ChrisWrestling's blog

1) See the opening position as a puzzle to solve. Different things your opponent does will create different circumstances that should be treated, well.... different. If you're both on your knees notice his base, if his knees are close together he's going to be easier to knock over so get your high grips and turn the corner (don't go straight to one side or straight back). If he sits on his butt, don't try to climb on top of him, he's probably going to use his hooks to prevent that and you'll just get swept. Don't try to circle around without any kind of control either, he's able to move faster than you because his butt is the center of the circle. The answer to someone sitting on their butt is to shut down their hook game, control their hips, and treat it like an open guard (if you don't know what that is, look it up).

2) Only extend your arms if you have a reason to. If you're in a 50/50 situation (meaning neither of you have an advantage) it's reasonably safe to extend your arms. If you are on top in mount, it's ok. Likewise for guard, on top in side mount, on top in knee ride, when you're on top in side control. Notice a theme? If you're on the offensive it's generally ok to extend your arms, otherwise keep them glued to your chest, protecting your neck, building a conservative frame, or when you have a specific, well calculated, task that requires your amrs.

3) Both wrestlers start off with a full tank of gas. Often with evenly matched wrestlers the one with more gas in the tank at the end of the match is the one who wins. Pace yourself accordingly.

4) Speed and muscle don't make up for bad technique, they just increase the chances that someone is going to get hurt. Remember #1, see each situation as a puzzle to solve, there is a technical answer, rarely does that answer involve going fast and using muscle.

5) New wrestlers tend to be grabby. The grips game is in a lot of ways the most hard thing about wrestling. Especially in a no gi situation when there is a lot of sweat, hands and wrists are almost impossible to hold (btw, never grab fingers unless you don't give two shits about the safety of your partner), instead go for the back of the neck, the shoulders, elbows, learn to use your feet and legs as hooks and levers. Likewise, if you are under someone in any position besides guard, don't hold them to you. For one, that's how I get most of my Americanas on people. Secondly, You're using a lot of energy (#3) and not facilitating any kind of escape from that position.

6) Wrestle with your legs as much as you do with your arms. The people who advance the quickest learn this early on. Use butterfly and spider-guard, even no gi, learn a scissor sweep, reverse scissor sweep, and hook sweep. These are my most common sweeps.

7) Learn your basic positions. Side control, scarf, north south (calm down pervs :-P), switch base, knee ride (knee on belly), low mount, midrange mount, S mount, side mount, back mount, guard (start with the simple ones), top 4 quarter. Learn how to maintain these positions and make that your goal in your rolls for a while. Screw submissions, just get to these positions and learn to maintain them. Then focus on transitioning to these positions successfully. If someone is starting to escape, sometimes the answer isn't to keep that position but to transition to something which allows you to maintain control.

8) When learning your basic positions pay attention to how you're maintaining them. Most positions rely on pressure (where your single point of pressure is on your opponent), connection (how are you held to them), and how you are rooted in the ground (how are you preventing yourself from getting rolled or swept). Now, deconstruct those positions and ask yourself, how can I get the pressure off of me enough that I can move, how can I weaken my opponent's connection, and how can I unroot my partner from the ground. In most instances you only need to take away one of these elements in order to escape.

9) When you start doing submissions pay attention to technique. No technique requires a lot of muscle, if you're using a lot to finish then you're not executing the technique right. Unlike pro wrestling, you cannot hold a good submission for a long time, you can't crank it on. Submissions are designed to either break your opponent or knock them out. This is why I always establish my position and control and then attack. When I attack it is always slow because I'm confident that my opponent can't get away or defend so I can take my time and finish in a safe, controlled manner.

