I didn’t really read much of this thread but here are what i teach people having troubles with the guard as an offense.
A. Always laying flat on your back. This is bad. Your limiting your hip movement if your consantly stuck to the mat. Learn you lay on your sides and control them while still protecting yourself. Be almost like a constant waving ball. this will help your sweeps and set-ups. Plus it will make countering guard passes easier. Matt Thornton teaches a drill where a person stands and holds your ankles. Anytime he snaps your feet to the ground and they touch you sit up. When they come off the ground you go back to your back. Basically teaching if your feet are on the ground your off of it. If they are off the ground your on it.
B. Angles- Learning proper angles for your submissions will create more offense. When i attack on my armbars i make sure my head is close as hell to the opposite side knee of the arm i’m attacking. that gives me the proper angle and leverage to finish. try this drill.
Have a partner on top in your guard and we’re going to attack his right arm. now follow this count
Number 1. My feet go to his hips keeping tight to his ribs to prevent pull out. My Left hand grabs the top of his right forearm. My right hand goes across his throat and grabs the back of his right shoulder blade.
Number 2. Now using my left foot i push off his hip and take my head toward his left knee. While my right knee goes high under his left armpit. Grip stays the same. Now i’ve hit my 45 angle.
Number 3. Drag my left leg up his body never losing contact. Drag it across his face and overtop his head. Now pinch your heel down tight and take it towrd your ass making sure your not crossing your ankles.
Now look at your angle and you should finish your triangles same way.
C. Hips - Hip movement. Shrimps can be used offensively as well as a defense weapon. Constantly moving them will create better offense. Here are two drills i use
No hands in guard. Guy on bottom can’t use his hands. They must stay behind his head all the time. the top guy just tries to pass. He must fully pass with control then start back in guard.
Popping your hips drill. Do your basic triangle and armbars on a partner standing. So you have to pop up to put everything on. This should be done the same way when he is on the ground. Slam your hips into him.
D. Hooks - Learn to use your feet as two extra hands. It makes your guard ten times better if you can control their legs as if your where grabbing them. I always to teach to mirror my leg position to the upperbody hooks. If my left leg is overtop their back my left arm is overhooking their arm. If my left leg is underhooking their thigh my left are is under their armpit.
I have a drill for this but i may have to try and video tape it or get pictures to explain it.
I can testify to the above plan by mikus. I got that drill out of Renzo Gracie’s book and have been doing it at home. You’ll feel like a dork at first because without your hands, your guard will get passed really fast during the drill. But you’ll get the hang of it eventually, and it will really show in sparring when you can control someone with your lower body independently from my upper body. It has really helped my hip movement and the use of my legs.
And here is a term my instructor uses for people who get good at stuff like this:
MONKEY FEET (said with a Brazilian accent)
Chanting it will help you at the drill. I promise.
Oh yeah and don’t use the closed guard to prevent their pass while doing this drill. That defeats the whole point of it and does nothing but make you look like an idiot.
When you have your attacker in your guard, you need to put your left hand under his chin and push back, exposing his chest, then, you summon your chi into your right palm, onves you feel the distinct tingling sensation of chi enudating your right hand, you thrust it in a 45 deg angle at the point just under the left nipple of your attacker, thus crushing his 5th and 6th ribs, then you elbow him in the exact same place, sending the broken shards of bone into his heart cavity, causing his heart to explode.
Don’t forget to exhale.
This technqiues is know as “jut hara” in japanese and “tigers death palm” in chinese.
It must, obvioulsly, be used only as a last resort, the MA are not games.
I want to thank everyone in this thread. It made me think about my guard, and with the recommendations you guys gave, I had one of my best nights of sparring ever. Not to pick favors, but Boogyman’s words “MOVE YOUR HIPS!!!” was ringing in my head the whole night, and it helped me the most. Moving side to side really helped stay at good angles of attack, and especially helped me setup a bunch of hip-heist sweep attempts, which would become guillotines or kimuras if they resisted.
So, again, thanks everybody!
PS: I tried the “tigers death palm” but all I ended up doing is getting my hand stuck in their pants. Don’t ask how; I don’t know.
The more advanced guard guys (in non MMA anyways) sit up alot.When they open guard they do not stay flat.They use butterfly, half butterfly, rubber guard…the one where a foot is on the hip/upper thigh and that knee is in front of his shoulder.
There are good guard guys who use mostly close guard, these guys got long legs and SQUEEZE you, then try and climb you like a ladder to what is now called rubber guard.
Guys with shorter legs tend to use butterfly more looking to unbalance and sweep.
When I am struggling in a position I spend alot of time using it when facing lesser skilled guys.
