Essential No-Gi Grappling Terms for Beginners

Every sport has its own language, and grappling has more than most. You do not need to memorise any of it — you will absorb it on the mat — but knowing the handful of words below means a coach’s instructions make sense from your first session. This is the beginner’s shortlist; the full glossary defines every term in the sport, mechanically.

The words you’ll hear first

The tap — the signal that you give up: a clear tap on your partner (or the mat, or a verbal “tap”), after which they release immediately. It is the safety mechanism the whole sport runs on. Read tapping culture before anything else.
Rolling — live sparring. “Want to roll?” means “want to spar?” It is training at resistance, not a fight.
Submission — a choke or joint lock that forces the tap. Finishing the match is “getting the submission” or “the finish.”

Positions

Guard — when you are on your back (or seated) with your legs between you and your opponent. In no-gi the guard is an attacking position, not a losing one. The common ones: closed guard, half guard, open guard, and butterfly guard.
Mount — sitting on your opponent’s torso; a highly dominant top position.
Side control — pinning your opponent from the side, chest to chest.
Back control / the back — chest to your opponent’s back with a seatbelt grip and hooks; the most dominant position in the sport.

Actions

Takedown — getting the fight from standing to the ground.
Sprawl — the core defence to a takedown: hips drop, legs back.
Passing — getting past your opponent’s legs from the top into a pin.
Sweep — reversing from the bottom so you end up on top.
Escape — getting out of a bad position back to safety.
Collar tie and wrist control — two of the body-based grips that replace the fabric grips of the gi.

The leg game

Leg entanglement / ashi-garami — the family of positions used to control a leg and set up leg locks; central to no-gi. See leg entanglements.
Heel hook — the highest-risk leg submission, gated away from beginners for good reason — see are heel hooks dangerous?

Common submissions

Rear naked choke — the classic strangle from the back; often the first finish a beginner learns.
Armbar — hyperextending the elbow with your hips.
Kimura — a shoulder lock using a figure-four grip.
Triangle — strangling with the legs around the neck and one arm.

That is enough to follow along. When you hear a word you do not know, the glossary has it — every term defined the same mechanical way the rest of the site is. New here? Head back to the start hub, or see the positions every beginner should know for the map those terms sit on.