10) This is my coaches #1 priority for everything: DON'T LOSE! New wrestlers often are so caught up in being strong, grabby, neck cranky, or even so focused on just getting out of a bad situation that they get caught in submissions. Look, if someone has mounted you, your first priority is NOT to escape mount because mount is an attack position. If you're trying to push someone off of you, you are opening yourself up to submissions. Protect against submissions and then focus on their pressure, connection, and how they are rooted into the ground. From there you can start to break down their control and transition to something better. I'm going to take this a little further than my coach does and say that this applies to dominant positions as well. Yeah, the risk of getting submitted is low, but a good wrestler is going to start to pick apart your game and if you're not careful you're going to lose that position you worked so hard to get in the first place. So respect every thing your partner does, especially if they train BJJ because nothing they do will be random, spazzy, uncontrolled, or unplanned.

Summary:
1) have an opening strategy, recognize your opponents opening strategy, and move strategically
2) Protect your arms
3) Conserve your energy
4) Rely on technique, not speed or muscle
5) Go for easier to obtain and maintain grips
6) Use your damn legs
7) Learn your positions and how to maintain them
8) Deconstruct #7 to lean how to escape those positions
9) Good submissions depend on technique, not strength or speed. Maintain your position and apply slowly to avoid injuring your partner.
10) Don't lose. Don't get submitted, don't lose your position. This is always your #1 priority.

My husband told me to go ahead inside and that he would be right behind so I unlocked the front door and entered our living room. I was shocked to a rather handsome man sitting on our couch looking at his phone and drinking water from one of our cups. Before I could ask him who the hell he was I heard our car start. My husband was driving away leaving me with this stranger.

"He'll be back," the man said, "he's just going to catch a movie."

He stood up and I could see that he wasn't wearing a tank top, it was a wrestling singlet. It was incredibly revealing on him. The light created subtle shadows between his pecs, the shadows revealed sinew lines. It was my singlet, the gold colored one. I liked it because it had more contrast than the darker ones. My eyes migrated down, his serratus was clearly visible as were all eight of his abs and even a little of his obliques. His endowment was just as impressive as the rest of him. At the bottom of the singlet the vertical ripples of his quads showed through the spandex and just below the singlet was evidence that the spandex didn't lie.

Throwing a singlet at me he said, "put this on."

Let's just be clear, when a man like this shows up in your living room and tells you to put on a singlet, you put on the fucking singlet. I started to leave the room to change in privacy and he cut me off, telling me that he wanted to watch.

Depression had seen to it that my once better than decent body was now very average and I felt insignificant next to him but he didn't seem to mind as I changed. He even smiled a bit.

He wasn't a body builder, at least he didn't look it. His body was a lot more built than your average endurance athlete, maybe 30% thicker than Michael Phelps, but he was still intimidating to look at.

"Where are you mats?" he asked.

"Down stairs" I said, more sheepishly than I've ever heard myself.

"Then let's go"

I rolled out the mats and got on my knees, ready to slap and fist bump to start our match but he stopped me.

"That's not why I'm here." He said, "I heard it's your birthday. Your husband wants me to do to you what he knows you want but he's unable to provide."

I could feel my face flush in embarrassment. I didn't like talking about this kink, it's the only one I have which I feel is too weird, too out of the ordinary. I've had my wrist up people's butts, put needles into their skin, electrocuted them, tied them up, all kinds of twisted things and taken almost everything I've ever dished out but this, this kink is just too strange. It's part of why I get depressed, it's so tied up in my deepest desires and I have no outlet and am just so scared to talk about it even within my kinky circle of friends. I even remember how terrified the first time I was when I asked my husband to do it. He obliged but wasn't into it which killed it for me. I felt even a little bit betrayed that he would tell this complete stranger my deepest, darkest secret.

I wanted to yell. I wanted to kick this man out of my house. I wanted to just run away, make it all end but before I even could he had wrapped his legs around me and rolled me onto my back. His legs straightened across my stomach as I attempted a sorry pushup. It wasn't a hard scissor at first but it continued to tighten by the second, slowly more and more intense. The hotness in my cheeks seemed to change at the pressure in my face seemed to go up a little bit.

