Category: Half Guard

First week back

The tweaked knee has changed the way I’ve been rolling last week. Still wearing a knee brace, though the physio reckons it’s mostly a placebo/confidence-booster at this point. Basically, total flexion is not good for it right now, and neither is any lateral stress. That means basically for the left leg:

  1. no DLR and RDLR hooks
  2. no butterfly hook, no crab riding (inverted butterfly)
  3. no omoplata/triangles
  4. no top armbar with the leg tucked in by the armpit
  5. no closed guard
  6. no sitting inside closed guard
  7. no knee sliding to the right (how i hurt it in the first place)
  8. no 50/50
  9. no leg lock turning escapes
  10. no guard retention via leg pummelling

This has been quite the difference- as Pedro commentated, my guard game is heavily dependent on being able to pummel my legs. Luckily, I’ve been working on my half guard for a few months now, which I can continue to use. Right now, I’m trying to utilise the ‘shell’ variation of half guard where the bottom leg knee is at a 45 degree angle, blocking the hip. What’s nice about this is that it slows down or even shuts down the opponent’s ability to immediately stand up to initiate a standing pass.

On top, I’m working hard being tight with my pressure and going primarily for the over/under pass. Once I pass, I’m working on either getting the armbar on the far arm (which I never used to get, until I saw some great details from Demian Maia’s video), or if I’ve gone from over/under to the 3/4 mount, finishing the pass into the mount using the tripod movements (again, Demian Maia stuff!) and working on isolating the arm for a arm triangle, armbar, or back take.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to my 2 readers. I think I’ll be making the blog public soon.

The last few weeks of December was supposed to be a week of no work and more training. I had plans to attend a Sunday charity marathon roll and then fly back to Christchurch to spend time with my parents and drop in at the local gym for a week.

Unfortunately things didn’t quite work out as planned. The charity roll itself was great; the mats were more packed than ever before as people from many of our affiliates, even other gyms, came together to roll and donate to a good cause in the wake of a recent suicide of a young woman within the local jiu-jitsu community. I had the chance to meet some new people and enjoyed some good rolls, although I’d say the mats were a bit too packed.

However in one of my rolls I went for a knee slice and felt my left knee pop. There wasn’t immediate pain, but soon enough it started. Soon I had to sit down mat side, and after the event wound down and people went off to the nearby cafe for a bite, I felt the pain come on as I walked. On the bright side, the cafe serves a good coffee, and it was nice to catch up with Hux who had moved to Australia a couple of years ago and was in town for a couple of days.

Since then I’d been on the couch smashing Red Dead Redemption 2 and Final Fantasy XII: Zodiac Age till I went off to Christchurch, where I spent more time couching and eating food while my gi (packed just in case) sat unused.

I have been trying to watch jiu-jitsu instructional though, and have a renewed appreciate for Ryan Hall’s Deep Half Guard set, which I think I have had since early blue belt. There’s a lot of stuff, particularly in disc 1 that I glossed over earlier in my journey, that now makes a lot more sense conceptually. His approach to half guard is interesting and definitely a little different from Lachlan’s, though the structure of the half shield is pretty similar. one thing I’ve picked up that Ryan, as well as Seph Smith (no surprise as he’s one of Ryan’s black belts) and Rob Biernacki do is use the bottom knee as a frame as well. I have kinda short legs so I haven’t naturally done this, and I’m not sure I can, but definitely something to keep in mind.

Anyway, as of a few days ago I’ve managed to pick up my yearly throat infection. However, good news on the knee- not a tear, diagnosed as pinching of the tissue in the knee around the patella and meniscus. Once I’m no longer sick, I’ll ease back into some training, using pain/discomfort as a guide.

More half guard reflections

But first, a whinge. 

I am really not enjoying gi training at the moment. It’s probably all the half guard work I’ve been practicing; it’s much harder to play half in gi with people grabbing and holding everywhere to stop you from getting the underhook. My right index finger has been constantly aching for about a month now ever since a white belt landed on my hand, so gi gripping is not too fun in any case. 

Anyways, I haven’t been watching as much of the Lachlan Giles set as I’d like to. Just haven’t had the time, which is really just me being too addicted to Red Read Redemption 2 like the sack of shit I am. 

