What started and became popular in wrestling is now finding its way on the BJJ mat. I’m talking about the famous, or infamous depending on how you look at it, Nelson Hold. In wrestling, it’s all about pinning down the opponent. But as we’ll see, Nelson Holds are great when it comes to submission grappling in BJJ as well.
Whether it’s full, half, or quarter, the Nelson hold is one of the most ubiquitous techniques in the wrestling world. And in BJJ it’s also making its presence known because of the potential it holds for submission grappling in general.
So what’s the deal with this Nelson Hold? How many variations are there anyway? And why has it taken so long for BJJ to catch up and discover the potential in this ancient wrestling technique? We’ll answer all of these questions and more in this comprehensive guide. We’ll cover its history, get a little technical, and describe what makes it stand out, and then segue into the different variations and how to use them with maximum efficiency.
History of Nelson Holds
As far as names go, this one can’t be traced back to a concrete incident or person in history. Why was the Nelson Hold named like that? Or who was that Nelson? There’s no satisfying answer to any of these questions. However, if we dig deeper into wrestling folklore we might find a clue.
In the early nineteenth century, wrestlers used to talk about “putting the nelson” on someone. It was such a common term that street fighters would often use it to talk about their brawls. Since wrestling originated in Britain and crossed the pond with the first immigrants, then we can turn our gaze that way and look for a famous or semi-famous Nelson to fit the bill.
Horatio Nelson was a Vice-Admiral in the British fleet and he was the one that single-handedly put a stop to Napoleon Bonaparte’s dreams of adding Britain to his great empire. After the battle of Waterloo, the French armada was decimated, Nelson triumphed, and Napoleon never recovered from the defeat. Mind you, Nelson never went one on one with Napoleon nor was he known for his wrestling proclivities.
It’s easy to see why Nelson entered the cultural scene and took center place in people’s daily lives. Without him, Britain would probably be speaking French now along with the rest of Europe. So to use his name to a popular hold that even kids used in the street brawls seems like the least the Brits could do. And from there, the term traveled to the New World where it became a common name in American Folkstyle wrestling.
But why Nelson? What’s so special about this maneuver that made it survive the journey across the Atlantic, set roots in American soil, and grow in popularity that it too invades the streets, bars, and wrestling joints in the New World? The answer to that is as involved as the question itself. So let’s get up close and personal to the Nelson hold and see what makes it such a durable feature of the wrestling lore. In other words, let’s get technical and deconstruct this famous technique into its basic components.
The Technical Nitty-Gritty of Nelson Holds
So what is the nelson hold exactly? The first thing you need to be aware of is your body position and posture in relation to the opponent. To get a Nelson to work properly in your favor, make sure you’re in a perpendicular position. It’s true this is more specific to the half-nelson, but as we’ll see later, the half-nelson is the more popular of all the nelson varieties so much so that when you talk about nelson, most people would think of the half rather than full or quarter nelson.
To have a perpendicular position over your opponent on the mat is more suitable to BJJ rather than to wrestling. The rules in wrestling have changed but from a submission grappling point of view, this is your ideal posture. Whether you’re going on the offensive or assuming a defensive position, the nelson has got your back. How is that?
For one thing, when you’re on the defensive and you’re perpendicular to your opponent, that means you don’t have to worry about the rival tripping, rolling, or trapping. You’re perfectly safe from any of that and you’re fully prepared for what’s coming. As we all know, on the mat, a slight error of judgment can be detrimental to the whole match.
And if you’re on the offensive, then going head to head with the opponent allows you to execute the flank push most effectively. Just think about it. You’re both facing each other, and that leaves the opponent to your offensive since the nelson gives you much room to maneuver and take it wherever you want to go with it. As a result you can utilize your own weight as leverage which has many advantages.
The other thing that has contributed to the durability of nelson holds is the hand position. The underlying laws of the nelson hold is how you apply leverage. Your hand position can make or break the whole hold and either render it useless or lead you to the desired outcome of getting closer to a submission. Here you need to pay attention to two things.
The first is the opponent’s elbow. You need to apply as much force as possible near the elbow. The other is the top of the head. That’s where the second point of contact is and in many ways the one that really gives you full control over the opponent’s movement and whole posture.
An alternative is to work on the underarm and neck of the opponent. But that position doesn’t give you as much power as you hope and is easy for the opponent to weasel their way out of it as we will see later.
Whichever mechanical position you go for, always remember to go for the side nearest to you first. This paves the way for you to secure the other side as well. But if you reach out to the far side, you basically undermine your hold and allow the rival to escape without much difficulty. Not to mention that your stability and your own posture would be in question. You could easily trip or lose balance which backfires spectacularly.
If you keep all these points in mind when executing a nelson, your opponent will not be able to raise a defense that would reverse your hold and turn it against you as you undoubtedly have seen it happen many times before.
So what is the purpose of the nelson hold? Well, oftentimes it’s used for one of two goals.
- Positional control: This is by far the most common purpose of the nelson hold. You apply the hold to take control of your opponent’s position. The idea is by controlling the rival’s head, you also have their spine under your control which allows you to secure the whole abdomen area. How does that help? Well, you have many options when you have control over the spine and abdominal areas. You can force them down on the mat, control their movement as you plan your next move, or bring them underneath you. Each scenario ensures you have great advantage and gets you closer to a submission.
