The crossface is one of the keys to a brutally effective side control. You can use the crossface to turn his jaw into a lever to turn his head and limit the directions he can turn. This makes it so much harder for your opponent to escape, tires him out, and kills his will to fight.
A properly applied crossface is a tool you can use in the gi, no gi, and MMA to double how heavy you feel on top; even if you’re lighter than your opponent, he’ll still feel like there’s an elephant stepping on his head and neck.
This technique can also be used to great effect to control the mount and the half guard, but I think it’s easiest to learn from side control, so let’s start there.
BJJ black belt Cal MacDonald came into the Grapplearts dojo to share the secrets of using the crossface to dial your side control pressure up to eleven out of ten!
BJJ Foundations
Cal and I filmed an instructional called BJJ Foundations, and it’s the best BJJ curriculum I’ve ever seen.
It has techniques, but more importantly, it has an amazing set of drills and training methods to make learning as fast as possible.
Click here to check out BJJ Foundations by Cal MacDonald and myself.
How to Defend the Crossface in BJJ
Getting flattened out, crossfaced, and smashed when you’re in the half guard sucks, and in this article we’re going to learn how to prevent that from happening.
The key is to use your upper body frames to stop your opponent from getting chest to chest and flattening you out. Doing this also allows you to get back to offense from the bottom again.
Click here for a breakdown of how not to get smashed by the crossface…