The biggest problem I’m having lately half guard is spending enough time in half guard. There’s quite a few rolling partners who just refuse to engage in it which is forcing me to think of new baits. I’m getting a bit of snagging half guard from turtle as a result. Probably not a good strategy to give up the guard to turtle up, but I just need more time in half! Worst of all are those that double pull guard on me, argh! 

I’m starting to make better connections/transitions between half guard, RDLR, and X guard now, which is of course based on both my own prefernce for RDLR and Lachlan’s instructional. Goal is to develop a good system here. I’m thinking the main components will be:

  1. Underhook based half guard game against low passers- getting underneath and coming up to the dogfight or going further down into deep half 
  2. RDLR against standing passers/knee slicers- RDLR sweeps and saddle entries, or use it defensively to force them to come back down into my half guard
  3. X guard into sweeps or leg entanglements if they stand from half and I can grab under the outside leg

Nogi tonight, will see how how much of the above I can pull off! 

I Bought Lachlan Giles’ Half Guard Anthology instructional

quest for half guard proficiency continues…

Black Friday has come and gone; I took advantage of a 40% off deal to get a copy of Lachlan Giles’ Half Guard Anthology video set. With almost 11 hours of half guard content, at US$46 it was a steal. Plus, having visited his gym recently and already being a fan of his youtube channel, I knew he was a fantastic instructor and that I would get more than my money’s worth. 

There’s actually 8 Parts!!! 

My plan is to follow Lachlan’s advice on how to use the instructional- focus on a few things at a time, try them out in sparring, and then if something isn’t working to consult the ‘troubleshooting’ sections on the dvds (which ALL instructionals should have, and the fact that most don’t is why a lot of instructionals are very limited in their applicability).

You can definitely tell Lachlan has put a lot of thought into how he wanted to structure and present the material. A great mix of concepts, techniques, applications (rolling footage of the techniques), and troubleshooting (addressing what-ifs) so far. So far, having only watched up to disc 3 of 8, I have learned some great details already. 

Last night’s nogi sparring was the first time attempting to put theory into practice.  There were a couple of things I wanted to try out and planned ahead of time to go for, but also i there were spontaneous moments where I recalled a technique and just went for it on the spot. 

Theory into practice: Day 1 

Below is based on two rolls I had: a high level purple belt, and a blue belt getting his purple this weekend. Both are well aware I am focusing on my half guard.  

  • Overall half guard positioning- Lachlan favours a high knee shield against the same side shoulder (as opposed to the Z guard across the hip), and using the elbow glued to the inside of the knee to reinforce the shield and prevent the shield from being squashed. Aha! I did not get leg weaved that night!  
  • Pulling half guard against kneeling opponent- Lachlan advises to get the upper body frames first, then worry about getting the legs in.  Most half guard acolytes tend to dive in legs first, which can be exploited by a good passer. Again, a very simple and easy to apply idea that has an immediate positive effect. 
  • Aggressively coming up with the frame on the throat. This has been a great answer for the more patient top players who refuse to pressure down into my half and instead maintain a strong straight posture until they are ready to stand up completely and initiate knee slices. From here, Lachlan shows a great option of sliding the bottom foot deep and bumping them over into a leg entanglement, which I managed to hit on both my training partners! (no finish tho as my leglock game is trash)
  • The Choibar. This was surprising. Upon watching this technique I had doubts I could ever do this,  but I saw the moment mid-roll and was able to escape a crossfaced bottom position using this grip. Had to fight to get the leg across the other side of the head. Was not able to extend the arm for the armbar, but definitely a good tool to create space. 

not so much a ‘review’ but…

As I’ve barely scratched the surface of the series and probably will be going through it quite slowly, I’m hesitant to attempt a traditional review of the instructional. Besides, what’s the point in powering through 11 hours of video for the sake of a review?  

Rather,  I think it might be interesting to continuously blog about my experiences in attempting to use the knowledge from this series in my own training. Hopefully this will give an organic, longer-term view of how effective the material is, which at the end of the day, is why you watch an instructional right? 

Half guardian

Honestly I think a lot of us in the intermediate and higher level would significantly accelerate the improvement of our jiu jitsu if we just ditched the usual class structure and just picked what we wanted to work on and did rounds of positional sparring from there, mixed in with troubleshooting discussions in between. In other words, trial and error and problem-solving.