It didn't stop, those legs just kept getting tighter. I could hear the tendons in his legs pop a little but under the strain but those legs just would not yield. I always thought I had no limit to how much I could take, after all I had crafted many very intense self squeezing techniques over the years, but if I had a limit he was approaching it inch by inch. The worst part was that he was taking so damn long to get there. That slow ramping was consistent like a blood pressure cuff but I had no idea how far it would go.

He found it, he found my tapping point. It was finally too much so I tapped on his leg and he paused for a second at that pressure.

"No" he said and started going deeper into the squeeze.

I began to panic and climbed to my hands and knees, struggling to break his grip but he didn't even loosen. He was squeezing and holding his own weight up and it didn't appear he even noticed. I pushed on the wall and was able to get myself all the way upright on my knees which seemed to make it worse because I could feel his whole weight torqueing me, the angle of his legs on my guts had not changed one bit and I fell over on to my back. He just rolled with me as if nothing happened, still slowly ramping up his cruel squeeze.

My arms began to desperately push on his leg to relieve the pressure but they were like a literal vice, steel plates on my abs, inhumanly solid.

When I said it, it was supposed to be a yell, but what came out was a pitiful wimper. Mind you, I had to have been trapped for at least ten minutes. "Don't you tire?"

He smiled and leaned in to whisper, "no, I don't."

That was true, he didn't tire. It took 15 minutes before I found out roughly just how hard he could squeeze. I was light headed four minutes before I discovered that bit of torture. We had reached the point where he was ready to just torture me. He had already taken me well above my limit and when he loosened up he was still above that limit. Sometimes he pulsed, sometimes he rolled his leg into my diaphragm, sometimes he did little waves, and sometimes he flexed. I wanted out insanely bad but apparently my dick didn't agree. He noticed it, smiled and that's when he decided to show me what real pain was.

It was somewhat sudden but it wasn't another little burst and release. No, it was a clamp and hold. My hands began to slap at his legs and I tried to yell, "tap, tap, tap!" but what came out was just the last bit of air I had left.

Fun little fact, it's easy to take a deep breath and hold it but try holding your breath out sometime.

Yeah, there was more panic. It was like drowning. Terror, thrashing, and then.... I suppose you might call it acceptance... or maybe I was just high. I couldn't tell you, I was way too out of it. I started to tingle everywhere. I didn't seem to have full control of my limbs and that's when he touched me.

Unlike his legs, his hand was gentle on my balls, just rolling them around. He moved my hand onto his own genitals. I had forgotten that he was wearing my favorite singlet. God, I love spandex. I loved the feeling of his hands on me just as much as I loved the feeling of my hand on him. My other hand had come up and began to feel his legs. Even in my high state I could feel every ripple and it was just as nice when my hand went over the leg of the singlet.

I was so drunk. He squeezed my balls and they hurt a bit but I didn't mind. Truth be told, I liked that too. It was almost as if my husband had told him everything. My head was so swimmy now that it was hard to hold up. I became aware that not only did my legs tingle, they were getting a little cold.

He gave me another long full powered squeeze but this one wasn't as bad as the last. I liked it. I could feel the pressure growing in my groin. It reminded me of the feeling just before my first orgasm. My eyes rolled back and honestly, I couldn't tell you if I blacked out for a moment or not. He crushed my balls hard to bring me back though, well, as back as I could be at that point.

I could feel that I was barely hanging on to consciousness and it would appear that's exactly where he wanted me. He was like a cat playing with a mouse before it ate it. I would start to go out and he would wake me by crushing my balls.

Later on I would be washing the cum off my stomach but I really don't remember having an orgasm or feeling wet till after we were done. Maybe it was that first time I started to go out, I have no idea. I actually really don't care that much. No orgasm could compare to this.

I lost track of time but eventually he did let me go and just lay there with me. Holding me in his beautiful arms and stroking my hair. I don't remember ever being so tired and yet so comfortable, so fulfilled. It was the best birthday present I ever got.

