Improve your pinning by focusing on your opponents elbows: It's always a good feeling when you get to a strong pinning position on an opponent, but it will be a much better feeling if you go beyond the basic pin and start focusing on controlling his elbows in addition to the basic position. Most of your opponents escapes and ability to survive from underneath a pin involve his elbow (there's a reason why they're called elbow escapes). If you take take his elbow out of position – either away from the torso, over his shoulder or towards his center line – you will greatly subvert his ability to escape, keep him flat on his back and set up your submissions so that you can use position to set up submission, rather than be satisfied with the pin alone. Here, nicky rod does a fine job of walking his opponents elbow out and away from the torso towards the shoulder line – this will make escape difficult and submission easy – the best goals you have have when asserting your pin control!
