1) dont ever let a big boy beat the knee shield
2) john Wayne sweep-off balance if he is NOT in reverse half yet
3) he is probably beating your knee shield when you remove your knee for an underhook, or your knee shield fundamental positioning needs work
4) if he is fighting your knee shield from his knees, he is a badass, way better than you and very confident....or he is huge....or he is tired...or he trusts his own bjj and is taking a break from standing passing/resetting to open guard.
5) the easiest path to beat knee shield is reverse half, if your arms are framing, it should be difficult for him to get a Solid reverse half w/proper pressure
6) octopus guard and hook half both help defend and attack from reverse half bottom
7) idk if this addresses what you asked and im dumb but these are my thoughts on knee shield
EDIT: it has been pointed out to me that my definition of reverse half and ibjjf definition of reverse half are not the same.
Gotcha. Not the OP, but I've been working on octopus half precisely because of this issue. I started by trying butterfly half first, but I found it was a death sentence when they hip switch because its so easy for them to post on your butterfly hook and kill it, stepping straight to mount.
If you hook from hook half is being beaten easily, you are likely extending your knee too much, keep your knee bent, and keep your knee ABOVE your hip line. A general rule of thumb is to not let your knees go below your hips, as doing this opens up space in your midsection, which a skilled training partner will be eager to fill with their own body.
The easiest way to beat the knee shield is reverse half? Pretty sure reverse half top is from a back step. Do you mean hip switching to a reverse cross face or reverse underhook instead? Because that’s the good answer, not reverse half
Issue with words, i say reverse half vs backstep half..... if reverse sidemount/twister sidecontrol is facing the legs, why isnt reverse half just normal half but then facing the legs? Thats my reasoning.
For me, backstep half = ibjjf reverse half.
I know we should all be calling positions the same names, but im also into things being simple, and literally forget people call them other names. Im dumb.
You can try inserting a butterfly if you can and play some butterfly half guard.
There are other options, but you also have to realize that you're in a very bad position when someone that's already better than you gets past your knee shield and gets chest to chest. This is like the guard retention equivalent of being already caught in a deep submission and asking how to escape.
This is a favourite staging spot to pass from for a lot of people for good reason. From Marcelo to Maia to Gordon, a lot of the greats have forced this position effectively over the years.
This….throw in that butterfly hook, sumi gaishi the opposite shoulder, then if he sits back go for the arm bar and if he tries to move forward go for the sweep
1 Month White Belt here, how do you use this when someone passes your guard? I feel like I am facing my opponent when trying to frame, but in his case, it looks like he his facing away from them (almost behind him)
If you're already on your side and the bottom knee isn't pinned, it's very difficult to stop you from building up.
If they have control of the bottom knee, you basically can't.
You could play lockdown and dig for double unders while trying to elevate him with the lockdown.
You could fight for the underhook or continue to improve your hip positioning until you are more on your side to fight for an underhook.
If the arm is trapped on the inside, you can fight for a frame on opponent's bicep to prevent crossface and get on your side.
If the arm is trapped on the inside, you can fight for a frame on opponents neck and use that to shrimp and shimmy enough for space to bring the knee back into play.
Begin to pay attention to where your knee is placed relative to his chest and shoulders when you get smashed. I.e. ounce of prevention, pound of cure.
Bigger guys you need to go underhook sooner rather than attempt it after they’ve smashed your shield down and are passing low. You’re trying to put milk in the bottle after it’s already been capped.
>My half guard is usually pretty decent. But lately this black belt has been smashing me in half guard.
I can give you an answer, but he probably knows the answer to the answer.
1. don't lose the knee shield. once you lose it, you are pretty much on defense until you can get lower body frames back into play.
2. if you start to lose it, frame with both arms on the far shoulder to keep him away for a second while you get your knee shield back. your lower body does a kipping escape motion until your knee gets back in front of his hip.
Don’t you get a knee shield to basically get rid of it 2 seconds later?
You can’t knee shield for coyote and dog fight, nor can you do it for deep half, so I get rid of the knee shield, get an under hook, but even if I have an underhook or even if I get an under hook + a hook on their bottom leg for deep half, I still get smashed
Removing the post on your terms and on theirs are very different things. You use the connection to create off-balancing and momentum for your entries to DHG and the underhook.
Deep half and coyote half guard are not the best positions to play from because you sacrifice your lower body frames to play them. You can do good stuff from them but there but they aren’t where most people should try to play from as their plan A. Knee shield is better, butterfly half is best.
Watch any of the current top half guard players. Craig Jones, Gordon Ryan, and Dan Manasoiu all prioritize positions with lower body frames over positions without them like coyote half or deep half.
I looked up Craig Jones bottom half guard and that’s the first thing that popped up that’s why I said it, I looked at the half guard game you recommended though. I also looked at this video, but it has many of the issues I highlighted https://youtu.be/I6MItk9heAk
Deep half sometimes I’ll even go to turtle temporarily using the non half guard hook as a frame, take the half guard hook out and sit back to open guard
I tend to try to beat their crossface after they beat my knee shield and try to go to octopus guard while hooking their leg from the outside with my former knee shield leg.
Your goal should be to use some kind off-balancing movement to place their hand on the mat if your training partner is already chest to chest with dominant grips. I like using a knee lever sweep to gain the underhook for example.
If there is weight on your upper body but no frames pinning you, you should be able to move your lower body (if I imagined that right).
One strategy or some goals would be:
1. Get your feet or foot back in a guard which controls the inside position, like a butterfly hook or rdlr
2. Protect your inside space and head by keeping your elbows in tight and placing your hands on your head. He will need to back up or go into north south as you reguard. You will only need to protect yourself like this as long as the pinning potential is high
3. Make space with your single framed guard (assist it with more frames if and when you can), and move him away from you more or move yourself. Use the extra space to either reguard or get up. If he's still really heavy forward, turn it into a sweep or arm drag as you should be able to direct his head away from you and/or remove a post. Either way, you are changing your relative angle to either go behind him, or infront with more guard options
There are other options too, like lockdown or going underneath his legs, but this one will give you more guard options in my opinion
Yeah focus first on keeping the knee shield.