If there is a guy in class you can sweep and submit, dont.
Sweep, mount, role back over.
Guard attacks arent like keylocks from mount or side, they gotta be fluid, flexible… And if you don’t see a sub don’t go for one.Get better position.
That is to say get your legs around his upper chest, get off to one side, or look for butterfly guard and overhooks.
We can’t see you grapple, so unfortunatly specific advice ain’t easy to give.
Move Move Move. Move your hips, use your arms, set your hooks. Dont be afraid to open the guard and switch things around, thats what I do. I HATE closed guard. I will go to open guard and sweep and submit all over, and if you start to pass on me, Im getting to my knees and fighting from there, this makes it tough for my opponent to get anything better than half guard.
You want your guard to get much better? Listen closely, this has helped my game jump more in a month than it had in 6 months prior. For the next MONTH, dont try any submissions from guard, none. Work your sweeps from open guard. People will pass, MANY times, over and over they will pass. Who cares, its training for a reason. Get your guard back, and open it, and work your sweeps. Nothing but sweeps, one month. You cant sweep someone from being flat on your back, and you cant stumble into a sweep like you can a submission, you have to move them, not just yourself.
Trust me on this, have a little faith: For the next month, in open grappling, you work nothing but sweeps from guard. As soon as you sweep them, pull them back into your guard, forget about keeping the good position, forget about trying to finish with a submission. Put them back in your guard.
Originally posted by Aesopian
PS: I tried the “tigers death palm” but all I ended up doing is getting my hand stuck in their pants. Don’t ask how; I don’t know.
I want to thank everyone again for this thread. It has helped me gratuitously improve my guard, and if my suspicions are correct, may have gotten me a blue belt in the near future. My instructor watched me spar with a visiting blue belt from another school and kept making comments about how active I was in the guard. At one point the guy stopped and made a comment about how exhausted he was in my guard. A couple blue belts watching kept cheering as I went after armbars from way outside. Afterwards the blue belt went and sat next to my dad to cool off and made a comment like “That kid’s gonna be dangerous. His armbars can come from a mile away.” All last week a lot of people have been telling me “You got really good all of the sudden.”
One thing I have going for me are really long, thin legs, so people have to go to much greater lengths (pun intended?) to uncross my ankles. People have a lot of trouble with standing passes or those annoying “knee up the ass” passes since I can usually keep my ankles together while scooting my hips all over the place. These legs are also how I can get away with armbars from way outside. I’ve also had a lot of success returning to half-guard from being on the bottom of north-south. I’m still trying to figure that one out.
Anyway, here’s some of my basic info to add to this thread:
Aeso’s Stupidly Simple Strategy: This is nothing revolutionary, but it’s pissed off all the blue belts I spar with so it’s solid gold in my book. Let’s say you have someone in your closed guard and have control of an arm. As he is rising from his knees to standing (for a standing guard pass), but before he can secure his balance, cross his arm over (so his hands are both on one side) and explosively yank him down and forwards with your legs. I do it like I want to land him above my head. I’m not super genius yet, so I don’t have any specific follow-up for this, but it leaves the person so off-balance and out of posture that I’ve had success escaping my hips and getting rear mount, or attacking their extended arms with kimuras, all sort of armbars, etc. If anything it’ll make someone curse your guard (as they do mine).
Nothing mind-blowing, but it works for me.
Can someone tell me a bit about the high guard? I’ve seen it referred to on different sites, and I’ve gathered that it’s just a closed guard that’s high on the shoulders. It’s made out to be some advanced strategy, so I ask what so special about it?
Originally posted by Aesopian Can someone tell me a bit about the high guard? I’ve seen it referred to on different sites, and I’ve gathered that it’s just a closed guard that’s high on the shoulders. It’s made out to be some advanced strategy, so I ask what so special about it?
I am no expert in BJJ but I would imagine the higher your guard is, the easier it is to transfer to a triangle. That is the only advantage I can see of the high guard.
Originally posted by Dark Majique I am no expert in BJJ but I would imagine the higher your guard is, the easier it is to transfer to a triangle. That is the only advantage I can see of the high guard.
Or armbar, we train the high guard triangle/armbar at me gym alot. It’s also good because it helps to keep them from sitting up as easily.
