This next video is what I call a “Down-Hill” strategy to be played against a shorter opponent or anyone who’s aggressively putting themselves under you to shoot takedown attempts, or pushing you against a wall with a lower center of gravity.
The only real answer to this move series is to be ready to shoulder roll out of the Fig 4 front-Nelson and have a great guard game you’re totally confident with. Most wrestlers in MMA won’t have any answer for this brutal control, despite the fig 4 front Nelson being a standard wrestling position.
The use of the Uchi Mata to employ kuzushi dynamics to gain access to the front Nelson, then use the fig 4 to set up the FHL elbow-trap which leads to the Anaconda/D’Arce, Crucifix, or go-behind, is nearly unstoppable due to being a rapid series of very small increments of control (each of which is nearly unstoppable.)
The result is a very sticky web of controls that can’t be avoided by a shorter wrestler in an mma fight, and leads directly to submission or ground striking finish opportunities.
We call the Fig 4 front Nelson “one move to rule them all” because we see the FHL as the master-clinch position of grappling – the intersection of standing and ground, and between takedown defense and ground grappling offense. The Fig 4 Nelson allows us to break posture and force the FHL position, while the Uchi Mata (known as “The Throw of Kings” in Judo,) allows us to force the Fig 4 Nelson right from a simple standing over-hook, one of the most common and accessible grappling situations.

Here is the drill for the position setup of the Darce to Triangle-Mount pathway (Kazure-Kata-Gatame to Tate-Sangaku) from the opening Tachi-Waza (standup grappling). The “Hustle” standing FHL tilt-throw is a variation of Yoko-Te-Guruma (sideways-hand-wheel,) so we will name it “Kazure-Yoko-Te-Guruma” (“Side-Hand-Wheel Variation”) The drill-situation is to catch the opponent reaching for our leg and hit a kick-away snapdown to FHL capture with opportunistic timing. However, you should recognize that this is just the most simple situation to drill from. So, it is used as a place-holder to get the reps started but isn’t actually the most common situation. The most common situation in our team’s Tachi-Waza game is to use a combination of upper-body clinching with foot-sweeps and trips (Ashi-Waza) together with the snapdown-FHL capture to make the opportunistic timing happen intentionally and reliably. The 2nd most common situation to capture FHL is off of the Uchi-Mata or any other forward throw attempt when the opponent defends the throw by dropping their base or break down to a knee. The 3rd most common is by the opponent taking their weight and pressure off when they are trying to pass our guard, due to fearing a submission attempt, thus allowing a quick getup to FHL. And finally, an opponent will simply make a mistake and shoot or reach with bad form thus allowing us to sprawl them out to FHL but then stand up off their knees, nonetheless. This also happens in ground situations where we are passing and the opponent goes belly down and gives FHL to defend the pass in order to keep from being pinned on bottom – then immediately stands off their knees to quadrupedal position (“table topping”) to prevent the go-behind to backtake pathway. If we lack effective mechanisms to put the opponent back onto the mat when they attempt to stand out of our FHL, our game will leak out of that weakness. The opponent can stand out of our guard pass and sprawl-FHL takedown defense, so they will have nothing to fear with an escape route to fall back on. This move (and other takedowns/throws from standing FHL,) are essential for this reason. Once you have the move down in terms of initial learning stage, go through a drill series where you practice hitting the move from each of those situations.