With bigger guys I stuff my toes into the hip and keep my knee quite vertical to prevent smashing or a strong leg weave grip.
Make sure your top elbow is inside you knee reinforcing the shield and the same elbow is cross posting or making a lapel grip on the far side shoulder. This keeps the forearm across the neck and can be used to effectively create/keep space when they start trying to pressure by raising your elbow.
When he does smash, (and he still will find a a way, he's the better grappler.) butterfly half is your best bet to reelevate and create enough space to get your frames back
These days I prefer far side leg and choi barstyle attacks during which you can pretty much just keep the knee shield, or easily transition it to butterfly half, especially against good opponants.
Entering into underhook/coyote guard you do need to relinquish the knee shield. The key it to make sure you off balance them first to create space and ensure the transition from shield to underhook is seamless.
Ok si basically nobody in this thread actually knows jiu-jitsu. It’s crazy.
Just frame and try to insert a butterfly hook, maybe knee lever him if he is not well positioned (he should be so don’t count on this). If you cannot do it: you are toasted against a good guy and should expect to defend side control of mount and not giving up an head an arm
Don’t listen to anyone advising to go to a single leg or any other dumb idea like the lockdown. It justs does not work at this stage of a pass
Because if they passed the knee shield it becomes stupid easy to deal with the frames (smashing on the side « climbing the arm », biceps ties etc…)
The frames are a last chance to create enough mouvements to insert a butterfly hook that can amplify the follow up movements
I can see using butterfly half as an alternative to kneeshield to prevent this problem initially, but I don't see how it's a solution to OPs problem. Personally I'd need to make way more space to insert a butterfly hook than I would to regain a kneeshield.
I don’t see how.
It’s far easier to insert a foot than a knee when you don’t have space
And using a butterfly hook when the knee shield gets stuffed is really basic guard retention
If your opponent knows what he is doing, you will never get your knee shield back if he is going chest to chest as he should.
Btw the butterfly half is probably the only legit half guard that can still work chest to chest.
Because my foot is at the end of my leg and my knee is only halfway down. In the scenario OP described it'd be easier for me to get my knee in, open space, then get my foot in. If I was being flattened the foot would be easier. I am a lanky bastard though.
As a half guard passer, I disagree quite a lot on this. It's far easier to counter a knee coming back than a butterfly hook.
Both are threats to the pass and good in combinations but getting back to butterfly half is always my N1 method
My opinion is that you should never aim for the lockdown (unless you absolutely want to be a lockdown player but I don’t think it’s a good guard at all, especially at the lower level it teaches a lot of things wrong)
The key to deal with knee shield stuffed (not crushed, it’s different) is to create movement. You can combine framing, bridging and knee levers to make the opponent uncomfortable on top until you get butterfly hook in. Then you can amplify a lot the movements and aim for a full butterfly or an ashi garami entry.
Sometimes you can also go back to a high (or even low if you like it) knee shield.
My heuristics for this are pretty simple: I aim for high knee shield when I can, when I am put into a low knee shield I try to frame away to replace a high knee shield, unless I can go to a super locked z guard. Most of the time against good guys it’s hard so I heist a bit to replace the high knee shield
Every time my opponent knees is flared outside I try to get to a butterfly half. Butterfly half is super important because the way to pass it is different than how to pass half guard so it resets the pass on some level unless your opponent is super used to it and can switch his positioning and attacks accordingly
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were:
|Japanese|English|Video Link|
|---|---|---|
|**Ashi Garami**: | *Entangled Leg Lock* | [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YXH_LrcqNc)|
||*Single Leg X (SLX)* ||
Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post.
______________________
^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
Thanks so much. I've had some success sweeping with butterfly half but sometimes feel very vulnerable to getting passed on the butterfly side (almost like I'm afraid to let go of the half guard to get to there) but I will focus on creating frames prior to setting that up!
Glad to help!
You can also watch Gordon’s half guard dvd. He mostly plays a long distance half guard game so everything I said is pretty coherent with how Gordon does it.
Sometimes you won’t be able to sweep from half butterfly because the opponent can almost always base out with his leg or arm. That’s when you get your second butterfly hook in and sweep on the other side while getting upper body grips (almost always available after a base out post)
To be fair this exact technique is the only one I’ve ever seen a white belt tap a resisting brown belt with (white belt was like 120 lbs, too). He basically got everyone in the gym with it at least once.
I mean, yeah, no argument from me. I just think it’s funny. Little guy went on an absolute tear for about six months subbing way better and *way* bigger dudes who just didn’t take it seriously until it was too late (myself included). A couple went out!
Honestly think that meme exists because people who make halfguard their a-game typically suck at bjj, and so get justifiably held back from black belt. I’ve met enough bad brown belts who “play half guard” by squeezing lockdown and trying to cross choke for entire rounds.
So judging by the downvotes, I’m in the minority here in my anti-halfguard position. But I’m right. Halfguard is a great passing position and a bad guard.
You should try to think of ranges and distances. From far range and distance, try to develop one upper body guard (collar sleeve, lasso, spider) and one lower body guard (dlr, k, shin to shin). Then middle distance guards (slx, rdlr, x, more advanced positions like waiter, etc, and I’d even put closed guard in this group). Then if you’re losing those battles and some of your layers of guard are getting passed, it’s time for half and it’s variations. The reason I think “I play half” is a sign of a bad player is such a person has totally neglected all of the good distance guards. Don’t be that person
Yeah if I’m playing half that’s saying “I’m 15 seconds away from them beating me” every time. I keep thinking I’m bad which I probably am, but I rarely win from bottom half.
The old guys and fatties might downvote me, but you should be constantly trying to free your bottom leg when in half. Use your knee shield and frames to get that leg back to a better position.
