Guard 101

I'm going to start an analysis of the basic closed guard position and sweeps, submissions and combinations. If you don't know, the guard is defined as having your opponent between your legs, with you on the bottom. When I'm attacking from the guard, I can never let my opponent get his posture. When I'm teaching someone about posture in the guard, I like to have them think of a pyramid. The top of the pyramid is the opponent's head. His knees and feet make the four points that make up the base. As long as his head is in the middle of those points, he has good posture and is balanced. If he is balanced, I am at a disadvantage. I have to make sure he is out of balance, much like standup work in Judo. I never want him to be comfortable.

I've made a short video showing 3 different ways I break his posture. The video quality is not that great and the sound is weak so you may have to turn the volume up.

1st Example: In the first example, he has both hands posting on my stomach. I cannot sit up to attack his neck or even try armbars from this position because I cannot get close to him. My solution is to grab at his elbows with both hands and open them outward. This makes it very difficult for him to continue pushing me down. The next important thing is that I am using my legs and core to pull him forward. I'm using my strongest muscles to do the work. Once he's down, I control the head and wrap the arm which I will use to attack.

2nd Example: The next example shows where he would have one hand forward. My preferred method is to do an armdrag from here. This can be done in a few ways, but I am showing a rather basic way. I grab his right sleeve near the wrist with my right and my left hand is at his right elbow. The next step is actually a few things happening at once. I bridge my hips up to weaken his grip, move my hips to the left and use both my hands to move his arm to my right. I keep my weight on my right hand which puts the weight on him as I come to my elbow and eventually sit up so I can reach over his back. My left hand can grab his belt, lat or whatever I need to anchor the position. I like to grab his lat for training purposes so the manuever transitions well to a no-gi situation. The main thing from here is to attach myself to his right shoulder. If he tries to pull that arm back, I should have my whole body blocking it. I also reach through with my right hand and grab his left pant leg. Again, you have a few variations but that's just one I've shown.

3rd Example: I'm using a slightly fancy entry for this but the basics are still there. I start just like the last example, right hand on his right sleeve. This time, I swim my left arm under his right and bridge to my right shoulder. As I pull on his right hand with my right hand, my left arm continues around until I can overhook his arm. I keep my elbow down and tight to my body. From there I can use my right hand to feed his lapel to my left. I can't stay in this position because I don't have the best mobility if he decides to stack me. I shrimp my hips out to the side and use my legs again to push him to the ground. I can re-lock my guard or I can keep my feet on his hips, monitoring his movements.

These are 3 basic posture breaking scenarios. There are more, of course, but these are the ones that popped into my head when I was filming. I'll try to get a little more organized for the next few posts.