[missioncontrol]

Originally Posted by Aesopian

Good idea, guardpasser. Thanks.

My problem with the half guard where you fight for the underhook and move to the back is that I really, really hate being crushed and I really, really, really hate being crossfaced. And I've never been able to play it without getting crushed and crossfaced, even if I succeed. That's why I've developed a half butterfly game and switch to butterfly and x-guard so much -- I want to get them the hell off me.

Aside from pet peeves, I've also simply had a hard time with the two most important aspects: getting the underhook and turning on my side. My arms tend get trapped and stuck in bad spots. Without the underhook, I'm stuck on my back. Again, the half butterfly game remedies this since I can play it flat with an overhook.

But still, it's nagged me. I see other small guys play this half guard extremely well. It's a highly technical game, so I must be missing that proper technique, or at least not have it ingrained properly.

If I'm ever to get into this game, I'll need to address my two main concerns, being crushed flat and crossfaced. Solving this, the underhook should come more easily along with the rest of the game. I think I need to look earlier and see why I'm ending up in bad posture and position.

Whenever someone asks me how to get out of terrible positions or nearly finished submissions, I tell them it's like a boxer asking how to undo the last punch that hit him. You're too late and you're either in for a tough battle or you're done. I'm applying that same attitude to my half guard positioning. The real solution is awareness, avoidance and fixing problems before they're really problems.

I have the bad habit of not fighting for the underhook before they've settled their weight. By that point, they're fighting for superior grips and underhooks of their own. Getting a good half butterfly only made this worse since then I really didn't care if I had the underhook. I've got to break this habit and force myself to be more aggressive.

There are a couple tools that'll likely help me have more time to setup a proper half guard:

- Getting my knee against there hip to maintain space. Saulo teaches this in his first set, and it's part of the z-guard Leo Kirby does.
- Framing posture, with a forearm across their neck and the other hand on the biceps (paw grip). This keeps their weight off and blocks the crossface.
- Double paw, for when I really don't want to get crossfaced.

Using these together puts them in a sort of "long range" half guard. This position gives me time to turn on my side while staying safe before diving in deep for the underhook.

I have more thoughts on what to do once I'm diving deep, but I'll save those for later. I need to start getting there in the first place.

There is a move called the Jaws of Life Eddie Bravo showed us it would solve your problem, It helps you get half guard with both under hooks, you could whip up to the old school. I use this move and it works more then 70% of the time. Have you got his new book yet?

[Zankou]

Okay, I learned a couple moves that have *greatly* increased the effectiveness of my underhook game, solving some tough problems. Lemme share.

First is a way to get the game going when your opponent flattens you out with a crossface. You have the underhook. The key is very simple: Turn your face AWAY from the crossface. You think of getting on your side and facing the guy, but that's exactly what you don't (and can't) do when a stiff crossface is on. Instead turn your head and face the exact opposite way, away from the crossface. Grab the pant at the knee with your free arm. Then using the underhook, your knee, and the pants grip, hoist the guy up and over you. THEN you can turn on your side and start working. This has worked GREAT for me.

Second is a way to defeat the overhook to brabo. As soon as the guy goes for the overhook, you bring your hand inside, clamp the overhook to your body, and do the "roll back" type sweep, grabbing his opposite leg/foot and driving your hips under, rolling him over. He will go flying. It's awesome!

Third is when your opponent starts doing that sucky reverse scarfhold move. Most opponents will leave their trailing leg too close. You simply step over that trailing leg with your own outside leg, take your underhooking arm and put it right across the guy's face, and drive into him. Voila, sweep!

[Aesopian]

Thanks for the tips.

missioncontrol, I've been using a combination of Eddie's Jaws of Life and the way Gustavo teaches framing/pummeling. They've been working well.

Zankou, I'm aware of all of those but haven't put them to much use. I'll give it a shot. The second one (the sweep) is something I worked on with Trog and he's been having a lot of success with it. I've got it a couple times lately when baiting the brabo. It is awesome.

Notes from training this week. Got to work on half guard from the top and bottom all week. Getting experience points, to borrow MMORPG terminology (and make me hate myself).

Building a gameplan for half guard passing based on three main vibes is working perfectly. It's all material (passes, positions, grips, etc.) that I've already drilled and trained for a long time, but I'm combining them with more thought and skill than ever before. It's all clicked together in no time flat.

Eduardo saw me going over this with Trog and he asked me to come over and show it to him. He was really into it and liked what I did. He thought I was smart for looking for multiple solutions to the same problem (e.g. when three different grips can be used, so you're never left without an option). He showed me another "safety position" that he said is a signature skill of Marcio Feitosa. It's similar to the reverse scarf position but not quite as committed.