We had met before but for whatever reason the boy seemed more nervous this time around than he had the first time. In our correspondence leading up to this play date he had been nothing but enthusiastic without a hint of reservation. Now that I was there the enthusiasm seemed to have vanished. He wasn't backing out but the list of things to do before we played seemed to be ever growing. I found the anxiety endearing , there was an intoxicating cuteness in the way he was trying to delay the inevitable torture.

"Excuse me, I need to put away my laptop," he said. He made somewhat quick work of it however the laptop wasn't really in the way of where we were going to play. "Would you mind if I brush my teeth?" came next and off he went. A moment later he returned and got back to the unnecessary tidying.

As he ran around like a chipmunk trying to get every last nut as the first snows hit the ground I casually changed into my singlet, making a bit of a show of dropping a lifting belt on top of my bag. I sat down on the hotel bed and quietly patted the spot next to me. He sat down sheepishly and we began our negotiations confirming that he actually did want to be made to beg.

"You do know that would require me to ignore a few taps?" I said as more of a statement of what he was getting himself into than a question.

I could see the gears working in his head, almost jamming like his rational brain wanted to say no but his dick was shouting over it, "oh GOD YES!"

He moved up on the bed timidly in nothing but briefs and I observed his small form, he couldn't have been more than 5'5 at 130lbs. I'm currently in the 190lb range just under 6 feet and found myself a little concerned for the guys safety. Of course I knew from our previous meeting that he was less fragile than he looks. Still, his apprehension was well justified.

I lifted him into a seated position so I could lay my left leg behind his back and he reclined back onto it. He was still visibly scared so I gave him a little warm up squeeze to remind him that I had no intention of.... damaging him. He let out a little moan and increased the pressure.

I don't know the exact moment but sometime within that first long but gentle squeeze I realized that I had become hard. I looked down to the boy's shorts and realized that he was getting hard as well. Perhaps that's what came over me or perhaps I was simply not content to be gentle, I wanted to see him not just hard but really scared.

I increased up to about 50% of my squeezing capacity and his eyes widened in surprise. I could feel my face muscles tighten into an involuntary grin which I'm sure was read as malicious. His hands flew down to my top leg and started to push in protest and every time he did I gave him a threatening pulse of power. When his pressure backed off so did mine but only back to that 50%.

After a little torment I decided that I needed to pace myself so I released my legs and came on top, wrapping my arms around him and then drove my weight into him as I squeezed. This wasn't as satisfying on the hotel bed as it had been on my mats but he complained none the less.

Feeling that the ground bearhug wasn't quite doing what I wanted it to I went for my signature body triangle from the back and grabbed his legs and hugging them toward me pulling my calf deeper and deeper into his diaphragm. The loudest moan of the night so far escaped and faded into a choked exhalation. This was the first moment of real panic. His arms flailed a bit and I held out for a moment longer so that he would know that I was indeed in charge.

I switched to another cross body scissor and threw my arms around my legs in a cross body variant of a scorpion crunch. His eyes went as wide as they could go and his head rolled over to face me. His eyes had watered and looked doe-eyed and desperate. It took great effort but he managed to let out a pitiful, "please". My heart melted but my grip didn't let up even for a second, the boy wanted to be made to beg afterall, didn't he? I let off a touch to acknowledge his request but then I gave him 15% more power than before inspiring him to once again push against my legs in panic.

There were more please of sweet release but they only inspired a deeper sadism. After the third or fifth plea I moved my legs onto his chest causing him to moan, to beg to be released but I was lost in love with that look of pitiful terror, getting harder with each request for mercy.

That was exactly what he asked for next, mercy. The kind version of me returned a bit but the dark hulk was still smashing in my mind. I hesitated a bit longer before granting him a break.