Good, focused, worthwhile rolls tonight. Was able to force everyone I rolled with into my half guard which is in itself a victory as a lot of people tend to stand and pass, x passes and knee slides being most common. By using the shin to shin and outside knee torque I was able to get people to sit back down when they attempted to stand.

Tonight I was able a couple of times to get the underhook and shoot under deep… before class I watched a great technique of half guard master Jake Mackenzie where he shoots deep half and comes back up to secure a knee torque underhook half. I was able to implement this back and forth idea when I felt in danger of guillotines (in normal half) or kimuras (while deep half). This creates a lot of instability to my opponents’ base. Plus I didn’t get guillotined once tonight which is a huge improvement from last week!

I also managed to get out of a deeeeep darce today (off my quarter guard dogfight counter against a knee slice) using the principles of this video to force my opponent to change to a bottom side darce, where I worked to get my trapped arm below on the mat. Really stoked about this!

Half Guard, courtesy of Paul Schreiner

I am at the stage of my jiu jitsu development where I find the majority of my improvement comes from being very specific in terms of what I am trying to achieve in my sparring rounds. With this approach, I can measure my progress based on the degree in which I was able to execute the particular goals I had specified under the realistic pressures of sparring.

Lately, my focus has been on developing a complete half guard game, having primarily been influenced by Paul Schreiner’s fantastic Half Guard instructional. I’ve been drilling and attempting in sparring the first 3 basic sweep techniques he shows- the Bridge, Twist, and Matheus Diniz sweeps. What makes the instruction so beneficial is that he isn’t just showing these techniques in isolation. Instead, he is giving you a series of tools to be used depending on the opponent’s position, with the ultimate goal of either sweeping immediately with that technique or, as is necessary against good opponents, to off-balance and create openings such as a deep underhook- the primary goal of most half guard games.

This has been the missing link for me. Most practitioners are aware of the value of obtaining the underhook from the very first time they are shown a half guard. However, despite being shown half guard almost 7 years ago, I have until now never really had a good idea of what to do against opponents unwilling to concede a good underhook. Thus, not knowing what else to do, I would throw up a middling weak underhook, inevitably gifting my opponent a violent Darce choke from the top. No more!

I’ve found that having even just those first 3 sweeps in my toolbox has led to immediate results in my rolls. It has given me an option/counter for 3 particular positions/reactions my opponent may have while on top. The Bridge and Matheus Diniz sweeps are quite simple, so I have seen quick and consistent results against the white/blue belts, despite having not once drilled the latter.

I’ve also had a degree of success with at least one of the three sweeps against my fellow purple belts and the brown/black belts. I am getting quicker at recognising the opportunities given by their defensive reactions and getting more proper underhooks. Going forwards I need more work on refining the deep underhook options, as tonight my sweeps from there were defended against. I will study Paul’s materials on this, as well as the king of this position, Lucas Leite.

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the gold contained in this instructional! There’s a whole underhook sweeping section, recounters when they counter the deep underhook…. you can see it all connects into a complete game.

Further notes…

  • The twist sweep has been a fantastic counter to guillotine/Darce choke attempts from the top player, as it takes full advantage of the forward weight of the opponent as they lean in to attack my neck.
  • In saying that, tonight I was tapped by a guillotine from the sprawl (off a half guard dogfight) as I tried and failed to drive a double leg to top side. Next time I will handfight the choke, reestablish the half guard, and twist sweep.
  • My Matheus Diniz sweep is always putting me in my opponent’s closed guard, which isn’t ideal. I need to refine the movement to ensure I end up at least in my opponent’s half guard.
  • Craig Jones’ technique on baiting opponents into half guard works very well, which has not only given me more of my rolls playing half guard, but also a link between half guard and RDLR!

To be completely honest, after coming home I was feeling a little bummed by some of tonight’s rolls(I gassed out, got my guard passed more than usual, got tapped a few times), but taking the time to reflect and write on the above has redirected my perspective to where it should be. On reflection, even in my worst rolls there were moments – however small- that contributed to the specific half guard goals I had in mind. So in that way, my half guard got a little bit better tonight. And that’s good.

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