Start in the closed guard with the same side collar sleeve grip, gripping their left sleeve with your right arm.
1 – Create space and pull your opponent towards you. Do this by posting both feet on their hips and pushing while you lean back as you pull them towards you. While you’re doing this, do not extend your legs all the way.
2 - Once you have created some space, continue to keep pressure on their left hip with your right leg as you slide your left knee and shin across their hips.
3 – pull them forward over your shin as you rock back and kick your right leg straight
4 – kick your left leg over as you scissor with your bottom right leg to hit the sweep.
IF they posture when your are trying to hit the sweep
THEN arch your back and push their knee out with the bottom of your foot
Don’t try to push their knee back, push it out. Once it’s out, point your toes up and sweep then over your leg.
*when you are hitting sweeps from the guard, it’s important to flatten the leg which you are sweeping them over.
IF they lean forward and try to sprawl pass
THEN hit the loop choke
Keep the collar grip
arch your back
kick their posting knee out to make them fall forward
once they lean into you and fall towards you, slide your right arm behind their neck and hook your right hand under your left elbow
kick your left leg up onto their back
If they try to fight your collar grip, then kick your left leg way up over their right shoulder
IF they posture before you try to hit the sweep
THEN go back to open guard
keep hip pressure and maintain contact on their hips with your feet
and start over with the sweep
Keeping hip contact until you hit the sweep is very important. If you loose hip contact you cannot control distance as well and will likely get passed by a saggy sprawl pass.
GRIP FIGHTING
From the back there are basically 4 things your opponents might do with their hands to react. You have the Garcia Back Control grip, meaning you have your arms around them from the back like a seatbelt. It’s important that your bottom arm is grabbing your top arm’s wrist. (While all this is going on, remember to never cross your feet.)
Based on their hand positions, you have 4 options to get to the trigger position of a choke:
1 – Your opponent grabs your bottom arm with both hands:
Let them have your bottom arm. Punch it forward as you shoot your top arm across their neck and grab the back of their shoulder.
2 – Your opponent grabs your top arm with both hands:
Let go of your hands. Slip your bottom hand inside on top of their gripping wrist which is closest to that arm. Move your wrist forward, palm up, and get a gable grip with your top arm on top. Pull your wrists up and towards their shoulder. This will put pressure on their wrist and force them to let go. When they do, shoot your top arm up and grab the back of their shoulder.
3 – Your opponent grabs one wrist with each hand:
Let go of your hands. Grab their wrist gripping your bottom arm with your top wrist. Hold their wrist in place while you pull your bottom wrist up. when it’s free, use your bottom hand to grab their hand that was gripping it previously. forcefully push that wrist down towards your hips and trap that arm against your body with your leg on that side. Simultaneously, shoot your top arm across and grab the back of their shoulder.
4 – Your opponent grabs one of your arms with both hands and won’t let go.
Obviously if your opponent grabs one of your arms and is controlling it, they’ve taken it out of play, and you won’t be able to use it to finish. If they do this, you can still apply a choke with one arm. To do this, get your choking arm as far back behind their shoulder as possible. Once it’s as deep as you can get it, put your head onto their shoulder as you reach up and grab the back of your own neck. To do this, turn your face into their neck so that it’s easier for you to grab the back of your neck. Once you’ve got the back of your own neck, squeeze and flex your bicep and you’ll get the tap.
FINISHING THE CHOKE (with both hands)
Dan Severin:
When your arm is across their neck they will focus on pulling it down to avoid the choke. When they do, use the palm of your free arm and to push across your forearm, cleaning their grips off of it. When your choking arm is free enough, drive it deeper and get the Dan Severin grip behind their shoulder. Try to put the elbow of your backside arm on their spine. Put your face on top of their shoulder, squeeze and finish.
Rear Naked Choke:
If you can’t finish with the Severin grip, transition to the Rear Naked grip (birdman hand cross, slide to get the rear naked grip). Put your head on top their shoulder so they can’t pry your arms. Finish.
Since we’re on the topic, here’s more on guard passing:
As the passer decide you are going to dominate and control the other guy. Inner alpha male attitude – Good for Jiu Jitsu and the ladies love it too.
OPENING THE GUARD
1. Maintain posture
Keep top of your head pointed up and arch back
2. Get a double lapel grip
Get double lapel grip with right hand. this grip is used to push your opponent down if they start to sit up.
3. Grab a sleeve and stand
(grabbing their right sleeve with your left hand.)
a. Get same side sleeve grip with left hand grip outside and on top of their sleeve.
b. Put your sleeve-grip elbow on top of the inside of their knee.
c. Big step forward with left leg 45 degrees out.
d. Stand up arch back and stick hips up and out.