In that pause he said that he was really enjoying that pulsing I was doing earlier. I made a note of that and committed to incorporating it once we started again. I too needed a moments break so I lay across him sideways, wrapping my arms around him and pressing my ribs into his side. I locked my grip and squeezed. I changed my footing so that most of my weight was bearing into him as my arms pulled him deeper into my body.

When I felt good and recovered I went to my bag and grabbed the lifting belt. I wrapped it around his chest as tight as I could, brushing off the complaints of pulled chest hair (should have worn a singlet damn it) and secured it down. I returned to squeezing his guts, not having to work so hard as the pressure could no longer diffuse into his chest cavity. I pulsed as requested but every time I did I increased my pressure by 10 lbs but only released back 5, constantly making him take more and more. My knees popped and I could feel my peroneals cramping and tearing a bit from trying to maintain my ankle grip. The sadistic beast in my head didn't care. Suffer suffer SUFFER was all I could think of.

His cock had become noticeably hard and mine was creating an undeniable wet spot on the front of my singlet. He looked at me again with those watery eyes and asked, "Please" this time barely a whisper. I pulsed in reply. "Please" again and I responded with pure evil. "Please" now almost too faint to hear and I gave him a very long, hard squeeze in reply.

I don't know if he was even aware at how much his hands were pointlessly pressing against my legs, slipping over my quads, unable to move the solid steel from his gut. He wriggled and squirmed aimlessly.

"Please...."

Squeeze...

"Please..."

Squeeze...

"Please..." this time almost a sigh.

His hands grew slower and weaker, now more just lightly brushing my quads. My legs very slowly straightened till all my tendons popped in protest. I heard the slow rush of air from the boy but there were no more words to say. What little breath he could catch was shallow and probably didn't offer him any relief. He was giving up on getting any air, he knew he wasn't going to. The little gaspy breaths were more of a habit than anything. He was trapped and sinking off into darkness.

To start off I will say that I am a personal trainer. The first thing to understand is that we have 3 types of muscle fibers, type I, type IIx, and type IIa and so we should consider what is the most applicable type to train for bodyscissors. I'm not going to say that you should aim for more type IIx or IIa but for the sake scissors type I are not applicable. Type I are defined as being low resistance and use oxygen to create energy. They almost never tire but they have no applicable strength. These are the muscle fibers we use when we run or do jumping jacks or other activities which have low resistance but high rep output. Type IIx are bulky muscle fibers which use muscle sugars called glycogen as their primary energy source. They produce a lot of CO2 and don't process energy well so they tend to burn out fast. These are great for getting someone to tap out fast but for long scissor torture they will cause you to tire quickly. Type IIa are type IIx except that they have developed more mitochondria which helps them process energy better and get rid of waste more efficiently. These muscle fibers behave more like a blend of type I and IIx.

To understand muscle contraction I'd recommend looking up sliding filament theory on youtube. It's better to see it than to have me describe it. What you can gather from that is that we only get strength within the range of motion we train so it's important when designing your program that you consider the full safe range of motion that you train. Some exercises will only work a partial range of motion like a dumbbell triceps kickback (depending on the elbow joint's relationship to gravity parts of the exercise will have no resistance in the triceps). Also keep in mind that over-training some muscles while not working the opposite can create muscle imbalances (such as working the quads more than the hamstrings can alter the front to back tilt of the pelvis creating low back pain).

For straight scissors, as mentioned in my last post, the power of a scissor comes from the straightening of the legs, driving the heels away, not from the squeezing of the knees together so focusing on hip adduction exercises, especially in the seated adduction machine is not going to generate a significant amount of added power to your scissors. The power of a scissors starts from a solid lock at the ankles which is a achieved with an isometric (non moving) contraction of the anterior tibialis (the muscle on the front of your shin), a straightening of the knee (shortening of the quads), the shortening of the adductors, and internal rotation generated in the medial glutes with stabilization of the knee through the iliotibial (IT) band via a flexing of the glutes.

For specific exercises I will be linking youtube videos as well as describing exercises.