- Punishment: When you feel that your opponent is acting all cocky or have an edge energy-wise, you can use the nelson hold to put them back in their place or just exhaust them. As they struggle to escape the hold, they will use every extra reserve of energy in their body, which evens the field and allows you to subdue them and turn things around in your favor. Just think of how hard for them to breathe when you clamp their head down which cuts the oxygen supply to the head rendering their body limp and ready to submit.
Nelson Holds Varieties
Even though the rules of BJJ have rendered most of the varieties of the nelson hold rather redundant, we can still look at some of the wrestling versions for inspiration. In addition to all the benefits we detailed above when talking about the technical aspect of the nelson hold, it also provides some tactical advantages that you just can’t overlook or ignore.
For the purpose of our guide, the nelson hold has four varieties:
- Full nelson hold.
- Three quarter nelson hold.
- Half nelson hold.
- Quarter nelson hold.
We will focus here on the last two. The half nelson hold deserves a whole guide on its own since it’s the one widely practiced both in wrestling rings and on BJJ mats. The quarter nelson also has a lot to offer if you spend enough time to learn all its nuances.
Half Nelson
The thing about the half nelson is that it’s so versatile and gives you lots of power and leeway, you can perform it either from a standing position or on the mat. And the best part is, you can execute the move flawlessly from either position and take it to the desired outcome without much compromise.
What the half nelson lacks in control over the opponent’s body compared to the full nelson, it more than makes up for it in the mobility. You’re able to distribute your weight around to gain the most advantage and use your body as leverage. It also gives you many points of attack to focus on which means your opponent will be at a loss mounting up a defense since they don’t know how you will attack.
But that’s not all. The half nelson also allows you to launch your attack without ever losing your grip. It doesn’t get any better than that. While the opponent is physically restrained and totally under your control, you’re ready to make your move and launch an offensive that leads to submission. Put simply, the half nelson gives you a whole lot of dominant positions to choose from and surprise your almost defenseless opponent.
In general, the half nelson is often used for one of three possible goals.
- Pins: To say that the half nelson was designed with pinning in mind is an understatement. Everything about the half nelson calls for you to perform a pinning. In wrestling this works best in the turtle position where you apply the half nelson to pin the opponent’s stomach to the ground. In BJJ, you have the same option which means the turtled opponent is now open for an attack from the rear. Or you could pin them down in the turtle position without any ability to move. Just use your free arm to control the far hip of the opponent and you get yourself a strong hold over their body. Another option is to go for side control from the half nelson which leads to a secure pin as well.
- Transitions: It’s easy to transition from the half nelson. That underhook is all you need to transition to a back control. With the rival’s head and posture practically under your control you can virtually get control over the other arm and set yourself up for a great offensive. As with pins, all you need to do from the turtle position is to control the far hip and you can keep the rival motionless while you figure out your next move.
- Takedowns: As you will probably know it’s not easy to perform a takedown on your opponent from the top with a half nelson. So what you’re really trying to do is go the side and launch your offensive. You can do this by either a duck drag or pushing an arm under the body of the opponent. However, it’s taking the fight to the ground that really makes the half nelson almost indispensable in every student’s repertoire. This is true for rear locks when the half nelson is the go-to technique to get down to the ground quickly.
Quarter Nelson
If the half nelson was the backbone of most wrestling moves, in BJJ, it’s the quarter nelson that really gets you where you want to go especially for the purposes of submission grappling. The reason has to do with the differences between wrestling and BJJ in their definition of the turtle position or “hands and knees”.
In that position, the head and spine form a straight line and the eyes of the opponent is straight at the floor. However, new variations mean the head sometimes goes up and breaks the line forming from the spine to the head. It’s a subtle difference but has a great impact on the application of the quarter nelson in BJJ. In what way?
For one thing, the quarter nelson is really effective when you have full control over the back of the head. But if the head moves up, that means you lose control over that region which renders the quarter nelson less effective. However, with submission grappling where you can strangle the opponent, then bringing the head up doesn’t really affect the power of the quarter nelson.
That means that you can use the quarter nelson as part of a whole bunch of offensive strategies that give you a huge advantage. To be honest, of all the four nelson holds, this is the least vulnerable. The reason being the near arm is not all the way under the opponent’s arm which allows you much leeway to move it around and change your weight.
In other words, as long as you keep a safe distance, there’s no risk the opponent could reverse this position and get you under their control. What’s more, even if the opponent manages to escape from the quarter nelson, he will not get much advantage out of that. He would either end up in a similarly bad position or one which is even worse.
The quarter nelson is such a rich and great technique that many variations of it exist today in practice. These include:
- Quarter-Nelson with a chin-hold. More often seen in professional wrestling although many local wrestling academies ban this practice because it’s too dangerous. Here, instead of gripping the head of the opponent, you go for the chin instead and secure their spine in that way. You can also turn the head away for more control and to apply more pressure on the spine.
- Quarter-Nelson with body scissors. This variation as the name describes is done with the legs scissoring the opponent’s body. Both are on the mat. It has been renamed as the power half nelson.
- Quarter-Nelson across the face. You apply the quarter nelson across the face with the opponent on the mat on their back and your arm that should secure their head goes instead for their face. Keep your forearm bearing downward for maximum impact and to secure the head and face in place.
Whether you prefer the half nelson, quarter nelson, or any other variation of the nelson hold, one thing is for sure, submission grappling has never been the same once the nelson hold has been introduced to the sport.