4. Push them down off of your hips
(Once you are standing let go of the lapel grip with your right hand )
Push your right hip out to the right and push down on the inside of their left knee with your right hand. *When their left leg falls, grab the pants with your right hand and keep elbow knee connection on both sides.
note – it is important not to stand totally straight and upright when you are pushing them down off your hips. If you do this, they can try to hit a sweep or take down while they are sliding down. to prevent this, remember to bend your knees a little and keep your feet shoulder width apart as they are falling.
5. Get the lapel grip with your left hand
(their butt is now on the ground and you are standing)
Stagger so that your left leg is forward with your knee pushing on the inside of their right thigh. Sit back into horse stance and rock forward over your left knee to make the same side lapel grip with your left hand.
Alternative – Another way to open the guard after you are standing is to switch hands with the sleeve grip, passing their same side sleeve to your cross side hand (your right hand ends up gripping their right sleeve while your left hand is free to push their hips down on that side.)
This way you are only working one side and there’s not much they can do to stop you.
(video)
COMPLETING THE PASS
Once their legs are open, there are 3 options. Choose one depending on where the guys hips are and where his left leg is.
1: Staple
if His left leg is sideways, his inner thigh facing you
then staple down on his left thigh with your left shin.
2: Toreador
if his left leg is on your right hip,
then step right leg over to the outside of his left leg, then left leg kick out, boot pass / bull fighter
3: Back Kick Pass
if he is on his right hip,
then drop to left leg on right leg staple, splits, and then flop onto your right hip against his hips.
There’s a story about an old dude (Aristotle) who remembered things by imagining that they were all located in some imaginary place. He would think about this place, and then recall things that he had imagined he placed there in different areas. This would help him when he was making speeches and had a lot of content to get through. For more about this memory technique, check this entry on wikipedia out.
I was talking to Elliot the other day and he suggested that a good way to learn techniques, and identify areas you’re weak in, is to write down all the positions and then try to think of a small number of techniques, say 2, that work for you from each position. (I have been working on this over the past few days.)
Since jiu jitsu is so much about strategy and having a game plan, I am pretty psyched to finish my list, commit it to memory and then refer to it, while rolling. “Hmm, I am in my opponents De La Riva Guard. I am going to go to the De La Riva Room in my mind and see what techniques I find there. Oh I see the lean-in to knee on belly pass. Sweet I’ll try that and then go to the Knee On Belly Room.”
Start in your opponents open guard. They have the butterfly hooks and an under hook and are probably getting ready to sweep you.
1. Grab their knee on the opposite side as their underhook and push it down flat against the ground, locking your outstretched arm.
2. Grab the back of their gi with your underhooked arm as you step forward with your foot on that side. When you step, try to step a few inches past their knee on that side.
3. Slam your knee on that side down forcefully onto their leg just above the knee. You are trying to push that leg down to flatten it on top of the other pinned knee.
4. Once you’ve done this, quickly switch your grip so that you are gripping the knee of their top leg. Keep this arm outstretched.
5. Walk your legs around to end in side control on the underhooked side.
In general in BJJ, if is very good to be aware of they direction your hips are pointing in relationship to you opponent. These half guard passes are no different. We’ll go over 4 variations.
But first one critical point: As Saulo Ribeiro says “The problem is not the pass, it’s how you start the pass.” It’s easy to think of half guard as a transitional position that you’re in while you’re on your way into a better one. However you think of half guard, you have to remember that even though you may be excited about geting closer to a dominant position, you still have to be smart and cannot afford to rush things. Back to Saulo’s wisdom…You have to remember to start you pass properly. This means flattening your opponent. Your opponent should be flat on their back before you start your pass.
Start in Half Guard. You are on top trying to pass. Your right leg is in their half guard.
1. – Flatten your opponent. Under hook them with your top (left) arm and grab their collar behind their neck as you circle your hips towards them. (you’re stepping into them on your knees)
2 – Once they are flat, “back turn”. Flop onto your outside hip and face their legs with your chest. Move your left arm grip down to their belt or the waist of their pants. With your other arm, apply pressure with your forearm to their top knee. From here, there are 3 options:
#1 – BACKTURN to MOUNT
IF they do not have an under hook with their top arm THEN
3 – Scoot your butt up towards their armpit on your near side and creep your elbow up on the far side as you try to elevate their arm and fold it over their face. As you go, grab their gi with your hand so that they cannot push your elbow down. When your armpit is just below their chin, reach around with that arm and grab the back of their collar, trapping their arm against their face. This is very uncomfortable for your opponent.
