BJJ / Grappling tips: How to Open the Closed Guard by Standing

From "Becoming the Supple Leopard"

While I've never been a Cross-fitter (besides stealing a couple of Workout-Of-the-Day off their website here and there), this paragraph out of Kelly Starrett's book "Becoming the Supple Leopard" really resonated with the martial artist and teacher in me.

Most judo or Jiujitsu sessions I attend, whether at EKBJJ HQ, New School BJJ, Tokei Martial Arts or the Budokwai (or any other academy I happen to visit) will easily exceed 25 attendees. Most of these academies hold 10-14 such sessions each week and are open an average of 48-50 weeks a year. This alone means that each year, each one of these academies / dojo / gyms will facilitate 12,000-17,500 athlete training sessions. Each year!

So if an academy has been in business for say 10 years, that translates to 120,000-175,000 athlete training sessions.

BJJ / Grappling tips: Passing the half guard: Dealing with the Underhook

The half guard used to be viewed as a position of weakness, especially if strikes are available as a weapon. Partly, the top player is almost past the guard players defenses and partly it allows the top player to lock the bottom player's hips in place and deliver damage.

Naturally, the half guard player has many attacks at their disposal and by becoming a subject matter expert within that narrow field, they can learn to manipulate the top fighter's weight and sweep, submit or take their back. To stop them, we need to first neutralize their most valuable asset: The underhook.

Picture courtesy of grapplearts.com 

The best option to defend the underhook is to have the underhook first. The half guard will not suddenly materialize out of thin air so anticipate your opponent's intentions to steal it and get there first.

If, however, they get there before you, here's a strategy that my professor, Mr Eddie Kone, learnt from his teacher Master Royler Gracie that has given me much success over the years.

and you can see the same technique explained by legendary jiujitsu fighter Sensei Saulo Ribeiro:

Lineage in the Martial Arts is something I am very passionate about, for this simple reason. No man is an island and we are all connected. Use this technique to re-gain the underhook from the half guard top.

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ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Check for more resources on Amazon.com:

BJJ Tips: Opening the Closed Guard - a Gracie Humaita approach

https://ekbjj.wordpress.com/

In a recent post, I showcased the way my teacher Mr Eddie Kone passes the closed guard over the legs. A lot of people read, watched and liked that article and the video that came with it. Many, however asked questions regarding the way Eddie opens the guard, especially how to deal with an opponent who grips the lapel and sleeve, which is a very typical scenario in jiujitsu gi competition.

Eddie put together this quick video where I act as the training partner:

How to Open the Closed Guard:

BJJ: How to pass the closed guard - Old School Style!

Passing the closed guard is huge and very important part of Jiujitsu. In fact, there are many competitors who specialise in the guard pass: old school names like Rickson Gracie, Royler Gracie, Saulo Ribeiro and practically everyone on the Carlson Gracie Sr team plus new school names like Rodolfo Vieira and Leandro Lo. Even the rules of Jiujitsu competition recognise the importance of getting past the opponent's guard: 3 points. That's right. You don't get any points for the side control itself. You get three points for passing the opponent's guard, second only to the mount and back mount. 

I've always enjoyed both sides of the coin: playing guard and passing guard and while I appreciate the array of new techniques for both that are constantly cropping up everywhere I've always stuck to my mantra:

I don't have time to training variations. I therefore need to spend my limited mat time on:

1. Perfecting a small number of techniques from 1-2 positions

2. Perfecting ways to guide the game / match to these 1-2 positions

This is why my eyes perk up when I hear Jiujitsu teacher Eddie Kone say:

"We're going to spend the next month on the guard pass"

Not guard passes (multiple ways to pass). Not pass of guards (how to pass a variety of guard such as butterfly, closed, delariva...etc.). 

The guard pass.

We start in the opponent's closed guard. We neutralise their attacks. We open the guard while staying safe. We control and slowly but surely inch our way past the guard. The tightness is ridiculous. The pressure is generated before during and after is ridiculous. 

I'm talking about the kind of guard pass that makes the opponent TAP. 

BJJ / Grappling Tips: How to open / pass the closed guard

Guard-top work is a major topic within jiujitsu (Base and posture, Guard Opening…etc.). One of my favourite closed guard opening techniques is a standing one, where you use inwards knee pressure on the hips to lock them in position and, if you need it, reach the opposite arm back to open the much-weakened guard.


