EDIT: In response to something VF says below, the intent of this thread isn't "how do guard," but "how do progressive training regime for guard." I can get precise technical feedback at my academy. This thread is meant to help me figure out what to ask because I've noticed that I get better answers when I ask more informed questions.

---

I am a living, breathing cliché: the former wrestler who spent his first day at BJJ pinning white and blue belts in side control, then holding them there wondering "how do submission?" And, of course, whenever I ended up on the bottom I'd either bridge out of it (if on my back) or duck walk up to my feet (if he tried to take my back). Things have improved a bit, but my game has remained entirely topside.

My coach recently said (imagine Marcelo's smiling face and Portuguese accent), "okay, Jack, I see you escape -- it's GOOD to escape -- but now you must stop to escape and learn fight from bottom." He went on to tell me he was the same coming from Judo when he started, that he understands it's hard at first, but that I must start pulling guard and figure out how to make it work.

My question for you guys: what is the recommended progression for learning to play guard? Which are the bread and butter techniques, which drills should a guard n00b concentrate on first, and so forth. I want to make the foundations from which to become as technical as possible in the future, and I am a very patient and determined dude.

Thanks in advance.

Personally, I first learned to snatch half guard from all over the place. Then a couple of sweeps from there (climbing on the back and the old school being the most vital IMHO). Then how to threaten those to get to closed guard and sit up for the hip bump/kimura/guillotine. Then how to lie back down with him/break his posture and try for the omoplata, armbar and scissor sweep (you should also be able to triangle people here, though I can't). That's as far as I've got.

Mind you, since I still suck and don't have a working open guard, YMMV.

I don't know how long a "how-do guard" thread is going to live in DHS, but here is a list of closed guard techniques based off stuff other, much more knowledgeable grapplers have posted and my own notes. I use it all the time, as a semi-complete list of basics to work on from the bottom of closed guard. I'm sure some better grapplers will come along soon to add on to this list or tell me to **** off, but I'll just put it out there.

Sweeps when he kneels

Scissor sweep
Sit-up sweep
Pendulum sweep
Push sweep
Hook sweepSweeps when he stands up

Hip push/leg underhook sweep
Handstand sweepTaking the back

Armdrag
Duck under and climbSubmissions

Armbar
Triangle
Omoplata
Kimura
Guillotine
Cross-collar choke (gi-only)
Arm triangleBreaking posture

Knee pulls
Sitting up and pulling him down
Getting his hands off your torso and onto the floor
Pulling his elbows out to the side
Breaking your opponent's grips on your gi
Using ties to control your opponent - underhook, overhook, collar tie, wrist control, leg underhook
Using gi grips to control your opponent - wrist, elbow, same-side collar, cross-collar
Walking your legs up to high guardOther
Bailing to open guardA few suggested combinations for drilling:
armbar/triangle/omoplata/pendulum sweep
kimura/guillotine/sit-up sweep
scissor sweep/cross choke/sit-up sweep/scissor sweep

Breaking posture is the requirement for anything to work in closed guard. Keep your hips moving and never have a passive moment - like with everything else, always be imposing your game on him, rather than the other way around. As always, throw attacks in combination, rather than one at a time.

If you're coming from a wrestling background, you should be mindful to work on your guard, and not bail out to your knees when things start going a little south in training. While you'll get passed more at first, your defense will improve more for it later.

That being said...you're training under the best grappler in the world, dude. I'm pretty sure he can give you a hand with your guard work.

[ ... bunch of helpful stuff ... ]

Thanks! That was just the sort of thing I was hoping for.


That being said...you're training under the best grappler in the world, dude. I'm pretty sure he can give you a hand with your guard work.

The academy is set up in a funny way. There are no beginning/intermediate/advanced classes or anything, it's just everyone together training the Move of the Day, then rolling. This is, in many ways, awesome. For instance, I get thrown into the shark tank with nationally ranked purples and browns at every class, which is fantastic experience. OTOH, we have not during my time there drilled a simple armbar or triangle. This leads me to feel like I'm starting in the middle, lacking foundational basics that would help my game enormously.

Also, Marcelo's technical insight in incredible, but his answer to my general question of where to start with the guard is essentially "roll every day, pull guard, try things." Of course I'll do that, but I wanted to have some ideas for things to try. :smile:

Corner a bored looking purple or brown before or after class and ask him to teach you something basic. If you haven't really learned basic guard sweeps, let alone the armbar or triangle, you *need* to fix that and it's not like you need Marcelo to teach you those himself.