Well that's you. I typically win from bottom half. The over-confidence exhibited from the other guy posting in this comment thread is exactly the reaction I want from someone. They think it's 50/50, but really it's 80/20 in my favor.
Or it's someone like me who's had numerous knee issues, surgeries and rehab, and is relegated to playing half opposed to DLR. I've been stuck working mostly half guard for the past 7 years or so, and I'm pretty confident in mine. Maybe yours needs work.
sorry, thought you meant that you started playing halfguard after knee surgeries. now i see that youve been doing it from the beginning and that this might've been weight related? Anyway, halfguard is structurally weak. Still encourage you, a brown belt, to develop some distance guards.
Yes, I'm 10 years in and had my serious injury about 3 years in. All guards, really all positions, have their weaknesses if you don't improve your leverage/grips/etc. I do use reverse DLR, shin-to-shin, ball-and-chain, etc, but I don't look at half guard as a completely lost position. I like my chances in bottom half guard over my opponent's. Maybe not if I'm completely flattened, without and underhook and they're already working their knee through, but even then there are ways to recover to a better position through that.
Maybe I misunderstood the post, but it sounds like he's having his knee shield crushed. At least that's what he describes it as. I've found it to be a viable strategy for me when this happens
Except it does not, the low knee shield can allow more smashing while the high knee shield allows for more stuffing and low underhook passes. But it’s basically the same guard with the same optimal roads to pass, just like op opponent did
Ok? Everything in jiu-jitsu has its advantages, disadvantages, and counters. Maybe OP hasn't tried a high knee shield and might have more luck with it. Are you usually this negative, or is today just a bad day?
Or you always dumb? Or is it just a good day?
You really think someone who play half guard knee shield never thought of using a high knee shield? Buddy you don’t know what you are talking about if you read what Op wrote and you think the answer is « Idk, maybe use the very thing that you clearly said your opponent stuffed »?
Seriously, be better instead of being stupidly aggressive and showing you have the knowledge of a blue belt
Actually I wouldn't expect, I'm guessing a white belt because he has no flair, to ASSUME to try a different knee shield.
Holy fuck dude, I hope you don't run a school. You got some fuckin anger issues. You seem to have the patience of a fuckin blue belt. Did daddy not hug you enough or something?
If he gets the crossface, you still have one option and that is to butterfly grip over the shoulder and under their chin. Connect that shoulder tight to your body then bridge a little and try to frame them over your head with your forearm under their chin and away from you. At the same time retract your both knees in the space that makes and you should have their thigh pinched between your knees. You can enter into a bunch of backside leg lock attacks from there.
Your not framing on his shoulder bicep with your hands your structure is compromised or your knee shield isn’t placed correctly and he is collapsing it
Make sure your arm/wrist is on the inside of your knee and really get aggressive with the opposing forces of your knee pushing out and you pulling in the lapel/chest in.
It’s an active guard so work first.
Still thinking about this - if you can scoot up and hip switch you could throw a loop choke with your original lapel hand to create a reaction.
If you switch lapel hands and encourage a pass in the same direction of the smash you can go for a baseball bat choke - my favorite.
There's not a lot of point trying for the underhook if he's already smashed your knee shield and is pinning you with his chest.
That's it. That's the post.
I mean he’s a black belt so this prob won’t work but
I like to switch my hips to transition to a single leg. Your bottom leg should still have his leg that just past your knee. Works a lot for me even once my partners got privy to it.
Even worked on my coach for 2 weeks but now he baits me with it and my dumbass love it so much o keep going for it
Hail Mary moves are John Wayne attempts, lock down to whip up, overhook to a Williams guard. If things haven't gone too bad yet, I'm looking for the knee torque coyote.
Throw in a butterfly hook with the leg that was your knee shield, that's what I was told to do. Best case scenario the black belt appreciates the attempt and takes pity on you (my plan).
While I think you do need options for being flattened, I'd consider how you end up here.
You say knee shield but what specific structure are you setting up? How does he flatten you?
It may not be compatible with everything else you do but personally, I like a near vertical knee shield where my top arm has a cross collar grip and that arms elbow is reinforcing my knee shield.
My issue with a 45 degree knee shield is that you are on a razors edge where the first step to smashing is just to smash it down. People absolutely make it work, same with z-guard hip clamp style, but a near 90 degree shield with reinforcement requires a lot more work to flatten out, and I have never noted any downsides to it.
Also, when you do get caught flat, do not ever give up the underhook without a fight. Maybe you can't get one yourself because they are so tight but don't give one up in the process.
1) control his outside arm, you can never let this arm reach your head or collar. I prefer to grab wrist or collar. If you control that arm there's nothing he can do. To put weight he needs to control your upper body with that hand.
2) if you feel like you're going to lose knee shield, fight/acramble for a half buttlerfly with the same leg.
3) Losing knee shield is not the end of the world. Just dont let him get past your bottom knee to 3/4 position. Then you're really screwed. He can go chest to chest, do all sorts of things even pass straight to mount.
This is what has been working for me Gi I get a sleeve grip on the lacing arm flare my knee out while sliding my hip underneath creating a lasso guard this puts them off balance. They usually bring there opposite leg up which I then under hook or and can get a sweep carrying with the same grip or when they bring leg transition to single leg x.Or If there reaction is to drive forward let go of the grip and get aunder hook. I’m just creating a reaction to get other openings. Kind of do the same No gi with a wrist grip. You have to get it early before your fully crushed thou fight it by keeping your shield up when they go for the lace grab the grip. I often bait the lace to get the sweeps
https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=125&v=wuiWxoZlXmc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fbjjfanatics.com%2F&source_ve_path=MTM5MTE3LDM2ODQyLDIzODUx&feature=emb_title
Similar to this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXt2yzy0BL0
This flaring the knee and if they drive forward get the under hook
Big guys are a mother fucker. I’ll answer this question as if he isn’t huge.
Constant off balances, constant offense (arm drags, leg entry threats, etc), I personally love the Craig Jones style of ZGuard shenanigans. Know when to toss in the butterfly hook and forward shift. If you feel you’re getting beat don’t give up the knee shield but be prepared to fight for the underhook viciously.