If you're not sure what I mean, here's an excellent instructional clip by Dean Lister:

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Guard passing - Advice from John Will - Getting the most out of each session.

Guard passing is the other side of the coin of guard recovery and I'd like to share a tip I got from Mr John Will: turn every grappling/BJJ session into a grappling/BJJ private. I don't mean that you should try to hog your instructor's attention for the duration of the session. That's neither fair nor feasible.

Rather, if you are focusing on your guard passing, keep your eyes open and look at what your partners and peers are doing. How do they pass but most importantly what keeps them from passing? Focus on grappling fundamentals like hip movement and hip control rather than the cartwheels and the attribute-driven passes. What are they doing with their hands and where are they touching their partner? Notice also that if someone keeps failing to pass guard then maybe the guard player is the one to watch and learn from.

BJJ tips: Lockdown Escapes by three experts

The recent Metamoris III main event between Eddie Bravo and Royler Gracie saw Eddie catch and control Royler's leg for a long time in a lower body entanglement / grip known as the Lockdown. The grip itself has been part of Judo for many years, but Eddie's innovative use of it allows him to not only hold his opponent but also move them, resulting in sweeps and a number of submissions.

The question is, how to break the lockdown and pass the half guard?

Here is what three Brazilian Jiu jitsu black belts had to say about it:

BJJ / Grappling Tips: Open Guard Passing with tips from Stephan Kesting, David Onuma and Rico Vieira

Pass the open guard!

Dealing with the open guard in jiujitsu is a challenge, but it's also an inescapable challenge. Without a guard passing game, there is no jiujitsu.

In this first video, Stephan Kesting of GrappleArts.com share his 4 top tips to passing any guard. These tips are:

1. Grip fight, Grip fight, Grip fight.
2. Don't be a one trick pony
3. Be fast for mobility or heavy for pressure
4. Stabilize the pass



Stephan is a great jiujitsu communicator and his words and video really sum up his valuable grappling advice very well.

BJJ tips: Using the belt or the tip of the gi jacket in passing the half guard pass

Almost 4 years ago I made this short video on a method of using the opponent's belt (or tip of the gi jacket for that matter) to trap the arm and facilitate the half guard pass:

BJJ / Grappling tips: How to pass the closed guard

Chris Haueter shows the importance of posture and weight distribution within the guard (amongst a million other BJJ gems!):



Saulo shows the way to open the closed guard:




Pedro Sauer guard pass, a funky method which relies on a slightly higher lapel control, as it brings the spine around more.



Lather, rinse and repeat until good. Nuff Said!

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ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

BJJ tips: Pressure, gravity and dominating from the top

Gravity should always be your friend in BJJ / Grappling whether you are on the top or the bottom, even in the standing phase, as I said in a previous post. I talked about the more unusual bottom application  and here are a few grappling concepts to consider regarding the top positions.
 

Never too young to start jiujitsu

Starting with what we said last time, about never really being fully under your opponent in the bottom position, I would like to reverse the roles and say that, when on top, you want your opponent flat under you. That applies whether you’re on top mount, side control, half guard, back mount or even knee ride. You achieve that by:

1. Preventing them from turning into you: There are many ways to do that. From cross face to pry bar to knee control but they all boil down to one thing: They are not allowed to freely look your way. Control the head or hips and the body will follow.
2. Preventing them from turning away from you*: Same situation here. The ways are many but the fundamental is that you want their shoulders or hips controlled
3. Play the physics game: Apply your weight directly through him. This can be done by following the simple formula for pressure:

Pressure = Force / Contact area In other words, pressure is how your force (your weight) is distributed over the contact area between you and the opponent. In order to increase your pressure you can:

1. Increase the force: No not gain weight but rather put more of your weight on him by anchoring properly and lifting your knees off the ground.
2. Decrease the contact area: Don’t just lie on your partner. Constantly find ways to turn and wedge to reduce how much of your chest is in contact with your partner.

The beauty of the above is that it can be practiced with or even without a partner. Just use a medicine ball, a training dummy or a Swiss ball. Get into Side control on a ball / dummy and play around. Your body will tell you when you exert more pressure on the ball because it will exert it back on you. Play with this and you will soon here the magic words from your training partners: “Man! How much do you weigh?”

