A third fundamental movement in BJJ is the bridge. Everybody knows how to do the basic bridge (if you don’t, look here), but in my experience not many people seem to appreciate that there are things you can do in order to make your bridges a lot more powerful. Now, you can’t really power bridge while trying to create space underneath mount (because it leaves you out of posture) or while trying to create space in half-guard (because you just can’t use your legs like that), but you can and should power bridge while trying to create space underneath side control.
Power Bridge
1. Walk your heels as close to your butt as possible (heels off the ground!) and lift your hips up so that there’s no space between your lower abdomen your opponents chest.
2. Bridge explosively over the near shoulder into your opponent!
Here’s a demonstration by Marcelo Garcia:
It doesn’t really matter whether you have an underhook or a frame under the throat. It works exactly the same way in both cases. Follow this up with some side shrimping and you’ll have pulled guard or come to your knees in no time.
Enjoy!
P.S There’s a lot of talk in the Youtube commentary of Garcia’s clip about how people get mounted when they try this.This shouldn’t happen. The key is to walk your heels to your butt and lift your hips off the ground so that you’re glued to your opponent. If you do this, then in order to mount you your opponent needs to create some separation between his/her body and yours, and as soon as (s)he does that you should be able to sink your hips and pull guard.