Today I drilled kneebars and leglocks from half guard, top and bottom. I wasn't sure when I should add them, since I didn't know how well they'd work with everything else I'm doing, and I didn't want to change my focus from sweeps and passing. Dusted off my copy of Dynamic Kneebars by Kesting and rewatched it with a training partner. Picked out the forward spin, back spin and rolling kneebar (from half guard) to drill as well as the basics of correct positioning, grips and finishing.

Also went over the straight ankle lock in detail, switching back and forth between ankle locks and kneebars, and getting them from half guard with the "legoplata" movement. Also went over heelhooks, which I never do and don't plan to start, but I wanted to at least be aware of them.

After getting around 5 kneebars and 2 ankle locks in sparring, it looks like now was a perfect time to add leglocks to my half guard game.

From the bottom, it was a natural addition to the vibes and grips I was already doing. A lot of my sweeps share the same setups and movements as the kneebar. The same went for the top, with them adding another vibe for the bottom man to worry about.

Talked to my training partner about it and he said he felt much less safe than before, like he couldn't put it legs anywhere to base without being in danger. This meant the sweeps came much easier. The passes were more threatening since he knew I had the kneebar in my back pocket.

I'm taking particular care to build leglocks into this game on a positional basis, meaning I don't want them to sacrifice good position or be my last resorts. That's how leglocks got a bad reputation and that's when they're the "lucky" submission (when they work) and "bad ideas" (when they fail). I am making them a legitimate addition to the game, where they work in combination everything I'm already doing. I've got some thoughts on how to do this that I may write up later.

[JarMan]

Okay, I need a half guard tip. I get my outside knee into my partner's stomach. My other leg is still hooking his leg. I'm on my side and my partner sits up. I'm looking for some good techniques to use from here. Any suggestions?

[Lovesong]

Originally Posted by Zankou

Okay, I learned a couple moves that have *greatly* increased the effectiveness of my underhook game, solving some tough problems. Lemme share.

First is a way to get the game going when your opponent flattens you out with a crossface. You have the underhook. The key is very simple: Turn your face AWAY from the crossface. You think of getting on your side and facing the guy, but that's exactly what you don't (and can't) do when a stiff crossface is on. Instead turn your head and face the exact opposite way, away from the crossface. Grab the pant at the knee with your free arm. Then using the underhook, your knee, and the pants grip, hoist the guy up and over you. THEN you can turn on your side and start working. This has worked GREAT for me.

Second is a way to defeat the overhook to brabo. As soon as the guy goes for the overhook, you bring your hand inside, clamp the overhook to your body, and do the "roll back" type sweep, grabbing his opposite leg/foot and driving your hips under, rolling him over. He will go flying. It's awesome!

Third is when your opponent starts doing that sucky reverse scarfhold move. Most opponents will leave their trailing leg too close. You simply step over that trailing leg with your own outside leg, take your underhooking arm and put it right across the guy's face, and drive into him. Voila, sweep!

Can you elaborate on the reverse scarfhold counter? I can't picture it, and reverse scarfhold gives me absolute fits. Are you saying your outside leg (the one that would normally rotate in for a butterfly hook) hooks all the way over his free leg? I must be misunderstanding something...

[Sherdog_Mutt]

Originally Posted by Lovesong

Can you elaborate on the reverse scarfhold counter? I can't picture it, and reverse scarfhold gives me absolute fits. Are you saying your outside leg (the one that would normally rotate in for a butterfly hook) hooks all the way over his free leg? I must be misunderstanding something...

Zankou: I second this request. I can't exactly picture what you're describing.

[Sherdog_Mutt]

Originally Posted by JarMan

Okay, I need a half guard tip. I get my outside knee into my partner's stomach. My other leg is still hooking his leg. I'm on my side and my partner sits up. I'm looking for some good techniques to use from here. Any suggestions?

1) Grab knee of free leg. Use the scissor sweep motion. He'll post his arm to prevent the sweep. Sit up and pull that arm out to complete sweep.

2 & 3) Grab free leg and dive underneath him. You can easily sweep backwards or forwards from here.

Try working on these basic sweeps for now.

[Zankou]

Originally Posted by Lovesong

Can you elaborate on the reverse scarfhold counter? I can't picture it, and reverse scarfhold gives me absolute fits. Are you saying your outside leg (the one that would normally rotate in for a butterfly hook) hooks all the way over his free leg? I must be misunderstanding something...