Even before subs/sweeps, I would recommend getting used to;

Recovering to closed guard from any bottom position. So give up full mount/side mount and then work back to your guard.

Breaking posture. Once they're in your closed guard, keep them broken down and off balance. Loads of ways to do this; head and arm control, pull on both arms at the elbows, crunch your knees to your chest, combinations of these etc...

Protecting against the pass. Let people open and start to pass your guard, then work to get back to full guard before they obtain a dominant position.

Even before subs/sweeps, I would recommend getting used to;

Recovering to closed guard from any bottom position. So give up full mount/side mount and then work back to your guard.

Breaking posture. Once they're in your closed guard, keep them broken down and off balance. Loads of ways to do this; head and arm control, pull on both arms at the elbows, crunch your knees to your chest, combinations of these etc...

Protecting against the pass. Let people open and start to pass your guard, then work to get back to full guard before they obtain a dominant position.

^^ what he said

It's no good finally learning how to do a flower sweep if every time you try to test it out you just get passed. You're not going to get a technique the first time you try it, you need reps. Having good guard recovery, maintenance, and posture control lets you get a lot of reps in to learn offensive techniques as well as being valuable in and of themselves.

Drill, drill and then do some more drills...you're supposed to know how to pull subs and reversals without even having to think about it that hard, without a moment's notice!

Drills:

Armbar from the bottom, do the hardest variation of the armbar and drill that stuff until your hips get sore
Triangle choke, that stuff will save you against your former wrestling buddies
One cool drill consists of you going from triangle to armbar and back again...that will "imprint" the technique on your mind and body, while teaching you to pass from one attack to the other without getting stuck on one desperate technique. This will unbalance your opponent and ruin his atempts to pass guard that easy. See a BARET YOSHIDA highlight to understand my advice.
Kimura from the bottom, it's unbelievable the amount of people that fall for that in white belt level, then try doing a reversal from a kimura atempt as a drill.


Drill the scissor reversal like crazy, the arm drag variation of the first reversal, the up(with one arm controled), etc

And learn to unbalace your opponent from the closed guard, pull his lapels, the fabric on his arms, use your legs to pull him near you so his head gets close to your chest. That allows you to work your techniques...while keeping him blind sided. Some of the better chokes are done in that position. If he lifts his torso, open guard and armbar him.

Thanks! That was just the sort of thing I was hoping for.

This leads me to feel like I'm starting in the middle, lacking foundational basics that would help my game enormously.



I dont know how long you've been training but, I imagine it will eventually get back around to the more basic stuff since that is what 99% of people are doing 99% of the time.

I agree with RobT and Blue Negation

It is absolutely useless to have a laundry list of sweeps and submissions to attempt when it seems you have neglected your guard, and therefore the first thing that you should work on is guard maintenance. I will however add one refinement that helped me when I was in a similar situation to jackrusher's current conrundum in the past.

ALWAYS pull guard in training

Probably around 80-90% of the time in training, I will pull guard. Simply put, it's historically been the weakest part of my game (although currently I feel pretty balanced) and I want to work in at every opportunity I can get, thus I constantly try to get to the top game via sweep, or submit from the bottom. From the sounds of jackrusher's situation, I believe that will have a great impact on his guard game if continued long term. Note that this will be a remarkably frustrating but ultimately rewarding process.

Corner a bored looking purple or brown before or after class and ask him to teach you something basic.

Great advice, of course. I do this after each class. My intent here is to gather information with which to ask better questions.


Recovering to closed guard from any bottom position. So give up full mount/side mount and then work back to your guard.

Thanks for this. I usually reverse from the bottom without stopping at guard on the way (straight to mount or side control). I'll be more focused on getting to guard instead for the sake of practice. (It seems obvious now that you say it, but it hadn't occurred to me to do it).


Breaking posture.

This is going pretty well with helpful technical hints from various brown belts. The underhook/head control game is coming naturally, using my legs to control the other guy's hips is coming harder.


ALWAYS pull guard in training

This was Marcelo's advice, too. He observed that I often win the scramble when starting on my knees, thus ending in side control. He told me to just pull guard right away every time to force myself to work from that position.

Lastly, when I say that we haven't drilled the basic stuff in class, that doesn't mean that nobody has shown me the techniques. I always get some good stuff from higher belts during and after class, but it felt like I still lacked a sense of the overall skill set that I want to develop -- and most importantly, the order in which to learn it -- in order to be offensive from the guard (closed or open).

Thanks, guys.

What the people better than me said. Posture breaking and defending the pass.