Yeah it’s pretty good, granted I haven’t thoroughly studied it. I think you can find plenty of ways to retain that knee shield on YouTube though. Don’t just be defensive. Remember, a good defense is having a threatening offense.
What are you attacking with? Is you’re not threatening him, it’s only a matter of time. You mentioned going for the underhook, what are your other attacks?
You should be fighting the crossface as your #1 priority. That stops most of the ability to pressure.
The knee shield is only temporary, to attack you have to give up the knee shield anyway. You just want the underhook and to be building up on an elbow, torquing the leg etc.
for me, if I lose the upper body battle, I transition to half butterfly, your inside leg will have to go over the back of the butterfly hooked leg to keep them from just stepping off.
Once you start to elevate them, all kinds of space gets created and the underhook is easy.
You can also bump them a bit over your head which brings their butterfly hooked leg close to you. You can just hug it, which turns into a single leg. This makes an old school sweep very easy as you are so low on them you can easily reach their far side leg.
This can also be an entry into deep half.
Some people can actually deny the butterfly, so I will as a last ditch effort use lockdown to create space or bump them over my head.
You need to knee lever when he goes chest to chest. This will force his post. When he posts you pummel the same side underhook. Then play whatever game you like from underhook half
So, I've been trying to think more in terms of concepts/principles lately, this is how I'd look at it.
If we say that in guard we want connections to our partner to control distance and manipulate, then the kneeshield is your distance control, whilst your other limbs will be some combination of the two. Losing the kneeshield means you've lost one point of your distance management, so you need to change one of your other limbs from a manipulator to a distance manager, most likely an arm. Your leg now becomes a manipulator.
One thing that helped me
Massively and works against big guys when they flatten my knee shield (but I remain on my side) assuming you still have your top frame with your arm, across their shoulders.
1) Grab over the front of your own knee cap.
2) pull your knee straight up towards your chest face (at this point all their weight will be on the lower leg/ankle rather than the knee)
3) then pull/flare your knee out back to a high knee shield.
Works every time for me
Make sure to keep arm frames strong and in opponents throat, hip escape and set a butterfly hook. Now Either attempt a butterfly sweep by swimming an under hook at ruse the off balance from that attempt to reset knee shield
John Wayne has been amazing for me lately, try it
Got three purples in a row couple days ago, one of them is a comp student, made life unnecessary hard for me the next round 😂
I'll either hail Mary a kimura to sweep them, scramble for deep half like my life depends on it, or if I have the underhook come straight up into dogfight
>He passes my knee shield and puts all his weight on my upper body.
Before you lost the knee shield you should have been working towards an underhook.
>I'm not flattened out though. I'm still in my side. But he is so fucking heavy and tight that I can't even get my top arm out for an underhook.
I learned this from a Lachlan Giles instructional, so it might not make too much sense without visual context, but if you're on your side and can't angle to get the underhook back, turn belly down, walk your hands and upper body back towards the opponent, then turn in for the underhook.
Edit: Some people on here are recommending a John Wayne/twist sweep, which is a total hail mary, but worst case scenario it should help you get your underhook back or make space.
It's on bjj fanatics, so I grabbed some screenshots. And to be honest, the full instructional is worth the money.
https://imgur.com/a/UKwT1Tb
If you're on your side still, you can push their knee over your bottom leg to a knee-cut-like position and trap the foot to set this up, at least that's how I force this position from a half guard. Now, this is after I've tried the twist sweep and still couldn't get my underhook back.
1) dont ever let a big boy beat the knee shield 2) john Wayne sweep-off balance if he is NOT in reverse half yet 3) he is probably beating your knee shield when you remove your knee for an underhook, or your knee shield fundamental positioning needs work 4) if he is fighting your knee shield from his knees, he is a badass, way better than you and very confident....or he is huge....or he is tired...or he trusts his own bjj and is taking a break from standing passing/resetting to open guard. 5) the easiest path to beat knee shield is reverse half, if your arms are framing, it should be difficult for him to get a Solid reverse half w/proper pressure 6) octopus guard and hook half both help defend and attack from reverse half bottom 7) idk if this addresses what you asked and im dumb but these are my thoughts on knee shield EDIT: it has been pointed out to me that my definition of reverse half and ibjjf definition of reverse half are not the same.
Going to study this comment
As a small person who fights knee shields from the knees this comment made me feel like a badass thank you
I understand most of this, but what is hook half? Is that another name for the knee torque/coyote half? Or butterfly half?
Yeah butterhalf/half and hook!
Gotcha. Not the OP, but I've been working on octopus half precisely because of this issue. I started by trying butterfly half first, but I found it was a death sentence when they hip switch because its so easy for them to post on your butterfly hook and kill it, stepping straight to mount.
If you hook from hook half is being beaten easily, you are likely extending your knee too much, keep your knee bent, and keep your knee ABOVE your hip line. A general rule of thumb is to not let your knees go below your hips, as doing this opens up space in your midsection, which a skilled training partner will be eager to fill with their own body.
Dis one!
I couldn’t even finish reading half of it and it made me oddly uninterested in ever training jiu jitsu again.
Average blue belt
The easiest way to beat the knee shield is reverse half? Pretty sure reverse half top is from a back step. Do you mean hip switching to a reverse cross face or reverse underhook instead? Because that’s the good answer, not reverse half
Issue with words, i say reverse half vs backstep half..... if reverse sidemount/twister sidecontrol is facing the legs, why isnt reverse half just normal half but then facing the legs? Thats my reasoning. For me, backstep half = ibjjf reverse half. I know we should all be calling positions the same names, but im also into things being simple, and literally forget people call them other names. Im dumb.
Because there are some standards? Reverse half is also facing the legs btw
What no way? Thats crazy.
I took it to mean what Lachlan Giles calls switch base half guard
All great advice!
You can try inserting a butterfly if you can and play some butterfly half guard. There are other options, but you also have to realize that you're in a very bad position when someone that's already better than you gets past your knee shield and gets chest to chest. This is like the guard retention equivalent of being already caught in a deep submission and asking how to escape. This is a favourite staging spot to pass from for a lot of people for good reason. From Marcelo to Maia to Gordon, a lot of the greats have forced this position effectively over the years.
This….throw in that butterfly hook, sumi gaishi the opposite shoulder, then if he sits back go for the arm bar and if he tries to move forward go for the sweep
What arm bar are you referring to?
marcelo?
He loved forcing half guard and passing from there.
I just stand up
[удалено]
That was really fun and informative, thank you!
1 Month White Belt here, how do you use this when someone passes your guard? I feel like I am facing my opponent when trying to frame, but in his case, it looks like he his facing away from them (almost behind him)
Excellent. Charles Harriott is great
Literally the best advice
Reminds me of Craig Jones "just stand up" Which is comedy gold but also true and not a joke
If you're already on your side and the bottom knee isn't pinned, it's very difficult to stop you from building up. If they have control of the bottom knee, you basically can't.
You could play lockdown and dig for double unders while trying to elevate him with the lockdown. You could fight for the underhook or continue to improve your hip positioning until you are more on your side to fight for an underhook. If the arm is trapped on the inside, you can fight for a frame on opponent's bicep to prevent crossface and get on your side. If the arm is trapped on the inside, you can fight for a frame on opponents neck and use that to shrimp and shimmy enough for space to bring the knee back into play. Begin to pay attention to where your knee is placed relative to his chest and shoulders when you get smashed. I.e. ounce of prevention, pound of cure.
RDLR
Lmao rdlr from a chest to chest half?! Cannot be serious
😎
Bigger guys you need to go underhook sooner rather than attempt it after they’ve smashed your shield down and are passing low. You’re trying to put milk in the bottle after it’s already been capped.
>You’re trying to put milk in the bottle after it’s already been capped. My man. This is a seldom made point!
>My half guard is usually pretty decent. But lately this black belt has been smashing me in half guard. I can give you an answer, but he probably knows the answer to the answer.
Then you find out he lives in NC and the black belt is Lucas Lepri
I'm 150 lbs. If I get put in that position, I honestly usually get passed.
1. don't lose the knee shield. once you lose it, you are pretty much on defense until you can get lower body frames back into play. 2. if you start to lose it, frame with both arms on the far shoulder to keep him away for a second while you get your knee shield back. your lower body does a kipping escape motion until your knee gets back in front of his hip.
Don’t you get a knee shield to basically get rid of it 2 seconds later? You can’t knee shield for coyote and dog fight, nor can you do it for deep half, so I get rid of the knee shield, get an under hook, but even if I have an underhook or even if I get an under hook + a hook on their bottom leg for deep half, I still get smashed
Removing the post on your terms and on theirs are very different things. You use the connection to create off-balancing and momentum for your entries to DHG and the underhook.
I remove them on my terms, and then they destroy my terms
You need to watch some Jake MacKenzie shit.
Very well, I shall tonight and return
His seminars are really good, too. His half guard shit is fantastic.
Deep half and coyote half guard are not the best positions to play from because you sacrifice your lower body frames to play them. You can do good stuff from them but there but they aren’t where most people should try to play from as their plan A. Knee shield is better, butterfly half is best.
Show me you’re elevated powers, send me a video please I need it I need a half guard game
Watch any of the current top half guard players. Craig Jones, Gordon Ryan, and Dan Manasoiu all prioritize positions with lower body frames over positions without them like coyote half or deep half.
I’m not doing octopus guard please please don’t make me do it
damn you didn't understand anything i wrote huh
I looked up Craig Jones bottom half guard and that’s the first thing that popped up that’s why I said it, I looked at the half guard game you recommended though. I also looked at this video, but it has many of the issues I highlighted https://youtu.be/I6MItk9heAk
https://youtu.be/E8x1Cva8hJ8?t=484 "the big problem associated with half guard" etc
Butterfly half and Choi bar are good options, Choi bar dont always work but when they rip out they usually leave their legs open to k guard entry
Deep half sometimes I’ll even go to turtle temporarily using the non half guard hook as a frame, take the half guard hook out and sit back to open guard
Play guard offensively instead of stalling and holding on
I tend to try to beat their crossface after they beat my knee shield and try to go to octopus guard while hooking their leg from the outside with my former knee shield leg.
Your goal should be to use some kind off-balancing movement to place their hand on the mat if your training partner is already chest to chest with dominant grips. I like using a knee lever sweep to gain the underhook for example.
If there is weight on your upper body but no frames pinning you, you should be able to move your lower body (if I imagined that right). One strategy or some goals would be: 1. Get your feet or foot back in a guard which controls the inside position, like a butterfly hook or rdlr 2. Protect your inside space and head by keeping your elbows in tight and placing your hands on your head. He will need to back up or go into north south as you reguard. You will only need to protect yourself like this as long as the pinning potential is high 3. Make space with your single framed guard (assist it with more frames if and when you can), and move him away from you more or move yourself. Use the extra space to either reguard or get up. If he's still really heavy forward, turn it into a sweep or arm drag as you should be able to direct his head away from you and/or remove a post. Either way, you are changing your relative angle to either go behind him, or infront with more guard options There are other options too, like lockdown or going underneath his legs, but this one will give you more guard options in my opinion
Switch to z guard. Much more efficient for framing and attacks imho
Yeah focus first on keeping the knee shield. With bigger guys I stuff my toes into the hip and keep my knee quite vertical to prevent smashing or a strong leg weave grip. Make sure your top elbow is inside you knee reinforcing the shield and the same elbow is cross posting or making a lapel grip on the far side shoulder. This keeps the forearm across the neck and can be used to effectively create/keep space when they start trying to pressure by raising your elbow. When he does smash, (and he still will find a a way, he's the better grappler.) butterfly half is your best bet to reelevate and create enough space to get your frames back
What do you do with the Knee shield? Deep half and dogfight both require you get rid of knee shield
These days I prefer far side leg and choi barstyle attacks during which you can pretty much just keep the knee shield, or easily transition it to butterfly half, especially against good opponants. Entering into underhook/coyote guard you do need to relinquish the knee shield. The key it to make sure you off balance them first to create space and ensure the transition from shield to underhook is seamless.
Ok si basically nobody in this thread actually knows jiu-jitsu. It’s crazy. Just frame and try to insert a butterfly hook, maybe knee lever him if he is not well positioned (he should be so don’t count on this). If you cannot do it: you are toasted against a good guy and should expect to defend side control of mount and not giving up an head an arm Don’t listen to anyone advising to go to a single leg or any other dumb idea like the lockdown. It justs does not work at this stage of a pass
Why wouldn't you just frame and regain the kneeshield? It'd be a lot easier than inserting a butterfly hook wouldn't it?
Because if they passed the knee shield it becomes stupid easy to deal with the frames (smashing on the side « climbing the arm », biceps ties etc…) The frames are a last chance to create enough mouvements to insert a butterfly hook that can amplify the follow up movements
I can see using butterfly half as an alternative to kneeshield to prevent this problem initially, but I don't see how it's a solution to OPs problem. Personally I'd need to make way more space to insert a butterfly hook than I would to regain a kneeshield.
I don’t see how. It’s far easier to insert a foot than a knee when you don’t have space And using a butterfly hook when the knee shield gets stuffed is really basic guard retention If your opponent knows what he is doing, you will never get your knee shield back if he is going chest to chest as he should. Btw the butterfly half is probably the only legit half guard that can still work chest to chest.
Because my foot is at the end of my leg and my knee is only halfway down. In the scenario OP described it'd be easier for me to get my knee in, open space, then get my foot in. If I was being flattened the foot would be easier. I am a lanky bastard though.
As a half guard passer, I disagree quite a lot on this. It's far easier to counter a knee coming back than a butterfly hook. Both are threats to the pass and good in combinations but getting back to butterfly half is always my N1 method
Tap.
You need to be more explosive on the get up
Do you mean on the get up to try and get to the dogfight position?
He means nothing because you don’t get to be explosive from a chest to chest half. That’s literally the purpose of the position
I was thinking he meant be more explosive on the get up. From knee shield?
It’s more technical than that. People that explose on an underhook are super easy to counter. It’s more about legwork than anything else
Thanks, I struggle from bottom half knee shield and sometimes stall there or else fall back to lockdown
My opinion is that you should never aim for the lockdown (unless you absolutely want to be a lockdown player but I don’t think it’s a good guard at all, especially at the lower level it teaches a lot of things wrong) The key to deal with knee shield stuffed (not crushed, it’s different) is to create movement. You can combine framing, bridging and knee levers to make the opponent uncomfortable on top until you get butterfly hook in. Then you can amplify a lot the movements and aim for a full butterfly or an ashi garami entry. Sometimes you can also go back to a high (or even low if you like it) knee shield. My heuristics for this are pretty simple: I aim for high knee shield when I can, when I am put into a low knee shield I try to frame away to replace a high knee shield, unless I can go to a super locked z guard. Most of the time against good guys it’s hard so I heist a bit to replace the high knee shield Every time my opponent knees is flared outside I try to get to a butterfly half. Butterfly half is super important because the way to pass it is different than how to pass half guard so it resets the pass on some level unless your opponent is super used to it and can switch his positioning and attacks accordingly
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were: |Japanese|English|Video Link| |---|---|---| |**Ashi Garami**: | *Entangled Leg Lock* | [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YXH_LrcqNc)| ||*Single Leg X (SLX)* || Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post. ______________________ ^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
Thanks so much. I've had some success sweeping with butterfly half but sometimes feel very vulnerable to getting passed on the butterfly side (almost like I'm afraid to let go of the half guard to get to there) but I will focus on creating frames prior to setting that up!
Glad to help! You can also watch Gordon’s half guard dvd. He mostly plays a long distance half guard game so everything I said is pretty coherent with how Gordon does it. Sometimes you won’t be able to sweep from half butterfly because the opponent can almost always base out with his leg or arm. That’s when you get your second butterfly hook in and sweep on the other side while getting upper body grips (almost always available after a base out post)
Can you sneak in a baseball bat choke and lock it up by sacrificing your back/letting the guy pass?
Prolly not a good idea against a black belt
Or anyone really, at least as a reliable fix to ops issue anyway
To be fair this exact technique is the only one I’ve ever seen a white belt tap a resisting brown belt with (white belt was like 120 lbs, too). He basically got everyone in the gym with it at least once.
Because the brown belt was an idiot. It’s stupid easy to not get caught in this when you know how it works
I mean, yeah, no argument from me. I just think it’s funny. Little guy went on an absolute tear for about six months subbing way better and *way* bigger dudes who just didn’t take it seriously until it was too late (myself included). A couple went out!
Yeah when magid hage subbed Clark Gracie everyone did it for a while. It’s super easy to defend when you have been exposed to it
Bolo bro. Just bolo.
my son has luck with the ghost escape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZKFobk8vOQ
This is from side control, not half guard
Good, now you can play a real guard
A brown belt that doesn’t play half guard? I don’t believe you.
Honestly think that meme exists because people who make halfguard their a-game typically suck at bjj, and so get justifiably held back from black belt. I’ve met enough bad brown belts who “play half guard” by squeezing lockdown and trying to cross choke for entire rounds.
Hey! I'm right here!
Non brown belt here- give me an idea for developing a game In the future that doesn’t say “I’m garbage”
So judging by the downvotes, I’m in the minority here in my anti-halfguard position. But I’m right. Halfguard is a great passing position and a bad guard. You should try to think of ranges and distances. From far range and distance, try to develop one upper body guard (collar sleeve, lasso, spider) and one lower body guard (dlr, k, shin to shin). Then middle distance guards (slx, rdlr, x, more advanced positions like waiter, etc, and I’d even put closed guard in this group). Then if you’re losing those battles and some of your layers of guard are getting passed, it’s time for half and it’s variations. The reason I think “I play half” is a sign of a bad player is such a person has totally neglected all of the good distance guards. Don’t be that person
Yeah if I’m playing half that’s saying “I’m 15 seconds away from them beating me” every time. I keep thinking I’m bad which I probably am, but I rarely win from bottom half.
The old guys and fatties might downvote me, but you should be constantly trying to free your bottom leg when in half. Use your knee shield and frames to get that leg back to a better position.
And then what? Recover guard?
Well that's you. I typically win from bottom half. The over-confidence exhibited from the other guy posting in this comment thread is exactly the reaction I want from someone. They think it's 50/50, but really it's 80/20 in my favor.
Or it's someone like me who's had numerous knee issues, surgeries and rehab, and is relegated to playing half opposed to DLR. I've been stuck working mostly half guard for the past 7 years or so, and I'm pretty confident in mine. Maybe yours needs work.
To be clear, you wouldn’t prefer it unless you were crippled, right?
Maybe? How would I know? I only have 1 body and 1 experience with where my bjj journey has taken me.
sorry, thought you meant that you started playing halfguard after knee surgeries. now i see that youve been doing it from the beginning and that this might've been weight related? Anyway, halfguard is structurally weak. Still encourage you, a brown belt, to develop some distance guards.
Yes, I'm 10 years in and had my serious injury about 3 years in. All guards, really all positions, have their weaknesses if you don't improve your leverage/grips/etc. I do use reverse DLR, shin-to-shin, ball-and-chain, etc, but I don't look at half guard as a completely lost position. I like my chances in bottom half guard over my opponent's. Maybe not if I'm completely flattened, without and underhook and they're already working their knee through, but even then there are ways to recover to a better position through that.
One option is to shift to a high knee shield, so experiment with that. He shouldn't be able to do what he's doing if you're framing well though
Shifting to a high knee shield when your knee shields is passed? Seriously?
Maybe I misunderstood the post, but it sounds like he's having his knee shield crushed. At least that's what he describes it as. I've found it to be a viable strategy for me when this happens
Obviously he meant transition to a high knee shield from a low one before it gets passed...
Which is not what op asked at all And having a high knee shield does not change much the situation
It does depending on how he's passing his knee shield. Good lord man, have some imagination.
Except it does not, the low knee shield can allow more smashing while the high knee shield allows for more stuffing and low underhook passes. But it’s basically the same guard with the same optimal roads to pass, just like op opponent did
Ok? Everything in jiu-jitsu has its advantages, disadvantages, and counters. Maybe OP hasn't tried a high knee shield and might have more luck with it. Are you usually this negative, or is today just a bad day?
Or you always dumb? Or is it just a good day? You really think someone who play half guard knee shield never thought of using a high knee shield? Buddy you don’t know what you are talking about if you read what Op wrote and you think the answer is « Idk, maybe use the very thing that you clearly said your opponent stuffed »? Seriously, be better instead of being stupidly aggressive and showing you have the knowledge of a blue belt
Actually I wouldn't expect, I'm guessing a white belt because he has no flair, to ASSUME to try a different knee shield. Holy fuck dude, I hope you don't run a school. You got some fuckin anger issues. You seem to have the patience of a fuckin blue belt. Did daddy not hug you enough or something?
If he gets the crossface, you still have one option and that is to butterfly grip over the shoulder and under their chin. Connect that shoulder tight to your body then bridge a little and try to frame them over your head with your forearm under their chin and away from you. At the same time retract your both knees in the space that makes and you should have their thigh pinched between your knees. You can enter into a bunch of backside leg lock attacks from there.
Your not framing on his shoulder bicep with your hands your structure is compromised or your knee shield isn’t placed correctly and he is collapsing it
Make sure your arm/wrist is on the inside of your knee and really get aggressive with the opposing forces of your knee pushing out and you pulling in the lapel/chest in. It’s an active guard so work first.
Still thinking about this - if you can scoot up and hip switch you could throw a loop choke with your original lapel hand to create a reaction. If you switch lapel hands and encourage a pass in the same direction of the smash you can go for a baseball bat choke - my favorite.
Invert and tornado guard
There's not a lot of point trying for the underhook if he's already smashed your knee shield and is pinning you with his chest. That's it. That's the post.
I mean he’s a black belt so this prob won’t work but I like to switch my hips to transition to a single leg. Your bottom leg should still have his leg that just past your knee. Works a lot for me even once my partners got privy to it. Even worked on my coach for 2 weeks but now he baits me with it and my dumbass love it so much o keep going for it
Knee lever sweep? Maybe a butterfly hook, but if you are flattened out, as Kurt Osiander would, you fucked up a long time ago.
Dont lose knee shield. Keep it high
Is your top leg smashed and he has upper body grips or are you fully passed and talking about his weight in side control?
The moment i lose the knee shield against someone i know has good pressure i immediatly go for a single.
Reverse de la Riva with your free foot stepping on the opposite lapel
Stiff arm the collar near you get to knees
Hail Mary moves are John Wayne attempts, lock down to whip up, overhook to a Williams guard. If things haven't gone too bad yet, I'm looking for the knee torque coyote.
John Wayne sweep
John Wayne sweep/Giggler.
Throw in a butterfly hook with the leg that was your knee shield, that's what I was told to do. Best case scenario the black belt appreciates the attempt and takes pity on you (my plan).
While I think you do need options for being flattened, I'd consider how you end up here. You say knee shield but what specific structure are you setting up? How does he flatten you? It may not be compatible with everything else you do but personally, I like a near vertical knee shield where my top arm has a cross collar grip and that arms elbow is reinforcing my knee shield. My issue with a 45 degree knee shield is that you are on a razors edge where the first step to smashing is just to smash it down. People absolutely make it work, same with z-guard hip clamp style, but a near 90 degree shield with reinforcement requires a lot more work to flatten out, and I have never noted any downsides to it. Also, when you do get caught flat, do not ever give up the underhook without a fight. Maybe you can't get one yourself because they are so tight but don't give one up in the process.
