Hour five of my Cotswold School of Karate teacher client’s course on Submission Grappling took us onto the knee-on-belly or knee-pin position. This pin is arguably the most effective position for self-defence due to the fighter being half-standing and the most disengaged from the fighter on the bottom. From an MMA or Submission Grappling perspective it is debatably the most dominant position, although some mixed martial artists might argue that role goes to full-mount. It certainly applies the most acute pressure when pinning. Having stated all these positives, it has some very obvious vulnerabilities. Outside of mainstream rule-sets, the groin is exposed but from a structural perspective a defender has immediate access to lead leg. The rear leg should be out of reach. Also, the pin needs to be especially tight and deep to stop the defender easily snaking/shrimping away.
After the usual warm-up, we drilled a series of muscle memory exercises before moving onto specific games. The muscle memory exercises were transitional in nature, switching from side to side and transitioning via the north-south position. The games were as follows:
- Maintain knee-on-belly. If position lost, attacker is permitted five seconds in any other pin before accessing knee pin.
- Ditto starting on the other side.
- As above but the attacker is not permitted to return to the previous knee-on-belly.
- As above but the attacker is only permitted five seconds in total between knee-on-bellies.
- As above but attacker seeks a submission position from knee-on-belly.