Back Escape Playbook

Mat Manual companion guide to "Your Back Is Taken. Now What?" Print it. The article teaches defence in its real order: hands first, the choke-side hook, the shoulder-to-mat slide, and the turn in. This book builds that order as gated training: the tap as a drilled skill, hand-fight standards before hook work, hook-clearing progressions at rising resistance, both exits carded, and positional-sparring gates that start at defence-only rounds and earn resistance upward. Trackers log every escape by the step where defence broke down.

Name: ______________________________ Academy: ______________________________ Belt: ______________ Start date: ______________ Choke side you defend better (circle): Left / Right Current week: ______________

BEFORE ANYTHING: SAFETY, CHOKES, AND THE TAP ☐ Tap early and often, and treat the tap as a technique in this book. From the back, hands may be trapped: verbal taps and foot stomps on the mat count instantly, and the attacker releases on any signal or any sound of distress, no questions. ☐ Tapping to a sunk choke is the correct technique, not the failure of one. It is scored as correct play in this book's rounds, and no defender is ever coached, teased, or graded down for tapping at the right moment. ☐ Chokes in drilling are applied slowly, with slack removed before any squeeze, and released the moment a tap begins. Control before submission governs every rep, for the attacker's hands especially. ☐ Blood, not twist: if a defender's head is turned hard inside a closing choke, the finish stops and the angle resets. Nobody trains through a cranked neck, in either chair. ☐ No falling body weight onto a defender's neck or head during back takes, turns, or exits in this book. Every fall and slide is controlled and called during the learning stages. ☐ Defence is taught and drilled before finishes are live in any pairing using this book. Positional gates start at defence-only rounds, Part 16. That order is pass/fail.

Part 1: The Defence Order at a Glance

System law: the order does not change under pressure. A rep that skips a step and escapes anyway is logged as a scramble, not as an escape, and the skipped step is reassigned.