What are Grips?
Grips are hand connections to the body or gi that influence movement, posture, and distance and create access to attacks.
Choose the grip your next action needs while denying the opponent’s most useful control. Use footwork and body position to establish or clear it instead of squeezing harder.
Film Study
Watch Grips in action — curated instructionals
How to grip the gi — taught by Rory Van Vliet · Watch on YouTube
Complete BJJ grip fighting guide — taught by Jordan Preisinger · 8:54 · Watch on YouTube
Judo grip fighting secret for grapplers — taught by Travis Stevens · 4:58 · Watch on YouTube
One grip fighting rule every white belt should know — taught by Chewjitsu · 4:54 · Watch on YouTube
Building Blocks
- Know what your intended grip controls.
- Prevent important opposing grips before they settle.
- Use body position and timing to clear grips.
- Change or release grips when the position changes.
Prerequisites
Grip Establishment: The ability to secure desired grips quickly and efficiently before the opponent can establish their preferred controls. This requires understanding optimal grip placements for different positions, recognizing windows of opportunity, and executing grip acquisitions with proper hand positioning and timing to maximize control while minimizing telegraphing.
Grip Breaking Mechanics: The technical ability to remove opponent grips using leverage principles rather than strength. This involves understanding breaking angles, utilizing two-hands-on-one principles, creating frames against grips, and timing breaks to coincide with opponent’s movements or transitions to maximize efficiency and conserve energy.
Grip Prevention: Proactive hand fighting to deny opponent’s grip attempts before they become established. This includes maintaining active hands, using blocking frames, creating distance when necessary, and recognizing opponent’s grip patterns to anticipate and intercept their grip attempts before they secure control.
Grip Sequencing: The strategic ordering of grip acquisitions to create cascading advantages. This involves establishing initial control grips that facilitate subsequent, higher-value grips, using first grips to limit opponent’s defensive options, and building grip combinations that create offensive opportunities or positional improvements.
Grip Hierarchy Recognition: Understanding which grips provide the most value in specific positions and contexts. This includes recognizing dominant vs. neutral grips, identifying grips that enable specific techniques, understanding which grips must be broken immediately vs. which can be tolerated, and prioritizing grip battles based on positional requirements.
Grip Retention: The ability to maintain established grips against opponent’s breaking attempts. This involves proper grip structure and hand positioning, using body weight and positioning to reinforce grips, recognizing when to release and re-grip vs. fighting to maintain, and transitioning grips smoothly when necessary without losing control.
No-Gi Adaptation: Translating grip fighting principles to no-gi contexts where cloth grips are unavailable. This includes controlling wrists, elbows, and head/neck positions, using overhooks and underhooks strategically, controlling through body positioning and frames, and adapting grip fighting timing and strategies to the increased slipperiness of skin and compression wear.
Grip-Based Misdirection: Using feints, false grips, and attention manipulation to create opportunities for securing primary grip objectives. This involves threatening grips in one area to open opportunities elsewhere, using grip attempts to elicit predictable defensive responses, and maintaining deceptive intentions until committing to actual grip acquisition.
Where to Apply
Closed Guard: Collar and sleeve controls can affect posture while the top player works to establish passing grips.
Standing Position: Hand fighting and footwork determine access to ties, body control, and takedown entries.
Spider Guard: Sleeve grips and foot placement work together to maintain distance and control.
Combat Base: The passer clears obstructing grips while establishing useful leg or torso control.
How to Apply
- Assess current grip status and position context: Identify which grips you have, which grips opponent has, and which grips are most valuable in the current position. Determine immediate priorities based on position-specific grip hierarchy.
- Determine if opponent has dangerous grips requiring immediate breaking: If opponent has established high-priority grips that enable immediate attacks or advantageous transitions, prioritize breaking these grips using efficient biomechanical leverage before pursuing your own grip objectives.
- Identify your primary grip objective for the position: Based on your game plan and the position, determine which grip or grip combination you need to establish to enable your preferred techniques or transitions. Develop a sequence for obtaining these grips.
- Choose between direct grip acquisition vs. misdirection approach: Decide whether to attack your primary grip directly or use feints and secondary grips to create openings. Use misdirection when opponent is actively defending the primary grip objective.
- Execute grip acquisition with proper timing and mechanics: Implement your grip strategy using windows created by opponent’s movements, transitions, or defensive reactions. Coordinate grip attempts with footwork and body positioning to maximize success probability.
- Assess whether established grips are sufficient for technique execution: Evaluate if current grips provide adequate control for your intended technique or if additional grips or grip improvements are necessary. Determine if grips need to be adjusted or reinforced.
- Maintain grip control while preparing technique or position change: Use proper grip retention mechanics to maintain established grips against opponent’s breaking attempts while transitioning into technique execution or positional improvement, releasing and re-gripping only when strategically necessary.
- Reassess grip situation as position evolves: Continuously monitor grip status as positions change, adapting grip fighting strategy to new positional contexts and re-engaging grip battles as necessary to maintain tactical advantages.
Progress Markers
Beginner Level:
- Recognizes basic grip types (collar, sleeve, pants) and can identify when opponent has established grips
- Can execute basic grip breaks using two-hands-on-one principle with coaching or reminders
- Establishes grips opportunistically but without clear strategic purpose or sequencing
- Frequently allows opponent to establish dominant grips without immediate defensive response
- Relies primarily on strength rather than technique for grip fighting exchanges
- Fatigues quickly during sustained grip fighting due to inefficient mechanics
Intermediate Level:
- Understands position-specific grip hierarchies and prioritizes breaking dangerous grips
- Executes grip breaks efficiently using leverage and timing rather than pure strength
- Establishes grips with clear purpose connected to specific techniques or positional goals
- Uses basic grip sequencing to create tactical advantages in familiar positions
- Maintains grip fighting efficiency over extended periods through improved mechanics
- Begins using preventative hand fighting to intercept some grip attempts before establishment
- Recognizes and adapts to opponent’s grip fighting patterns during exchanges
Advanced Level:
- Proactively prevents most opponent grip attempts through sophisticated hand fighting
- Uses misdirection and feints consistently to create openings for priority grips
- Implements complex grip sequences that create cascading positional and technical advantages
- Maintains grip fighting effectiveness across all positions with position-specific adaptations
- Breaks grips efficiently even against high-level resistance through superior timing and mechanics
- Coordinates grip fighting seamlessly with footwork, distance management, and body positioning
- Adjusts grip fighting strategy based on opponent’s style and changing match dynamics
Expert Level:
- Dominates grip fighting exchanges consistently against elite opposition
- Anticipates and counters opponent’s grip objectives before attempts are fully initiated
- Creates novel grip fighting solutions for unique situations and opponent adaptations
- Uses grip fighting to control match tempo and dictate when and how exchanges occur
- Transitions fluidly between gi and no-gi grip fighting with equal sophistication
- Teaches grip fighting concepts effectively and can analyze others’ grip fighting patterns systematically
- Maintains grip fighting dominance even under extreme fatigue through perfect technical efficiency