Three-Quarter Mount

Last updated: June 12, 2026

What is the three-quarter mount?

The three-quarter mount, usually written as 3/4 mount and occasionally called half mount, is the in-between stage that separates top half guard from full mount. The top player is already seated on the bottom player’s torso. Everything looks like a finished mount except for one detail: the bottom player has caught the top player’s foot or ankle between their legs and won’t release it.

Grapplers land here in two common ways. A guard passer working from top half guard brings their knee across the body, but can’t pull the trailing foot through. Alternatively, a bottom player partly escapes full mount and snags a foot on the way out.

Either route produces the same standoff. Evolve University describes it as an “almost” position, since the mount is nearly established, but the trapped heel stops the top player from settling into a full pin.

That one caught foot decides whether the pass counts as complete, which is why both players treat the position as unfinished business.

How the position works

From the top, the position behaves much like a regular mount. The player can base out wide and start hunting for grips on the head and arms. What they cannot do is relax, because the trapped foot keeps the pass technically incomplete and hands the bottom player a tool to rebuild with.

The bottom player almost always turns toward the side of the trapped foot. Framing on the hips, an approach Lachlan Giles teaches for this exact spot, buys the space to work, while keeping the elbow and knee connected on that side denies the underhook (an arm threaded under the opponent’s armpit). From there, the goal is to feed the top player’s knee back into the space between the legs, which restores half guard.

BJJ Fanatics points out that gravity sides with the top player here: body weight pins the top knee to the mat, so prying it loose takes patience.

The top player works in the opposite direction, peeling the foot free with a cross face (a shoulder or forearm driven across the jaw to turn the head) or stepping the free leg over to a backstep. Whoever wins the fight over that single foot usually decides where the exchange ends: full mount or the back for the top player, half guard for the bottom.

Three-quarter mount vs. similar positions

Most searches for this term come from confusion. BJJ has a small family of positions defined by a partly trapped leg, and commentators use the names loosely. The table separates them.

Position	What the legs are doing	Who it favors
Full mount	Top player sits on the torso with both legs free	Top player
Three quarter mount	Top player is mounted, but one foot is caught between the bottom player’s legs	Top player, though the pass is incomplete
Half guard	Bottom player controls one whole leg before the knee crosses the body	Contested
Quarter guard	Bottom player holds only the ankle as the opponent slices toward side control	Contested

The half guard comparison trips people up most. In half guard, the top player’s knee has not yet crossed over the bottom player’s body, and the bottom player wraps the whole leg. In 3/4 mount, the knee has already crossed, the player is seated on the torso, and only the foot is missing.

Quarter guard is the side control cousin of the same idea: the bottom player clings to an ankle while the opponent finishes a knee slice pass (a pass where the knee cuts diagonally across the bottom player’s thigh). BJJ World draws the link directly, treating the 3/4 mount as the quarter guard’s mounted twin, with the same trapped ankle under a different top position.

How it scores in competition

Under IBJJF rules, the three-quarter mount itself scores nothing. The rulebook awards 4 points for mount only when the athlete is clear of the half guard, and its observation clause withholds mount points while the top player’s feet or knees rest on the opponent’s leg. A trapped foot fails that test.

The flip side is that clearing the foot can pay out twice. A player who frees the ankle during a half guard passing sequence and then stabilizes the mount for 3 seconds collects 3 points for the guard pass plus 4 for the mount.

BJJ World describes that 7-point swing as the prize for solving the position. For the bottom player, the math runs in reverse: holding that foot separates conceding 7 points from conceding none.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is three-quarter mount good for the bottom player?

No. It is a defensive layer rather than a guard worth choosing on purpose. It delays the full mount and keeps a route back to half guard open, but the bottom player is losing the positional exchange while stuck there.

Is three-quarter mount the same as quarter guard?

They differ in where the opponent is headed. In quarter guard, the opponent is moving toward side control, usually mid knee slice. In three-quarter mount, the opponent is already seated in mount with only one foot left to free.

Why is it called three quarter mount?

The name describes how complete the mount is. The top player owns roughly three-quarters of the position, and the single trapped foot is the missing quarter.

What else is the position called?

Most grapplers write it as 3/4 mount. A smaller group says half mount, which invites mix-ups with half guard, so the fraction name has stuck as the clearer label.

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Sources

1. International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation. “Rules of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.” Accessed June 12, 2026.
   https://ibjjf.com/books-videos
2. Evolve University. “A Simple Guide to Understanding the 3/4 Mount Position in BJJ.” Accessed June 12, 2026.
   https://evolve-university.com/blog/a-simple-guide-to-understanding-the-3-4-mount-position-in-bjj/
3. BJJ Fanatics. “Dealing With Three Quarter Mount.” Accessed June 12, 2026.
   https://bjjfanatics.com/blogs/news/dealing-with-three-quarter-mount
4. BJJ World. “Pass the 3/4 Mount in BJJ With an Unusual Knee Slice.” Accessed June 12, 2026.
   https://bjj-world.com/pass-the-%C2%BE-mount-in-bjj-with-an-unusual-knee-slice/
5. BJJ World. “Quarter Guard: The Final Frontier of BJJ Guard.” Accessed June 12, 2026.
   https://bjj-world.com/quarter-guard-final-frontier/
6. GrapplePages. “Three Quarter Mount.” Accessed June 12, 2026.
   https://www.grapplepages.com/move/1/Three-quarter-mount

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