Learn to adjust the knee on the stomach as taught by Carlson Gracie

Carlson Gracie Jr in 2010. Carlos Ozório/GRACIEMAG

Does your knee-on-belly lack the pressure you wish it had? As Carlson Gracie Jr. taught us, the trick may be a little higher up — on the neck, to be precise.

Check out in the video below the lesson, passed down from Carlson to Carlson Jr. to Graciemag readers.

Translated transcript:

“Here I like doing what my father taught me. You have to block your opponent. If the guy is very resourceful and can hip-escape well, you have to put concentrated pressure on his neck so he can’t escape. So when I come here on the side, this hand, instead of grabbing behind his collar, I’ll use these four fingers to grab on the front. Here I’ll put the pressure on his neck and I get my knee on his stomach.

“Why? If he tries to hip-escape… he can’t. So what do I do? I’ve started… I know that the moment I do this [0:53], he’s gonna get out. So what do I do? He’s gonna try to get out… I switch to the collar. Right?

“I can’t grab too far here, because there’s no pressure. I grab tight, lock, go to the neck. Hand on the floor. I go up, my whole weight forward, and I get my knee on his stomach. I know that in the moment here [1:40], you’re not gonna measure the force and weight. And here, when you go, you go with everything, right to his neck. He’s gonna worry about the neck and forget about the knee. So you get the arm out and stick the hand in his collar. And you work from here.”