts agree with each other.
Guard & Bottom Game
Intermediate
Guard Retention: Recovering Before You Lose It
Retention is the habit of noticing a pass early and moving your hips before your partner arrives. Late recovery is an escape; early recovery is retention.
GETTING THROUGH
Passing & Top Pressure
Clearing the legs and arriving in control — weight placement, angles, and the patience that separates a pass from a scramble.
FINISHING MECHANICS
Submissions
Chokes and joint locks explained through structure and leverage, with the control requirements and safety habits that make them trainable.
Submissions
Beginner
Chokes: Blood, Air, and the Mechanics That Matter
Strangles close blood flow through the sides of the neck while air chokes compress the windpipe. The mechanics differ, and so do the safety requirements.
Submissions
Intermediate
Joint Locks: Arms, Legs, and Safe Practice
A joint lock isolates a limb and moves it beyond its normal range. Everything about training them safely follows from how quickly that can go wrong.
THE FIRST EXCHANGE
Takedowns for Grapplers
Level changes, grip fighting, and the choice between shooting, throwing or sitting to guard depending on the ruleset you are under.
THE WHY
Grappling Concepts
Frames, levers, base and connection — the transferable principles that explain why a technique works long after you forget its steps.
If you are new
A first year on the mat, in order
A sequence that introduces grappling skills in the order they depend on each other. Advance when the current stage holds up against a resisting partner, not when the calendar says so.
1
Months 1–2
Understand the map
Learn the positional ladder and what each position offers before learning any finish. Survival, breathing and awareness come first, and every later skill is described in this vocabulary.
2
Months 2–4
Hold the top positions
Practice keeping side control and mount against genuine escape attempts, then add back control with a correct seatbelt and hook placement.
3
Months 4–7
Build a bottom game
Closed guard first for the control it offers, then half guard with an underhook or knee shield, then the open guards that ask for finer timing.
Useful next
Practical resources
ORIENTATION
Where to start if you know nothing
Read the positional ladder first. It turns a chaotic scramble into a set of named places, each with known exits and known attacks.
CONCEPTSThe principle behind the technique
Frames, levers and connection explain why small adjustments beat large efforts, and they carry across every grappling ruleset you are likely to meet.
SAFETYSubmission safety habits
Apply slowly, release instantly, tap early and tap often. These habits are the reason experienced grapplers can keep training joint locks for decades.
GUARDBottom game reading order
Closed guard, then half guard, then open guard, then retention. Each stage assumes the control skills built in the one before it.
Questions
Common questions
Do I need to pick a grappling art before learning these positions?
No. Mount, back control, side control and guard appear across Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, sambo and catch wrestling, and the mechanics that make them work do not change with the uniform. Rulesets differ in scoring and in which submissions are legal, so learn the shared structure first and adapt the details to wherever you train.
Why is position emphasized before submissions?
Because a submission applied from an unstable place gets escaped, and the attempt usually costs you the position as well. Control removes your partner's options first, which means the finish arrives with far less effort. Chasing finishes early builds a habit of trading good positions for low-probability attacks, and that habit is difficult to unlearn.
Can I learn grappling technique from written guides?
Written guides are good at explaining what a position is for, which details carry the load, and what commonly goes wrong. They cannot feel your weight distribution or correct your timing. Use them to prepare questions and to review afterward, and learn the physical skill with a qualified coach and a cooperative partner.
How do I train joint locks without getting hurt?
Apply every lock slowly enough that your partner can tap before anything reaches its end range, and release the instant they do. Tap early, tap verbally if your hands are trapped, and never treat a tap as a defeat. Joint locks belong in supervised practice, at a speed that leaves both people uninjured.
GrappleGuide.TV
Grappling explained as mechanics, not mystique.
A sequence that introduces grappling skills in the order they depend on each other. Advance when the current stage holds up against a resisting partner, not when the calendar says so.