For the anterior tibialis you can use a cable machine or elastic band. Anchor your elastic band and then hook it over your foot, moving closer to the hard point to lesson the resistance and further away to increase it. Obviously if you point your toe away from you too far the band will fly off but that's ok because for our purposes we want to be working from just past 90 degrees on one side and coming as far into dorsal flexion (toes to your nose) as possible. We don't have to go super heavy but we want to spend as much time under tension as possible to build more endurance in the muscle.

Here's one of my favorite exercises for the quads. I like this one because your quads work under high load for a very long time without a break again building up endurance.

Eccentric high steps. I don't like this guys form. When you go up and down imagine there is a string attached above your sternum and it is pulling you straight up and keeping you up when you go down. Try not to let your knee travel past your mid foot. Take as much time as you can coming down to the ground. When picking the height of your step put your leg on the step and look at it, it should be 90 degrees or slightly below. You don't want your knee to be at an acute angle.

Now, yes, squats are great, do squats just try to spend as much time in motion as possible, avoiding pauses at the top and bottom.

For your adductors:
I like this movement because it's a relatively safe way to hit the adductors in the anatomical position.

You may also incorporate the seated hip adduction.
For both these exercises you should focus on time under tension and potentially incorporate in isometrics by holding for 10 seconds in various positions.

To work on your internal rotation you can place a foam roller between your legs, bend at the knees to 90 degrees, put ankle resistance bands on your ankles and pinch your knees together as your bring your ankles apart. The bands could the therabands or the bands that Velcro around your ankles.

Weighted bridges and sumo squats would also be good to add.

To increase your endurance start incorporating high rep high speed exercises
Like plyometric high steps

Jump squats
Plyolunges
Drop lunges with heavy weights and high reps
Kettlebell swings (not American style, that has fewer reps per minute)
Shuttles (maintain a low squat while shuttling)

I would design my program by supersetting two exercises, doing 3-5 sets of 12 reps with progressive overload to near failure with 3 minutes rest between sets. Then go to your next superset of two exercises. Get through all your movements. Spend a couple months focusing on building strength doing legs no more than twice a week (not neglecting the muscles not relevant to scissors). In this phase only lift slow and heavy, maybe adding in isometrics (holding exercises). Then spend 6 weeks working in a 20 rep max for 4-5 sets with 90 seconds of rest between sets. Then start going easy into high rep lower resistance exercises like the jump squats hitting 20 reps without pausing. Work your way up to doing high intensity circuits and shortening your rest periods. After a few months start supersetting your heavy lifts with your high intensity lifts starting heavy then doing your plyometrics, then resting. This helps your type IIx become type IIa.

When it comes to bulking and cutting understand that when you cut you lose muscle mass and that includes cardiac muscle. There are no peer reviewed credible studies showing that bulking and cutting increase your gains more than just building gradually. Likewise there is no scientific evidence that eating excessive amounts of protein increase muscle size or strength but excessive protein consumption has been shown to increase the risks for kidney problems, gout, and certain types of cancer especially when a protein supplement is involved. If you must take a protein supplement check out it's rating at www.labdoor.com before you buy. Supplements are not checked by the FDA and are only pulled when the FDA is able to link the supplement to a series of health complications or deaths in a number of people typical of government efficiency. Your muscles use predominantly glycogen which is a muscle sugar when you work out, it is important that your muscles are properly fueled before your workouts and you replenish your blood sugar by consuming carbs immediately after your workout. Your daily carb intake should be between 50-70% of your caloric intake, protein 15-30%, and fats, 10-30%. To calculate your caloric need multiply your weight by 10, then multiply that by your activity factor: sedentary 1.2-1.3, moderately active 1.4-1.6, and active 1.7-2.0. To figure out your macro balance multiply your caloric need with your macro percentage. To convert that to grams divide your protein and carbs by 4, fats by 9. If you are more active you may consume simpler carbs, if you are sedentary try to stick to fiber rich complex carbs. Aim to keep your simpler sugars to right after your workouts. If you are sedentary keep your carbs closer to 50%, if you're more active go with a higher percentage.