That’s the receipt you want. Come on. Admit it!

*You could of course allow them to turn away and give you their back, but that’s another objective and it should still be done on your terms.

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ZHOO ZHITSU IS FOR EVERYONE!

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

BJJ Globetrotter Christian Graugart Seminar: Wrestling from Guard and Upper Body Control in Passing

Christian Graugart in a shiny white belt :)

Christian Graugart, aka the BJJ Globetrotter, visited the North West of England recently. He was here with his brother to watch the Manchester United v Manchester City football game and while he was in the area, he gave a seminar at my friend Carl Fisher’s place Combat Base up in neighbouring Bolton. I was invited and had a great time.

This is a very serious photo.
Check out Christian's awesome PTGrappler Patch!

I found out that Christian was taking the train from Manchester to Bolton so I hooked up with him and we had a very nice journey. He even paid for my train ticket (what? The machine only took card and I only had cash on me?!). Christian is as sincere and genuine as he comes across in his awesome book and is, as you can imagine, a man of a million stories and very clear opinions on friendship, BJJ politics and what is and what isn't bullshit :).

After we got picked up by Mr Fisher and got to his gym, Christian asked me if I thought he should roll at the seminar and I gave him my frank opinion: You’d be crazy to do it. He had just a couple of days prior got a very very serious eye injury (which forced him to spend his birthday at the eye hospital) where a spider guard player almost took his eye out with his toenail. In fact, Christian was wearing an eye patch to protect his uber light-sensitive eye (due to the eye drops). He still wanted to test the waters so him and I rolled a little bit to warm up and while he did pull me apart like a cooked chicken, we had to keep a very controlled pace which thankfully drove the point across to him that he shouldn't roll just yet.

He distracts you with the eye patch and the promise of a
friendly High Five then BOOM... You're staring at the ceiling!

Passing butterfly guard: Hook removal - Best way I've found to deal with butterfly or open guard hooks when attempting to pass

Passing guard in BJJ / Grappling is a difficult art to master. In a previous post, I talked about some of the wonderful sweeps and attacks you can get off the butterfly guard and to support it, I also put together a nice little 3 minute YouTube video which I called the best butterfly guard starting platform. There are a lot of fantastic videos out there on techniques from the butterfly guard by BJJ champions and other people who are far more qualified than me to teach them. There is, however, very little in the way of how to prepare and set up these attacks from the butterfly (also known as the hooks guard). The video I made is a simple drill that allows you to read the opponent’s energy and weight distribution so you can launch any one of the above mentioned attacks / sweep.

To my happy surprise, my 3 minute video has been quite a success with thousands of hits on YouTube! Very pleased with that indeed. If you haven’t seen it click here.

But how do you kill and pass the butterfly guard? All this energy around the butterfly guard attacks made me think about this particular technique I use to clear the hooks when attempting to pass. As I mention in the video, it’s a small adjustment but it makes quite a difference (for me, at least) as it allows me to pass a dynamic and agile opponent’s guard without needing much agility myself. Haha I’m so lazy!

I hope that helps get rid of one hook and isolate one leg. As for the techniques themselves that you can use to pass the butterfly guard there are, once again, many good videos out there but your first port of call should be your own instructor. Chances are, you already know a couple of good methods and all I did here was probably add a small piece to your jigsaw puzzle of “passing the guard” grappling game plan*.

If you are stuck for ideas, check out this awesome selection of butterfly guard passes by Gordo Jiu Jitsu black belt, and resident instructor at Connection Rio, Mr Dennis Asche, assisted by Sam Cannons. In fact, if you look at how Dennis isolates Sam’s right leg (while simultaneously removing his left hook) at 3:10 and think to yourself: “How the hell did he do that?” I want you to relax and simply try my lazy-person-method. When you’re all big and grown up the Dennis method will be a piece of cake**.

*if you like this and want more tips of grips and approach to passing the guard, check out this post. http://parttimegrappler.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/bjj-tips-passing-open-guard-grips-how.html

**Dennis uses a cross grip in the first pass. Easily visible at 2:18. I sure will be working on that one too!

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Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

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BJJ Tips: Passing open guard: Grips, How to approach and Where to put your hands

BJJ escalates very quickly. Approach a good guard player incorrectly and you open yourself to attacks, sweeps and takedowns you could live happily without. Allow your opponent to get advantageous grips on you and and a good one will make you pay. Before you know it, you've had your back taken and your tapping faster than a woodpecker.

In my opinion, Saulo Ribiero's first series "Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Revolution" does a fantastic job of introducing the subject of appraoch and grips when passing the guard. Saulo is a great instructor and his focus on correct fundamental jiu jitsu is sucha pleasure. If you are not sure what I mean by approach and in guard grip gighting have a look at the two videos below by Mr Ken Primola, Gracie Jiu jitsu black belt from the Relson Gracie lineage and an accomplished wrestler:


Grip fighting when approaching / passing guard: 



Hand placememnt on the hip when passing the guard: 



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Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

Proudly sponsored by Predator Fightwear: Built for the kill and Brutal TShirt: Made By Grapplers For Fighters

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BJJ Tips: Details are key and a guard opening technique by Pedro Sauer black belt Mr Keith Owen.

One of the best things about BJJ is that I can train with my brother. He's a wonderful 16 year old and thanks to sharing this interest, I get to spend a couple of hours with him grappling on the mat every Friday.

He came down to our Wednesday BJJ Fundamentals session last week and was paired with one Mike, one of our top notch players. I noticed that Mike was drilling and resisting at the appropriate level for both of them to get a great session and practice their jiu jitsu skills against progressive resistance so I left them to it.

When I caught with Sam on the Friday following, he gave me one of the best compliments a BJJ instructor could get:

BJJ / Grappling Techniques: Taking the back from passing the guard

BJJ belts and belt ceremonies are a much discussed and controversial topic, but I must say I love this quote from BJJ Heroes:

"In his usual spirits, the charismatic Master Carlson liked to surprise his students with the unexpected, and surprised Ricardo Cavalcanti was indeed when he received his black belt outside a steak house in Barra (Rio de Janeiro) after a fine meal."

Imagine that! "How about that T-bone? Here's your black belt by the way!"

In this clip, Ricardo shows a transition from stack passing the guard to taking the back and finishing with a gi choke. Whether this particular guard passing strategy become a staple of your BJJ diet, pinning the arm with your knee is definitely a strategy I'm going to experiment with now! Enjoy.




Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

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BJJ / Grappling tips: Guard passing

Guard passing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a vital skill. If you are struggling to pass the guard in this or any form of grappling, that's an area you need to work on (a clever way to say we all need to work on guard passing!)

From a conceptual point of view, passing the (closed) guard can be broken down into these major areas:

1. Base and Posture
2. Open the guard safely
3. Control the legs
4. Control the hips
5. Lock the upper body*
6. Pass over or under the leg

As you can see, the above are not specific techniques, but rather stages of the fight (and believe me it is a fight) to pass the guard. Within each, there are postures (ways to place your arms, legs, hips and even head) that afford us a number of pressures (both by you and by your opponent) which in turn present a whole range of possibilities of how to move on to the next stage of guard passing (e.g. from opening the guard to controlling the legs)

Every technique to pass the guard whether in BJJ or grappling is simply specific PPP within the above list of stages. I invite you to look at the passes you know (or even new ones that you learn) thru the lens of 3P:

1. Break it down into the different stages listed above
2. Within each stage, identify the posture, the pressures and the possibility**

Here is a nice example posted by YouTube BJJ sensation Mr Ken Primola, Division 1 wrestler and Gracie Jiu Jitsu black belt under Relson Gracie thru Phil and Ricardo Migliarese.




I encourage you to visit Ken's YouTube channel and subscribing to his videos.

*Locking the upper body can sometimes come after passing over or under the leg (such as during a toreador or bullfighter pass.
**I say "possibility" but to be honest, nothing stops you from extrapolating and coming up with your own "possibilities" once you've understood and practiced the postures and pressures that lead to them.

Liam "The Part Time Grappler" Wandi

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BJJ Tips: How to Open the Guard from Standing

In this post, I will show you two versions of the same closed guard opening in BJJ.

The ever fantastic resource of BJJ and Grappling, and friend of the Part Time Grappler Blog, Mr Stephan Kesting consults with Numerous World BJJ, MMA and ADCC champion Vitor "Shaolin" Ribeiro on guard passing in a video called "A BJJ World Champion's Perspective on Guard Passing"*. The discussion between the two is worth gold, but I'll leave it to you to watch and take what you take. What really caught my attention was a small move Shaolin did at 6min 44 sec which immediately solved a problem I've been having with opening the closed guard from standing. Can you spot what I'm talking about?

BJJ Tips: Base and Posture inside the Guard

It is fair to say that having good base and posture when inside the guard is one of the most important, if not the most important details or "concepts" for survival within and progressively opening and, eventually, passing the guard.

"there is never a reason to look at your partner inside the guard"

Where do I get the right to prioritize and label what does and doesn't crack the top priorities? I have a simple formula which I’m happy to update:

If everyone does it, it’s done right at the start and the consequences of ignoring it are dire then chances are it’s pretty important.

As a Part Time Grappler I always seek to find the most basic adjustments because they have a habit of giving me the most Return On Investment (ROI) and let’s be honest, with training only 3-4 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu / Grappling sessions per week, that’s all I can afford to focus on. Here are my ideas on the Base and Posture inside the guard.

Base:

1. Knees wide apart but feet close.

2. Sit your butt down.

3. Stay alive and monitor your partner's hip movement and other attempts to circle around you.

Posture:

1. Look at the ceiling. Literally, not figuratively.

2. Create a straight arm* (elbow pointing down, not out) frame against their chest.

3. Stay alive and monitor your partner’s grips and other attempts to break you down.

There are many other ways to play Base and Posture inside the closed guard and I use some of them every now and again but the above is what I do 90% of the time.

Here’s my Return On Investment (ROI):

Base:
1. They can’t sweep, reverse or topple me easily.
2. I stay connected to them and keep a low centre of gravity
3. They can’t take my back nor set up attacks easily.

Posture:

1. They can’t establish head / neck control easily

2. They can’t sit up into me for a hip-bump sweep easily

3. They can’t get set easily and I can set up my own next step (opening their guard)

As you can see, this means I’m relatively safe and ready to progress while they are 2-3 steps behind.

"I wonder what distracted Thomas so he left his elbow dangling like that?"

*Cane Prevost does a much better job than me at explaining his take on Base and Posture in the guard. I say his take because there are a couple tiny differences in the outwardly expression of the concepts but if you look closely you'll see that his version gives him the same ROI mine does, it's just done slightly differently. Funnily enough, someone commented on his blog with a link to a Saulo clip which looks a bit more like what I (badly) seem to emulate.

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The Fastest Way to Learn BJJ / Grappling

Last Monday, one of our up and coming BJJ white belts said to me: why do you place more importance on awareness than on techniques? I was very chuffed to hear that of course (it means somebody is reading this blog). The reason to me is quite simple: I do it because I'm a part timer and you learn, at least, twice as much by working your awareness than when you are hunting particular techniques.

What I mean by that is I don't pay too much attention to memorising exact sequences of limb placement and call them a pass, sweep or submission. Instead, I learn and practice the fundamental postures and pressures that make or break the position and take it from there.

For example, I don't always cross the arm when I'm triangle choking my partner. The make-it-or break it detail is to close their arteries with my hamstrings on one side and their shoulder on the other and that's the posture and pressure I focus on achieving.

What do I mean when I say that I learn more BJJ faster this way? What I'm referring to is those translatable fundamental postures and pressures. I've said many times that most of what works in e.g. mount will work in guard and Martyn always tries to link ground work to wrestling against the cage wall. So rather than learn 12 ways to pass the open guard I'd rather work on the safe way to approach someone's open guard, the postured that will put them at a relative disadvantage and start feeding them pressures from an advantageous position.

The beautiful thing is, if I lather, rinse and repeat I will quickly end up learning all those aforementioned 12 passes without consciously trying AND those fundamental postures and pressures will translate automatically into better mount escapes and back takes! Double BJJ bonus!

I'm a part time grappler. I've got stuff to do. I'm outta here!

Now remember the Crazy Ass Design Your Dream BJJ Gi Challenge available here: http://crazy-ass-bjj-gi-challenge.blogspot.com/

There are already some awesome ideas on it. Go there, download the blank canvas and give it your most creative of juices!

You too could be the proud winner!!!

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