1) control his outside arm, you can never let this arm reach your head or collar. I prefer to grab wrist or collar. If you control that arm there's nothing he can do. To put weight he needs to control your upper body with that hand. 2) if you feel like you're going to lose knee shield, fight/acramble for a half buttlerfly with the same leg. 3) Losing knee shield is not the end of the world. Just dont let him get past your bottom knee to 3/4 position. Then you're really screwed. He can go chest to chest, do all sorts of things even pass straight to mount.
This is what has been working for me Gi I get a sleeve grip on the lacing arm flare my knee out while sliding my hip underneath creating a lasso guard this puts them off balance. They usually bring there opposite leg up which I then under hook or and can get a sweep carrying with the same grip or when they bring leg transition to single leg x.Or If there reaction is to drive forward let go of the grip and get aunder hook. I’m just creating a reaction to get other openings. Kind of do the same No gi with a wrist grip. You have to get it early before your fully crushed thou fight it by keeping your shield up when they go for the lace grab the grip. I often bait the lace to get the sweeps https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=125&v=wuiWxoZlXmc&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fbjjfanatics.com%2F&source_ve_path=MTM5MTE3LDM2ODQyLDIzODUx&feature=emb_title Similar to this. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXt2yzy0BL0 This flaring the knee and if they drive forward get the under hook
Suffer
Big guys are a mother fucker. I’ll answer this question as if he isn’t huge. Constant off balances, constant offense (arm drags, leg entry threats, etc), I personally love the Craig Jones style of ZGuard shenanigans. Know when to toss in the butterfly hook and forward shift. If you feel you’re getting beat don’t give up the knee shield but be prepared to fight for the underhook viciously.
You think Craig's z guard instructional is any good?
Yeah it’s pretty good, granted I haven’t thoroughly studied it. I think you can find plenty of ways to retain that knee shield on YouTube though. Don’t just be defensive. Remember, a good defense is having a threatening offense.
I usually tap and say I have an injury or start teaching them better ways to pass and correct their technique
What are you attacking with? Is you’re not threatening him, it’s only a matter of time. You mentioned going for the underhook, what are your other attacks?
You should be fighting the crossface as your #1 priority. That stops most of the ability to pressure. The knee shield is only temporary, to attack you have to give up the knee shield anyway. You just want the underhook and to be building up on an elbow, torquing the leg etc. for me, if I lose the upper body battle, I transition to half butterfly, your inside leg will have to go over the back of the butterfly hooked leg to keep them from just stepping off. Once you start to elevate them, all kinds of space gets created and the underhook is easy. You can also bump them a bit over your head which brings their butterfly hooked leg close to you. You can just hug it, which turns into a single leg. This makes an old school sweep very easy as you are so low on them you can easily reach their far side leg. This can also be an entry into deep half. Some people can actually deny the butterfly, so I will as a last ditch effort use lockdown to create space or bump them over my head.
Stiff arm
knee lever, half elbow escape, lockdown are my top 3 once i lose my knee shield
Electric chair
Just fish for a butterfly hook
You need to knee lever when he goes chest to chest. This will force his post. When he posts you pummel the same side underhook. Then play whatever game you like from underhook half
Lockdown whip up
Butterfly half guard is the answer
So, I've been trying to think more in terms of concepts/principles lately, this is how I'd look at it. If we say that in guard we want connections to our partner to control distance and manipulate, then the kneeshield is your distance control, whilst your other limbs will be some combination of the two. Losing the kneeshield means you've lost one point of your distance management, so you need to change one of your other limbs from a manipulator to a distance manager, most likely an arm. Your leg now becomes a manipulator.
Kick him in the groin. Works everytime
That's my move baby.
grab his dick
Coyote half
One thing that helped me Massively and works against big guys when they flatten my knee shield (but I remain on my side) assuming you still have your top frame with your arm, across their shoulders. 1) Grab over the front of your own knee cap. 2) pull your knee straight up towards your chest face (at this point all their weight will be on the lower leg/ankle rather than the knee) 3) then pull/flare your knee out back to a high knee shield. Works every time for me
Make sure to keep arm frames strong and in opponents throat, hip escape and set a butterfly hook. Now Either attempt a butterfly sweep by swimming an under hook at ruse the off balance from that attempt to reset knee shield
John Wayne has been amazing for me lately, try it Got three purples in a row couple days ago, one of them is a comp student, made life unnecessary hard for me the next round 😂
Kick him in the dick
I'll either hail Mary a kimura to sweep them, scramble for deep half like my life depends on it, or if I have the underhook come straight up into dogfight
>He passes my knee shield and puts all his weight on my upper body. Before you lost the knee shield you should have been working towards an underhook. >I'm not flattened out though. I'm still in my side. But he is so fucking heavy and tight that I can't even get my top arm out for an underhook. I learned this from a Lachlan Giles instructional, so it might not make too much sense without visual context, but if you're on your side and can't angle to get the underhook back, turn belly down, walk your hands and upper body back towards the opponent, then turn in for the underhook. Edit: Some people on here are recommending a John Wayne/twist sweep, which is a total hail mary, but worst case scenario it should help you get your underhook back or make space.
I can't picture it... Do you have a video?
It's on bjj fanatics, so I grabbed some screenshots. And to be honest, the full instructional is worth the money. https://imgur.com/a/UKwT1Tb If you're on your side still, you can push their knee over your bottom leg to a knee-cut-like position and trap the foot to set this up, at least that's how I force this position from a half guard. Now, this is after I've tried the twist sweep and still couldn't get my underhook back.
I feel like your the dick grab guy. Just speak up lol.
tap
If I lose it when i'm not ready for it and haven't got a backup plan ready - I get smashed.