4. drop your trapped leg knee on the other side of their hips as you sit up to mount.
5. With your free ankle, press down on the top of their thighs to free your trapped ankle.
6. you now have the mount. Why not finish with a head and arm?
#2 – BACKTURN to SIDE CONTROL
IF they get and under hook THEN (You were going for #3 above but somehow their arm escaped and they got an under hook with their top arm)
4. Quickly under hook their under hook with your top arm and reach behind their neck and grab their collar.
5. Over hook their bottom arm with your other arm, judo side control style. as you post out with your free leg and turn your hips to face their head.
6. slide your trapped knee forward towards you posting foot. * If you need to free it, use your free foot to apply pressure to their legs where they are crossed. This will open up their half guard and free your legs.
7. End up in side control.
#3 – BACKTURN to NORTH SOUTH
IF they have an under hook way back at step 2, when you have reached back to grab their belt THEN (Remain back turned for the entire pass)
3. Try to keep their under hook trapped against their body as you scoot your butt up towards their armpit.
4. free your knee of the trapped leg by walking your foot up towards their butt. And pressing down on their bottom knee.
5. When your knee is free, pop the knee of your free leg in between your trapped leg and their hips.
6. pop the trapped leg out and circle to north south or establish side control.
#3 – SWITCH SIDES to SIDE CONTROL
IF they have a deep under hook way back at step 2 THEN
3. Over hook their top arm and grab the back of their jacket in the middle of their back.
4.Rotate your trapped leg so that it is parallel top their spine.
5.Post out with your free leg as you pop-up and sit onto of their top leg just above the knee.
6. Kick your free leg over, while you keep your head close to their chest pinning them down on their back as you switch sides.
7. Once you have cleared to their other side, grab their top knee with your free hand and scoot your butt up and frre your leg.
8. End in side control on their opposite side.
Key points:
Must flatten opponent before you start your half-guard pass.
Separating your opponents elbow from their side greatly weakens their ability to defend. (In the above examples, you do this by scooting your butt up towards their armpit and by creeping your own elbow up underneath theirs)
Sometimes it helps to start a pass with your end position in mind as your goal. “Okay I am starting this pass (#1) and I am going to end up mounted. Oh crap. They just got an under hook. Now I am going to change my plan and end up in side control. #2.”
When you are mounted, your opponent is vulnerable to being swept. Your hips are very powerful and when you bridge and immobilize one side of your opponent body, it’s not to difficult to sweep them in that direction.
Gi.
You are mounted. Your opponent is setting up for some type of collar choke. They have one grip across your lapel.
1. Grab the back of their elbow on their gripping arm. And pull it out away from your neck. (They are gripping your left collar, reaching across your body with their left hand. Grab inside their left elbow with your left hand and pull it out away from you.)
2.Grab the cloth of their left shoulder with your right hand.
3.Trap their left foot against your hip by posting your right heel on the other side of their foot, sandwiching it between your right foot and your hip.
4. Bridge up into them on your right shoulder as you turn your head and look over your right shoulder to the place you are trying to throw them.
5. Roll into the bridge and land on top, in their guard.
No Gi.
(more simple, less grabbing) You are mounted. Your opponent is on top of you.
IF they have an under hook on one side, THEN
1. Clamp down on that arm and wing lock it.
2.Trap their foot against your hip by posting your heel on that side, sandwiching their foot between your foot and your hip.
3. Bridge up into them on that side as you turn your head and look over your shoulder to the place you are trying to throw them.
IF they DON’T have an under hook, THEN
1. Underhook their closest arm and try to flatten it onto your chest.
Go to step 2 and 3 above.
* it is better for you to have the underhook. If they have the under hook, you are vulnerable to the head arm choke if they are Zoran strong.
Great mismatch here. Leo Viera dominates his Japanese opponent. He hits the Kouchi Gari to start the match and then does a great job of finishing with the X choke from the mount. Also notice how he pins the guys left arm with his knee to prevent any defense.
Sorry this video doesn’t have a lame sound track. I’ll try harder next time.
This is a great match between Fernando “Margarida” Pontes and Flavio Almedia. Most Jiu Jitsu tape watchers consider this to be one of the best BJJ matches ever. Notice how aggressively Margarida attacks for submissions as Almedia tries to pass. There are also a number of great transitions where Margarida goes from Kimura to Armbar to Oma Plata. Almedia also does a great job of countering Margarida’s second Kimura attempt with an Armbar of his own. The match finishes with a Baseball Bat Choke from Knee on the Belly.
