What to do when in this half guard position

**roly** · Posted On: 11/05/2006 8:22pm

training in bjj and judo, i find that i beat a few bjj people who are better than me because they refuse to let go of that lockdown

play around with letting go of the lockdown and trying different things. sure its risky but its better than doing nothing and just losing

edit: also listen to johnnys

**JohnnyS** · Posted On: 11/05/2006 8:37pm

Hedgehogey, I understand what you're saying but it doesn't work so well if the guy puts his weight on that left foot and gets a cross-face or other control with his left arm. If you can get it before the guy has a chance to settle then you can sometimes lift the guy up, but rather than sweep just get your right hook back in and play butterfly guard.

**Gumby** · Posted On: 11/05/2006 11:17pm

Im going with Johnnys advice here- an elbow escape from that position is probably going to be your best option- its difficult to hold someone down in cross side in a position like he is even if you know how to pass that way.

To go further on that position though, its not a very good one for the guy on bottom since you dont have many sweeps or submissions available, so its best to avoid that position. A good simple rule of thumb is to keep your right hand either in his left bicep or making a grip in some manner on his left arm- this way you will prevent him from crossing his arm and ending up in that position and you will also prevent him from gaining head control from cross side. If he insists on crossing the arm when you've got that grip, hes going to give you an opportunity to sweep.

**Hedgehogey** · Posted On: 11/06/2006 4:39pm

Originally Posted by JohnnyS

Hedgehogey, I understand what you're saying but it doesn't work so well if the guy puts his weight on that left foot and gets a cross-face or other control with his left arm. If you can get it before the guy has a chance to settle then you can sometimes lift the guy up, but rather than sweep just get your right hook back in and play butterfly guard.

Leg, I meant caugh leg. So what i'm saying is that i've always just been told to play half butterfly here, but he can almost always beat it by switching his hips. My only other option, besides doing a long, laborious fight back to regular half guard is to underhook and/or dive under his free leg.

**eviechu** · Posted On: 11/06/2006 5:53pm

Can you just do a foot grab? He is really high up so you can drop yourself down, catch the armpit area, loop the left leg around the back and hook the foot to the thigh. If they resist do a roll over?

**PoleFighter** · Posted On: 11/06/2006 6:07pm

Originally Posted by JohnnyS

No problem.
I found that a lot of half-guard trickery didn't work once the guy got on his side properly. We call it the "lazy man's guard pass" where you get your left hip on the floor, pull your right foot up, brush his knee off with your elbow then mount or pull your leg free. Stiff-arming meant that I could still be in the fight whereas a lot of other stuff didn't work for me against someone a lot heavier who knows how to use his weight. The thing with stiff-arming is, no-one told me about it, I just worked it out one day when I thought about the problem and then thought "What the hell have I been doing for the last 12 years?".

Good luck with it.

I tried this tonight, on two different subjects. The first is a huge white belt who outweighs me by about 50-60lbs. The stiff arm move worked like a charm. This move, combined with a revamped guard game (modeled on what the women at my gym use against guys) especially tailored for big strong guys allowed me to keep him from passing my guard the entire round (something I rarely succeed with). I even scored a sweep, altough he used his overwhelming strength advantage to quickly put me back in guard.

The second subject was a very good blue belt with a strong passing game. The move held him off for a while but I was unable to prevent his pass to side mount. Still, with some practice I think this move is going to work well.

**JohnnyS** · Posted On: 11/07/2006 4:02pm

That's great!
I think the key is that once he's come off to side-control, and you're stiff-arming with your right arm, move your head away so he's 180 degrees and get your right hook in.

**MuKen** · Posted On: 12/12/2006 3:37am

In that position, I'd usually swim my right arm under his left leg and try to stretch him out while pulling him over me, possibly even to an x-guard like Villain said. You can use the lockdown to stretch him out at first, then switch to x-guard when you have space. Then after pushing his right leg out far enough and off-balancing him forwards, do a tactical stand-up while keeping his left leg on your shoulder for an easy takedown, and start passing his guard.

Probably not everyone calls the same thing a "tactical stand-up". I mean you should keep his left leg in your right shoulder, plant your right foot and left elbow on the ground while sitting on your left side, then kick his right leg out with your left before swinging it back under you to stand up.

**PoleFighter** · Posted On: 12/12/2006 5:29am

This position is funny. I've talked to a lot of very good guys that I train with. Guys that have won the mundials (brown and purple), competed in the ADCC and other prestigous events, and none of them have come up with a very good answer and they just all agree that this is a very, very tough position to be in.