Glossary

BJJ terms, explained

89 words you'll hear on the mat, in plain English.

50/50: Both your legs and theirs are entangled symmetrically, each with a leg trapped. Equal position for both people.
A-game: Your best, most reliable sequence of moves that you go to every roll.
Americana: A shoulder lock from top: their bent arm pinned by their head, hand slid toward their hip.
Angle: Turning your body off-center to them. Most submissions only finish from an angle, not square on.
Arm triangle: A choke trapping their own arm against their neck with your arm and shoulder.
Armbar: Straightening their arm across your hips to hyperextend the elbow.
Ashi garami: A basic leg entanglement: their leg between yours, their foot trapped under your armpit.
Back control: Behind them with a seatbelt and hooks or body triangle. The most dominant position in no-gi.
Base: Your stability: wide knees or feet, weight low, so you can't be pushed or swept over.
Berimbolo: An inverted roll from De La Riva guard that ends behind them on their back.
Blade of the wrist: The bony thumb-side edge of your forearm near the wrist. It cuts into the neck or Achilles more effectively than the flat.
Body triangle: From the back, one leg wraps across their belly and the ankle locks behind your other knee. Tighter than hooks and hard to escape.
Boot the foot: Pulling your toes back toward your shin and tensing your foot. Defends straight ankle locks.
Bridge: Lifting your hips explosively off the mat from your back, driving through your feet. Used to unbalance someone on top of you.
Butterfly hooks: Your feet hooked inside their thighs while you sit in front of them. They let you lift and sweep.
Chest to chest: Your chest glued to theirs with no space, so they can't frame or move.
Closed guard: On your back with your legs wrapped around their waist and ankles locked.
Collar tie: A hand behind their neck from standing. It controls their head and posture for snap-downs and setups.
Crossface: Your shoulder or forearm drives across their jaw and turns their head away from you. Their body follows their head, so they can't turn in to face you or get an underhook.
Crucifix: From turtle or the back, both their arms trapped (one by your legs, one by your arm) so they can't defend the neck.
D'Arce: Arm-in chokes from the front headlock: your arm threads under their arm and neck.
De La Riva: An open guard where your outside leg hooks around their lead leg from the outside, and you hold their ankle.
Deep half: A half guard where you're underneath them, wrapping their leg close to your chest.
Dogfight: From half guard bottom, you've come up onto your knee beside them with an underhook, side by side.
Drilling: Repeating a move with a cooperative partner to build the movement pattern.
Figure-four: Your hand grabs your own wrist around their arm, making a 4 shape. The grip for kimuras and americanas.
Frames: Using your forearms, shins or hands as rigid struts against their body to keep space. A frame is a bone structure, not a push.
Front headlock: Their head is trapped under your chest or armpit while they're on their knees in front of you. A strong attacking position.
Gift wrap: Their arm pulled across their own neck and held from behind. Sets up the back take or chokes.
Granby roll: A shoulder roll from turtle that lets you face them again and recover guard.
Grapevine: From mount, hooking your legs under theirs to stop them bridging.
Guillotine: A front choke with your arm around their neck from the front.
Half guard: You've trapped one of their legs between yours. Can be from the bottom or the top.
Hand fighting: Battling for grips before attacking: clearing their grips and getting yours.
Headquarters: A passing position: one knee between their legs pinning one leg, your other foot outside.
Heel hook: A leg lock that twists the knee by rotating the heel. Damage can happen before pain, so tap early and only train it where allowed.
Hooks: Your heels placed inside their thighs (from the back) or under their legs (butterfly guard) to control or lift them.
Inside position: Your hands or knees inside theirs. Whoever has inside position controls the exchange.
Isolate: Separating one arm or leg from their body so they can't defend it with the rest of their body.
K-guard: An open guard with one leg inside theirs and one outside, used to enter leg locks behind them.
Kimura: A shoulder lock with a figure-four grip, turning their arm behind their back.
Kimura grip: A figure-four on their wrist and arm. Used to submit, sweep or take the back.
Knee line: An imaginary line through their knee. In leg locks, if their knee gets past your hips they've escaped; if you control it, the leg is trapped.
Knee on belly: Your knee on their stomach with your other leg out for base. Mobile and heavy.
Knee shield: From half guard bottom, your top knee is across their belly with your foot on their hip, keeping their weight off you.
Kneebar: Hyperextending their knee across your hips, like an armbar on the leg.
Level change: Dropping your hips by bending your knees before shooting for the legs, keeping your back straight.
Lockdown: A half guard where you tangle your legs around their trapped leg and stretch it to kill their balance.
Mount: Sitting on their torso with your knees on the mat either side. High mount is up near their armpits; S-mount has one knee by their head.
Near side / far side: Near is the side of their body closest to you; far is the side away from you.
North-south: On top with your chest on theirs, facing the opposite direction, your head by their hips.
Off-balance: Pulling or pushing their weight so it's not over their base. Sweeps and takedowns start here.
Omoplata: A shoulder lock using your legs: their arm trapped between your legs while you turn to face their feet.
Open guard: Any guard where your legs aren't locked around them: feet on hips, hooks, or seated.
Open mat: Free training time with no formal class, mostly rolling.
Overhook: Your arm wraps over the top of their arm, clamping it to your side. Good for controlling an arm from guard or stopping an underhook.
Pass: Getting past their legs from top to a pin like side control or mount.
Penetration step: A deep step forward onto your knee between their feet as you shoot a takedown.
Perpendicular: At a right angle to them, like a T. Side control is perpendicular.
Positional sparring: Sparring that starts in one position with a goal (escape, pass, submit). It builds skill faster than open rolls.
Post: Putting a hand or foot on the mat to stop yourself being swept or rolled. Posting can also leave that arm open to attacks like the kimura.
Posture: Your spine straight and head up. In someone's guard, good posture stops their attacks; broken posture means you're bent forward and vulnerable.
Pummel: Swimming your arm or leg inside theirs to win inside position.
Re-guard: Getting your legs back between you and them after they've started passing.
Reaping: Crossing your leg over their knee from the outside in leg entanglements. Banned below brown belt in IBJJF rules; check your gym's rules.
Rear-naked choke: The choke from behind: your arm around their neck, squeezing both sides.
Roll: Live sparring. Both people try to win positions and submissions at full resistance.
Saddle: A leg entanglement where your legs triangle around their thigh from the inside. The strongest leg lock control position.
Seatbelt: The grip from behind: one arm over their shoulder, the other under their armpit, hands clasped at their chest, like a car seatbelt. It's how you hold the back.
Shrimp: Pushing off your foot to slide your hips away from them on your side. The core movement of almost every escape.
Side control: On top, perpendicular to them, chest to chest, past their legs.
Single-leg X: An open guard where you hold one of their legs between yours with both legs, one foot on their hip. Good for sweeps and leg attacks.
Sit-out: From your knees, sliding one leg through under you to turn and face them.
Snap-down: Pulling their head down sharply so they fall to their hands and knees in front of you.
Sprawl: Throwing your legs back and dropping your hips onto their shoulders to stop a takedown.
Stack: Driving their hips over their shoulders so their weight is on their neck. Kills many guard attacks.
Straight ankle lock: A foot lock with your forearm under their Achilles, arching to bend the foot.
Sweep: From guard, reversing them so you end up on top.
Tap: Tapping them (or the mat) two or three times means you give up. Always tap early in training; your partner must release immediately.
Technical stand-up: Standing up from the mat with one hand posted behind and the other guarding, so you can't be tackled.
Trap and roll: Trap one arm and the same-side foot, then bridge to roll them off the mount.
Triangle: A choke with your legs: their neck and one arm trapped in a figure-four of your legs.
Truck: An entanglement from turtle where you trap one of their legs and sit behind them. Leads to the back or the calf slicer.
Turtle: Curled up on knees and elbows, protecting the neck. A temporary defensive shell.
Two-on-one: Both your hands controlling one of their arms. Strong for stripping grips, defending chokes or setting up arm drags.
Underhook: Your arm goes under their armpit and around their back. It controls their upper body and lets you lift, turn or come up. Whoever wins the underhook usually wins the exchange.
Whizzer: An overhook used against an underhook or a leg attack: you clamp over their arm and drive your hip into them to flatten them or stop the takedown.
Wrestle-up: Coming up from guard onto your feet or knees to take them down instead of sweeping.
X-guard: Underneath them with your legs crossed in an X around one of their legs. Very strong for sweeps.