The technical standup is an absolutely essential movement in BJJ. It’s used to get back to your feet in self defense and MMA, but also for finishing guard sweeps, defending against guard sweeps, guard retention, and a thousand other applications.
Brandon ‘Wolverine’ Mullins, a BJJ black belt world champion, breaks the technical standup into four different variations…
- The Full Technical Standup
- The Three Quarter Technical Standup
- The Half Technical Standup
- The Reverse Technical Standup
Each of these variations is covered in the video below, and then in further detail in article further down.
Check it out!
Chapters for ‘The Four Types of Technical Standups’ Video
00:37 The Full Technical Standup
02:38 Three Quarter Technical Standup
03:18 Half Technical Standup
04:07 The Reverse Technical Standup
05:06 Training the Standup
06:25 Technical Standup in Competition
In case you’re at work and can’t check out a video without your boss breathing down your neck here’s a quick summary of the different variations using animated gifs and text…
Variation 1, The Full Technical Standup
The Full Technical Standup
The full technical standup is the most commonly taught version of this technique.
Start with a good base with a post on each side of your body, for example your right hand and your left foot. This allows your hips to float forwards and backwards and allows you to kick or hook with your bottom (right) leg.
Now lift your hips and turn your belly towards the floor as you pull your leg back. Don’t bring your feet close together and then try to stand up – this is not at all stable. Instead bring your leg all the way back so that you’re in a nice wide, stable stance.
Technical standup mistake
In a self defense situation you might want to come up while covering your head with your free arm, whereas in a strictly grappling situation that free arm might be used for maintaining distance and/or be controlling your opponent with a grip.
Variation 2, The Three Quarter Technical Standup
The Three Quarter Technical Standup
The three quarter technical standup is very similar to the full standup except instead of pulling your bottom leg all the way out you first post on your knee.
You might use this shorter movement if you’re carrying a lot of your opponent’s weight or if flexibility and mobility issues prevent you from coming up all the way to your feet in one movement.
Once you’re posting on your knee you can either stand up to your feet or drive forward, depending on what the situation requires and what your intentions are.
Variation 3, The Half Technical Standup
The Half Technical Standup
The half technical standup is similar to the three quarter standup except that you use your elbow for base instead of the hand. Typically you’ll do this if your opponent has a lot of weight on you.
If you’re very flexible you might be able to go from posting on your elbow all the way up to your feet, but most typically you’ll be coming up onto a knee first.
Variation 4, The Reverse Technical Standup
The Reverse Technical Standup
The reverse technical standup is the act of going from a standing or kneeling position back to the ground. This is an aspect of this movement often ignored by people training BJJ.
There are many applications of reverse standup including putting your opponent back into the guard during a scramble, inserting a hook
Note that you can do this movement with a hand post (the reverse of the full standup), a knee post (the reverse of the three quarter standup) or an elbow post (the reverse of the half standup). You should become comfortable with all three variations.
Technical Standup Solo Training Sequence
At the 5 minute mark of the video at the top of this article Brandon Mullins takes you through a suggested solo training sequence for mastering the technical standup motion.
Basically you’re going to do each of the three standup movements and then the reverse of that movement on each side.
The complete sequence might look like this…
- Full technical standup on the right
- Reverse technical standup on the right
- Switch sides
- Full technical standup on the left
- Reverse technical standup on the left
- Switch sides
- Three quarter technical standup on the right
- Reverse three quarter technical standup on the right
- Switch sides
- Three quarter technical standup on the left
- Reverse three quarter technical standup on the left
- Switch sides
- Half technical standup on the right
- Reverse half technical standup on the right
- Switch sides
- Half technical standup on the left
- Reverse half technical standup on the left
Technical Standup in Competition
The most basic application of the technical standup movement is to simply get back to your feet. This is a movement that happens ALL the time in competition.
Below is a short collage video I posted on my instagram (@stephan_kesting) of Brandon Mullins using the technical standup again and again in high level competition…
View this post on Instagram
Nonstop Jiu-Jitsu, the Book
These four basic technical standup movements are covered on pages 5, 6, 7 and 8 of Nonstop Jiu-Jitsu, the 265 page full colour book that Brandon Mullins and I co-wrote and is available on Amazon.
After we show the basic movements, pages 9 to 25 of the book are then dedicated to the advanced applications of the technical standup in a jiu-jitsu context.
Nonstop Jiu-Jitsu, the Book
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