Sample posture breaks:

-Kicking his hips/legs out from open or butterfly

-armdragging

-pumelling his hand to the mat for omo

-getting way under his hips from butterfly or half

-duckunder and pillow choke position

-neck control to rubber guard

passes to learn to defend (start out half passed):

-knee through

-dump

-leg binding

recoveries to drill:

-turtle, sit out to deep butterfly

-space and knee through

-walking backwards on your hands and spinning to get space

-pushing his knee back and recovering full guard from half

Thanks! That was just the sort of thing I was hoping for.



The academy is set up in a funny way. There are no beginning/intermediate/advanced classes or anything, it's just everyone together training the Move of the Day, then rolling. This is, in many ways, awesome. For instance, I get thrown into the shark tank with nationally ranked purples and browns at every class, which is fantastic experience. OTOH, we have not during my time there drilled a simple armbar or triangle. This leads me to feel like I'm starting in the middle, lacking foundational basics that would help my game enormously.

Also, Marcelo's technical insight in incredible, but his answer to my general question of where to start with the guard is essentially "roll every day, pull guard, try things." Of course I'll do that, but I wanted to have some ideas for things to try. :smile:

I had the same problem when I started. There was no beginner's program so after a while I was really good with some advance techniques but had never been taught the proper way to do certain techiques

If you need to practice offence from the guard master the triangle, armbar, guillotine and kimura

These take years to perfect but don't worry about omaplatas or complicated gi chokes. These are plenty for the time being.
Practice getting every bit of the technique right. The hand positioning, hips, and use of your legs.

The mistake I made was running before I could walk

Then learn to combine these to make combos of attacks on people

And for sweeps just focus on the hip bump sweep and maybe the push pull sweep (where you put your leg in their belly and grab their arm and with your other leg sweep them)

finally always control their posture. Don't let them sit up in your guard, and if they try and pass control them very carefully

So basically master the basic subs, and this should take you several months if not up to a year. Once you can perfect these and use them in sparring then you can add new stuff to your arsenal

A lot of good advice here, but one thing I haven't seen mentioned yet:

One of the biggest hurdles I see a lot of former wrestlers run into when they transition to BJJ is the totally different style of hip movement. Wrestling tends to be more vertical--bridging, hip switching, that sort of thing. BJJ tends to place greater emphasis on lateral hip movement, particularly shrimping. Some wrestlers can naturally adapt to this, some have a harder time. If you're having trouble moving from guard, particularly shooting your hips from side to side, or rolling about on the small of your back, focus on that first. Drill elbow escapes and regaining guard from disadvantageous positions. Have a partner sit in your guard and work on breaking their posture in tandem with scooting your hips about. Don't move unnecessarily; always have a goal in mind, like scooting your butt away to begin a scissor sweep, or shooting your hips far out to the side to take the back. There are virtually no sweeps, escapes, or submissions in the BJJ lexicon that don't involve some degree of movement.

Your movement is one of those things that'll never be good enough, but once you feel comfortable moving on your back you'll find advancing to sweeps and submissions much easier.

From a defensive standpoint, pay especial attention to breaking posture. Tons of great methods have already been brought up in this thread, and from them you now have a reference point to ask your teacher more specific questions. I don't have much to add in the way of additional techniques, but I would like to add this general advice: Use your arms in conjunction with your legs. If your opponent is grabbing your pants, don't just grab his hand and try to rip it off. Rock your hips forward, grip his elbow, rock back as you pull. If his hands are in your ribs, curl up into him, swim both arms inside, and use your legs to rock him forward. Trying to use your limbs individually is a common yet easily remedied white belt mistake.

Stay away from Eddie Bravo. Stay far, far away from Eddie Bravo until you are at least a blue belt. Even then, tread carefully.

You're training directly under Marcelo Garcia, who I understand is kind of good, and I'm guessing his philosophy on guard progression is different from mine. I'm a pretty staunch traditionalist. I think a student should begin with closed guard, then learn three fundamental half guard escapes (reguard, get to the knees, take the back), then progress to spider/butterfly guard. More exotic guard variants, such as x-guard, crab guard, and rubber guard, should be reserved for more advanced students. Marcelo, I assume, is probably more comfortable teaching more nontraditional open guard work to new students. Seeing as how he's one of the best grapplers in the world, I'm not going to say he's wrong, but the way I see it, most students have an easier time grasping the mechanics of closed guard before they understand open.

Don't listen to PointyShinyBurn. He's a retard.

Don't listen to PointyShinyBurn. He's a retard.Bears repeating.

Bears repeating.

The guy I most wanted to hear from, and this is all you've got? :smile: