Half Guard Passing
Classic tripod pass:
Passing facing the legs:
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July 2021
Half Guard Recap
We spent a couple months working on half guard. This is a summary of what we covered. There are posts for most of the individual pieces if you want more details. Posts are tagged by position and sweep/pass/submission. https://halfguardlife.com/tag/half-guard/ will get you to all of the half guard posts.
Baseball Bat Choke
We haven’t really worked on this in class yet, but Eric had some questions about it one day, so I did some research. I had bookmarked these videos before I had this site to hold them for me. I’m sure we’ll get into this eventually. The defensive techniques have already helped me.
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Sao Paulo Pass
I still feel uncomfortable standing up in closed guard. The bottom guy has too much potential to mess with my limbs and base. The Sao Paulo pass is attractive to me who doesn’t feel great about my balance with the standing openings.
A few risks should be immediately apparent: triangles, omoplatas, sweeps. Beyond the submissions, it’s worth considering the details of leverage that the bottom guy would use to resist the pass.
Moves always seem great during demos. Everything is so much more complicated during an actual roll. Does this even work!?
Here are some matches with Leonardo Noguiera using this pass:
He tries it repeatedly in this match with Xande Ribeiro. Nogueira repeatedly opens Xande’s guard, but Xande recovers.
He used the pass on Buchecha:
Escape Closed Guard
Getting out of closed guard is tough.
Yeah, but won’t you get swept doing that!? Not necessarily:
For funsies, here’s Keenan dismissing the utility of a commonly taught guard opening approach. He concludes that Kesting’s move is the way to go. I think Kesting’s details are more helpful, but if you need a reason to give up the traditional knee in the butt approach, Keenan’s here for you:
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First Draft of a shirt
As you might guess by the aesthetics of this site, I’m not much of a designer. However, I do like silly t-shirts. Here’s one to celebrate getting up in the morning for some rolls:
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Octopus Half Guard Attacks
Some time ago I found that my half guard game was ruined when people passed by facing my legs. On top, I started using that approach myself. I have a lot of success passing half guard that way. These techniques described by Firas Zahabi are a good way to fight back.
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BJJ Philosophy
Here are some longer conversations about jiu jitsu, how to build a game from the ground up, and the value of half guard. It’s not just my own unqualified preference! Listen to John Danaher explain why he coaches his athletes to put themselves in half guard from both the top and the bottom. I find it to be the closest position to everything. Half guard is rarely more than one simple maneuver away. Because of that, I spent a lot of time there even before I wanted to. Then, I came to appreciate the way it slowed the game down and gave me an opportunity to keep up with younger, quicker opponents.
https://bernardofariaacademy.com/blog/ideal-game-old-grappler/
Abandoning Half Guard
Sometimes it’s just not working and you need to try something else. The most straightforward options are to elbow escape into full guard, or put hooks in to switch to a butterfly guard. Changing guard changes the value of upper body positions. The under hook and cross face utilized by a top half guard player become weaknesses when the top player ends up in butterfly or full guard.
I linked the same video below on the Escapes! page. The second elbow escape is performed from a half guard position and can be used whenever you want to add another .5 guards to your bottom position.
If you’re living that lockdown life in bottom half, the next video emphasizes the leg movements to abandon the lockdown half guard game to switch to butterfly.
The lifting movement shown in the next video appears to be pretty common in half guard instructional videos although it’s not a move I often use. The rest of the principles regarding framing are familiar and good though. I do really like that landing position. Before I fell in love with half guard, I was all about that over hook full guard. Parental discretion is advised for Kurt Osiander language.
I like the double elbow escape that Danaher demonstrations in his Half Guard Fundamentals instructional. I can’t find another example of that. After elbow escaping from half guard towards full guard, he elbow escapes a second time on the same side, this time to bring his knee above the top person’s shoulder. This results in a position with the top person pinched between the bottom player’s knees in a way that sets up easy triangles, omoplatas, kimuras, and arm bars.
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Bottom Half Kimuras
I’ve had a lot more success with the half butterfly sweep than with any of the variations that Lachlan Giles describes below. I’m also pretty complacent about my opponent grabbing the kimura grip as I pass their half guard on top. Lachlan Giles is a high level competitor though, so my differences in this position suggest I need to study it deeper. I regularly hit the arm bar that he says he used to fear but should never happen.
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