This was longer than I wanted. Again if you have questions feel free to post them here or message me directly. Thanks

Ok, so if you feel like this comes across as pedantic... well suck it up buttercup. Here is my long winded explanation into getting the most powerful scissors you can. Someday I may do a video version but til I get a volunteer this will have to do. As many of you know I am a switch when it comes to really any kind of sadomasochism, which, frankly, is exactly what everyone in this group is here for. You either like hurting someone with scissors or you like being hurt. Well, here's how to get the most out of it. I will give the caveat that some of what I say may not be applicable to live rolling. I will do another post soon on training your muscles for scissors, I am a personal trainer and I have given this lots of thought.

So many guys go out of their way to get wrestling boots, wrestling shoes etc and they claim this is for leverage. The main weakness of all scissors is the ankles and anything you do to support them will give you a stonger scissor. With all scissors you want to keep your feet flexed, never pointed. If you feel your calves cramping it's because you're pointing your toes. I suspect the habit to do so is to give the ankle more structural strength and you feel like your anterior tibialis (on the front of your shin) isn't strong enough to provide that strength. If your calf is engaged it means your A.T. is not. When talking about muscle engagement remember that if a muscle on one side of a joint is shortening, the other is lengthening. In order for your calf to engage your A.T. has to disengage.

In a straight scissor, regardless of type not only should you keep your "boots on" (meaning keeping your feet in the boot "L" shape) but you should think about pushing your heels away. A lot of guys have this tendency to do a hamstring curl and draw their heels closer to their bodies to squeeze in. The problem with this is that the glutes and quads are the primary movers for getting a good squeeze on. The hamstrings are the antagonist muscle to the quads, so when the hams shorten to pull your heels closer to you your quads relax and allow the legs to bend. This also hinders your glutes from engaging leaving all the work to your adductors which are relatively small muscles on your inner thigh. These are your Susan Sommers thigh master muscles. You'll find that if you rely on these muscles your inner thighs will be very sore the next day. I'm not saying that they won't be sore the next day otherwise, but more so. Also, you'll find yourself getting burned out in your squeeze session sooner if you use this technique. I'm guessing in 1/10th the time vs driving your heels away. Now, some guys in a side to side (where the top leg goes over the gut) scissor will lift their hips off the ground and turn into their victim. Within reason I don't see why not, what it does is put more weight into their diaphragm.

On the side to side scissor both having your victim face up or face down has it's merits. You get to see their face and bulge if their face up, you have the potential for more squeeze face down. If a person is face up, their spine creates a solid platform for their body weight so your legs alone provide the squeeze, if they're face down their bodyweight is being pressed into the bottom leg with the top leg bearing down more. The difference is pretty minute but they should feel the difference. Also it makes it easier to keep pressure on even when you're not squeezing. I actually had a guy today pick up my legs when I was on my back and start to fold them toward my face while in this scissor (face up) and it placed more pressure on my diaphragm making it harder to breathe. It was quite lovely.

In the side to side scissor we really want to avoid placing our legs on the hips because they are hard and inflexible. You're fighting a losing battle against solid bone and it won't be comfortable for either of you. You either want to be centered on the gut or centered on the chest. I have had guys place their knee on my solar plexis (base of the sternum) because they know that's the worst place. Here's the thing, even though you're being evil and sadistic you want your training partner to come back, you probably even like the guy. Pressing into the solar plexis makes you nauseated and could lead to injury, neither one motivates me to want to play with you so please don't. I have seen some guys go diagonal across the ribs and over the shoulder, this might have some merit to it but may also have some added risks, I'll get back to you on that one.