Yep, that's what it is. You keep the bottom leg hooked, and your outside leg steps over his free leg, which will be nearly parallel to his trapped leg (rather than perpendicular, as it needs to be to keep good base from the reverse scarf pass). I'm not quite sure what you would call that position, it's a little strange since your legs are basically crossed over each other. Then I let go of the bottom leg hook (so I can bridge with it), make sure I have the crossface (not the underhook, it should be the crossface), and bridge into the guy. I easily reversed a 250 pound opponent who had been giving me fits from reverse scarfhold with this. I watched his leg come close, stomped over it, and then drove in.

Now I'm not sure if that's the technically correct way to trap the leg with that sweep. I think the other way you could go is to use your bottom leg to trap. Then you could drive in with the other leg, or I suppose use it as the butterfly hook. That would look more like a mount escape. I got the move from a Michael Jen dvd, so I'll go back and take another look at what he recommends.

This leg-trap sweep works well because so many opponents will "hide" their leg in reverse scarfhold so that you can't elevate them by grabbing the leg. When it's perpendicular (as it should be to give them good base), then you can easily grab it. So when you grab at their leg, they commonly pull it back and low. It is then the perfect time to trap that leg and sweep.

[Gsoares2]

This thread has dipped a couple of Pages back - and i just wanted to bring it back to the top.

Ive been trying to work this zguard/half guard game a lot lately and its working out pretty well. The sweeps im getting have already been covered on this thread. So i wont delve to deep into them.. but i have two specificaly that have been the dominate sweeps from this halfguard.

My knee has been jacked up so i dont use the butterfly hook much, and keeping the distance with the zguard sometimes makes me knee feel funny. So when i doubt i just hide it and play from a completely generic "normal" half guard. Im still using the framing from the Z guard position, combod with the undehrook, and attacking with the Kimura. When they defend the kimura i either go under the leg or bump to the kimura side to get an easy sweep.. but anyways let me get into the sweeps.

#1 is my classic, ive gotten it for a couple months now and was never taught the sweep, or position - it came before i even began to talk about the halfguard. Came solely as a result of my injury to my left knee. I am in deep half guard underhooking the leg with my right hand, and framing on the chest/belly with my left hand. I rock back and forth trying to force my opponent to stand, or post on the leg that is in the halfguard. When they stand i take the hand that was framing under the body and underhook their leg that is in the half guard.
I use the hand under the halfguar leg to rotate so i am perpindicular to my opponent.
I rock the leg that is under my opponent like Pendulum causing the opponents knee to bend at an angle he cant recover from.. Once the momentum is set in motion - there is no stopping the sweep. its butter smooth, and works great every time.
Jeff Rockwell recently did a write up on a sweep very similar.. only minor differences in how we do it.. like grip. Aesopian sent me the link to it, so maybe i can ask him to find it again.

#2 is another sweep that is new to my game - I learned it from Aesopian - we were joking around with this sweep thinking it was not going to be easily pulled off.. Which ended up being far from the truth.. i am now getting this sweep easily on even the best guys. Its simple sweep - and ill do my best to explain it that way.
* I have deep halfguard under the leg, but i cant get deep enough - due to crossface or whatever
* i have a slight underhook on my opponents left side so he feels threatened by it.
* opponent will almost always try to wizzer that underhook LET THEM
* when you feel the wizzer sliding in Clamp your elbow to your side so he cannot go any further, and cannot retract his arm. Controll at the wrist/hand for additional grip.
* Keep his leg locked down with your bottom leg toes turned down
* your outside leg is going to ROCK outward creating momentum similar to a pendulum sweep.
* The hand that was underhooking the leg pushes up towards the ceiling. (more towards the trapped arm/ceiling)
*Taking your opponent towards the trapped wizzer.
He should topple over like a banana - you have his arm trapped and he cannot post. Because of this position you generate a lot of momentum.. making the sweep very easy.

I still need a lot of experience when it comes to this position, but so far its working out great.

[Zankou]

#2 is the exact same sweep I posted above. We drilled it again last night. And yeah, it's tremendously effective:

"Second is a way to defeat the overhook to brabo. As soon as the guy goes for the overhook, you bring your hand inside, clamp the overhook to your body, and do the "roll back" type sweep, grabbing his opposite leg/foot and driving your hips under, rolling him over. He will go flying. It's awesome!"

One of the keys seems to be that after you clamp, you really drive your hips DEEP under the guy towards the opposite side. The further the better. Then he has basically zero chance of avoiding a huge sweep.