BJJ Glossary: Key Terms Explained

Guard — a family of positions where you fight from your back or seated, using your legs and hips to control an opponent who is on top. The guard is BJJ’s signature innovation and the starting point for most sweeps and many submissions.

Closed guard — the guard variation where your legs are wrapped around the opponent’s torso and your ankles are locked behind their back, keeping them trapped close to you.

Open guard — any guard where your legs are not locked around the opponent, so your feet, shins, and grips manage the distance. It covers dozens of named variations rather than a single shape.

Half guard — a position where you have trapped one of the opponent’s legs between yours, sitting between full guard and being fully passed.

Side control — a top pin, perpendicular to the opponent, where you hold them flat with your chest and arms but do not have your legs threaded around them.

Mount — a dominant top position where you sit astride the opponent’s torso with a knee on each side, one of the strongest places to attack from.

Back control / back mount — controlling the opponent from behind, typically with both legs hooked inside their thighs (the “hooks”) and a seat-belt grip over one shoulder. It is widely considered the most dominant position in BJJ.

Turtle — a defensive shape where the bottom player is on hands and knees, tucked in tight to deny grips and openings while looking to recover guard or stand up.

Knee-on-belly — a mobile top pin where you drive one knee across the opponent’s midsection while posting the other foot, trading some control for pressure, speed, and attacking angles. See the full map of BJJ positions.

Submission — a hold that forces an opponent to concede the match, either a joint lock (bending or twisting a joint past its safe range) or a choke (restricting blood or air). The goal of most BJJ exchanges.

Tap — the signal of surrender, given by tapping the opponent or the mat (or saying “tap”) before a submission causes injury. Tapping is normal and expected, not a failure.

Armbar — a joint lock that hyperextends the elbow by trapping the arm and levering it against your hips, one of the most fundamental submissions.

Triangle choke — a strangle applied with the legs, forming a triangle around the opponent’s neck and one of their own arms to cut off blood flow.

Rear naked choke (RNC) — a blood choke applied from back control, wrapping one arm around the neck and cinching it with the other. Often considered the highest-percentage finish in the art.

Guillotine — a front choke where you wrap an arm under the opponent’s chin and squeeze, commonly caught as they shoot in or drop their head.

Kimura — a shoulder lock, named after judoka Masahiko Kimura, that uses a figure-four grip on the wrist to rotate the arm behind the back.

Americana — a shoulder lock that bends the arm the opposite way to a kimura, pinning the elbow and cranking the forearm toward the head. Also called a keylock.

Omoplata — a shoulder lock applied with the legs rather than the arms, using your leg over the opponent’s shoulder to rotate their arm — often set up from guard.

Heel hook — a leg lock that twists the heel to torque the knee. It is powerful and fast-acting, which is why it is restricted or banned in many rule sets.

Leg lock — the broad category of submissions attacking the knee, ankle, or foot, including heel hooks, kneebars, straight ankle locks, and toe holds. Explore the finishes in detail in BJJ submissions explained.

Sweep — a technique that reverses position from the bottom, taking you from underneath (usually from guard) to on top without simply standing up.

Guard pass — the act of getting past the opponent’s legs from the top to reach a dominant pin such as side control or mount.

Takedown — bringing a standing opponent to the ground, borrowed largely from wrestling and judo, to start the ground exchange from an advantageous position.

Escape — any technique for getting out of a bad position or a submission attempt and returning to a safer, more neutral spot.

Shrimp / hip escape — a foundational movement where you turn onto your side and push off the mat to create space and slide your hips away, essential for escaping pins and recovering guard.

Bridge — driving your hips upward off the mat, usually from the bottom, to unbalance a top opponent and open space to escape or reverse.

Scramble — a fast, chaotic exchange where neither player has settled control and both fight to come out on top, common when a position breaks down.

Roll — live sparring, the free practice where partners apply techniques against real resistance at controlled intensity. “Rolling” is where most BJJ skill is actually built.

Drilling — repeating a technique with a cooperating partner to groove the movement before testing it under resistance in a roll.

Gi / kimono — the traditional uniform of jacket, trousers, and belt worn in Gi jiu-jitsu. Its collar, sleeves, and lapels double as grips for control and even chokes. “Kimono” is the common Brazilian term for the same garment.

Rash guard — a fitted athletic top worn for No-Gi training (often under the gi as well) to protect the skin from mat burn and reduce the spread of infection.

Belt — the colored rank worn around the waist, marking a student’s level. Adults progress white, blue, purple, brown, and black; the details are covered in the BJJ belt system.

Stripe — a small piece of tape added to a belt to mark progress within a rank, typically up to four before the next belt is awarded.

Oss — an all-purpose piece of gym slang, borrowed from Japanese martial arts, used as a greeting, an acknowledgment, or a sign of respect. Its exact meaning and origin are debated even among practitioners.

Gym / academy — the school where BJJ is taught. “Academy” carries the lineage sense of a team and its instructors; you can trace how schools connect through the lineage tree.

Open mat — an unstructured session, usually without formal instruction, where members are free to drill and roll as they choose. It is a fixture of gym culture.

Gi vs No-Gi — the two main formats of training: with the traditional uniform and its grips, or in a rash guard and shorts for a faster, grip-light game. The trade-offs are compared in Gi vs No-Gi.

Competition — organized tournaments where practitioners test their skills under a rule set, from local events to world championships. See an overview in major BJJ competitions.