Front to back or back to front, I don't seem much of a functional difference between them. Because of the tapered nature of the body your legs are usually going to funnel toward the waist with part of your thigh on the ribs, part right above the hip. You can hike yourself up and place your legs high on the ribs. Be careful with this scissor in general (regardless of high or low placement). The ribs can flex a lot more in this position which is fun and more painful but because of this added range of motion the risk of injury goes up quite a bit. Try to let go of this scissor slowly and gradually. If you come off it fast the ribs will explode back into position. I don't know if it will cause injury, what I do know is it's a shocking experience and not in a good way. With this scissor try to keep your legs as close to perpendicular to your partner as possible. The more you angle them the less squeeze you get and a lot of time you'll end up on the hips which limits your ability to squeeze at all. Also, when you extend your legs away from perpendicular to your opponent's torso, because of the grip you have on them, you end up causing spinal flexion or extension depending on your position. With enough force you could feasibly paralyze your opponent or cause damage to the spine and they aren't even getting a good squeeze out of it so what's the point?

Some people will also, from this position though some can get it in the side to side scissor, reach their arms around their opponent and their own legs, lock their hands (gable grip, please, no broken fingers) and straighten their arms. I've heard this called a scorpion crunch. This is a good technique especially when your legs are tired. It increased your force production by a significant margin (I'm guessing 50% though maybe I'll measure it someday). With great power comes great responsibility, don't go breaking someone's ribs. If this is placed centered on the floating ribs it could possibly cause vomiting. I haven't had issues when it's place high or low though. Because of the great pressure from this one be sure to let it off slow so as not to terrify your partner.

Ok, the body triangle. This can be hard for many people to get on. For the sake of ease, let's call the left leg the locking leg, and the right one is the one going around your parnter's waist, sitting straight across their gut. Because of the nature of this unless you have very long legs, you'll probably not get it on the ribs. When locking it on, lean to your right if you are in back mount (seated behind your partner) or you can turn to your right if you're in top 4 quarter. By turning to the right you can get your leg further across making it easier to lock your left leg on. When you square up it will cinch down a bit. Make sure your right foot is tight right behind the bend of your left leg, if it's on the calf you don't have a body triangle and it will be mostly useless. Again, like all other scissors, your right leg should be flexed, never pointed (boots on).

Make sure your right ankle is not on the left hip because you won't be able to squeeze and this actually kind of hurts in a not so much fun way. Likewise you don't want your right knee riding up on the floating ribs as this will cause cartilage damage which will get reinjured every time that person rolls. We like our jobbers better when they continue to play with us.

To tighten a body triangle move your left leg away from your opponent. This drives your left quad more into their side. Flex your leg muscles. Flex your right foot up as hard as you can. You can also reach around your opponent and grab one or both legs and start to bearhug them into you. Again, this moves the pressure up into their chest.

On the body triangle people are tempted to arch their hips. This moves tension off of the core of your victim and onto their hips. Doing so also puts a staggering amount of tension onto the low back. If you go belly down and do this the odds of breaking the spine becomes fairly high. Again, we don't break our play things.

And that's it for this post. I'll do one later on training your muscles for it. Keep in mind that scissors are more about endurance than blunt strength. You want to wear your opponent down. If you end up squeezing me know that I can take more than 2 1/2 hours to wear down in a scissor if you're just trying to make me suffer. I usually end up wearing out the heel, not the other way around. I'm one of many scissor sufferers like that so focus on the endurance game.

A quick set of tips on endurance. Focus on carbs the day before a play date. Creatine may help a little. Be well hydrated. Don't use stimulants. Focus on your breathing and don't always go 100%, especially early on. Utilize the body triangle and scorpion crunch when you're getting tired in the legs so that your victim continues to suffer while you recover. Think about your placement, a victim can take less on their chest as they can their gut so you can get the same misery level with less effort. Use knee ride (aka knee on belly) or scarf hold to take a break but not let them rest. Don't bother with mount because your weight becomes to spread out among multiple points to get the desired affect.

If you have thoughts or questions don't hesitate to message me.