Triangles, armbars, shoulderlocks, sweeps… I personally like to mix-up my guard game, ie; I’ll play a high guard with a wrestler (watch-out for footlocks!!!) because they try to use thier hips against you. For those of you not in the know, a high guard pulls the opponent down to you/and forces them to bend at the waist. Anyway, try getting HG then pulling one of your ankles over his head (diff. to explain/easy to show) this will force him to either drive his head into you (sets up the sweep/taking the back/armbars/etc…) or pull away from you (sets up more sweeps/or armbars/or omoplatas/or…). With the Gi there are a few more options (like chokes, etc.) without it your kinda limited to a certain # of things that are viable. The movement Aesopian is talking about is good to set up armbars, etc. , if you want to sweep (the same way) just grab the head (as if to do an armbar on the side you pulled across) and hug it to your upper chest, angle off (sharply) then scoop the same side leg and throw it over his head. You will end up in the mount, then…well you get the pic. Give it a shot, and GL!!!
Aesopian
Thank you very much, I am glad it helped you out. Also, get used to moving those hips, you have a leverage advantage in being tall, but you have to get your opponent to move where you want them to, or move yourself into position for the sweep.
I’m about 6’2" (maybe closer to 6’3") and weight 158 lbs. on a good day. I couldn’t break 150 lbs. before I started BJJ no matter how much I stuffed my face. In preparation for a tournament, I informally weighed myself last night with a gi on and I just made 162 lbs. I am notoriously thin, with my Portuguese nickname meaning “tall and skinny”.
I can also do neat tricks like body triangle during rear mount, and I’m getting really good at returning to half guard from being sidemounted. Before I had a good guard, I usually found it getting passed to side control, so I have been using my long legs to grab theirs and pull them into half guard.
Here’s a story that illustrates what kind of stuff I can get away with due to my length:
I was sparring with another white belt when a blue belt comes walking around us making a “WTF?” face. From one side it looks like I’m on the bottom with guard, since I’m still pretty much face to face with the guy. Walking around the other side, the blue belt says “Wha’? You’re rear mounted!?” I had actually scooted my hips out and around enough to put both rear hooks in before I even had my upper body follow. I’ve been creeping people out lately by managing to get my rear hooks in from weird positions.
Because of my low weight I usually find myself on the bottom (I get bowled over), which works fine since I usually just end up playing guard anyway. Despite guard being my main game, I actually like the top game – I’m just not very good at it. I try not to just blantantly pull guard, and try for top positions first, but I usually find myself on the bottom anyway. I am trying to work on my open guard, but I can get away with a lot in closed guard because of my long limbs. Besides my long legs, I’ve had people complain about my long arms, because they feel like they can’t ever pull out enough to escape my grip on their lapels, neck, arms, etc.
As for guard preference and body type, I’ve found that tall people like me do a lot of closed and spider guard stuff, while short or rounder people go work from butterfly and lower open guards.
Another thing that has helped my guard game is drilling transitions between guards. Here’s an informal breakdown of how I operate, with regards to guards, to give you an idea of what I mean:
When someone is passing my closed guard and I feel my ankle uncrossing and I get that “Oh no!” feeling, I drop to spider guard.
When I’m in spider guard and I feel my foot coming off his hip, I go “Oh no!” and switch to De la Riva.
From De la Riva, if I feel them passing this, I can usually end up in half guard, even if I get side mounted first.
From half guard, I am pretty good at getting to butterfly, full guard or rear mount.
If I get to butterfly, I suck, so I usually end up going back to closed guard.
Of course, there are many more options than these. The above is just what I use a lot of the time, and I wanted to use it to illustrate that one of the successful actions I’ve taken is practicing and using transitions between multiple guards.
Ideally, at all these different guards I’d be going for sweeps or submission instead of just resorting to another guard, but this was just to explain what I do when a certain guard is failing despite my best wishes.
I will say that I really surprised a purple belt by dropping to De la Riva and going for a sweep I don’t think he’d ever seen make its way into sparring before. It was my turn to make someone pull an “Oh no!” face.
I also have had a lot of success from the half guard. Maybe people are just nice to me because I’m new, but I’ve been making a lot of blue belts go “WTF!” by going from side mount to half guard to rear mount.
“I, for example, like to play the weave game with a low guard and scooting side to side so I can get standing or pull a suprise elevator sweep as a counter to a second drive. I’ll even force a higher guard pass so I can possibly create a small hole and come out the other side.”-omega
cool, I like to switch my guard up as well. If The guy is fast, I’ll play more open/spider. Strong, I’ll opt for more of a switch/sweeping movement.
You shoot for the feet huh? Spin them out from the high guard and go for the kneebar/heelhook/figure 4. Good moves. Tough to counter too, thanks, have to keep that in mind.
In my experience it is better for bigger guys to use a “lower” type guard. The main thing i see with bigger guys is their stiff movement. Most of this comes not from their size but they try to do everything with their back on the mat. They need to work on moving their backs off the mat and using their hips. I train with a guy who is 6’3" or so and like 240 and he moves like a 150 pounder on the ground.