We can play guard through inside positional control (such as butterfly), outside positional control (such as closed guard) or half inside half outside, which leads us to half guard variations.

Half guard is often

FUNDAMENTALS HALF GUARD CONTENT:

For fundamentals, we’ll be looking to build the following skills & knowledge:

DJI_20241124_113039_455_video.mov

DJI_20241124_113318_324_video.mov

DJI_20241124_113822_019_video.mov

• Practical ability to play in clamp half guard variations
• Practical ability to play in knee shield half guard variations
• Develop vocabulary for common movement pathways and off balancing techniques:
  • Grips bottom:
    • Scoop grip
    • Kosoto Hook
    • Underhook
    • Whizzer
  • Grips top:
    • Hip post
    • Underhook
    • Cross face
  • Off Balancing techniques:
    • Half Scissor Kuzushi
    • Scoop grip Kusushi
    • Scorpion Elevator Kuzushi (aka lockdown)
    • Knee lever Kuzushi
    • Tight Waist Tilt Kuzushi
    • Windmill Kuzushi
  • Movement Pathways from bottom:
    • Wrestle up
    • Knee Lever
    • Tilt Sweep
    • Get underneath opponent with Scoop or deep half
  • Movement Pathways from top:
    • Smash knee shield
    • Disengage
    • Get to split squat
    • Get chest-to-chest
      • Free knee line

CONTENT TO STUDY IF YOU’RE INTERESTED:

This instructional actually covers half guard, half knee shield, and dogfight: It’s probably the closest thing you’ll find to a course that’s specifically tailored to this week in our curriculum:

https://submeta.io/@lachlangiles/courses/half-guard

This video covers more about attacking legs from bottom half guard, which is less important for fundamentals but is still interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CStIWdsqxog

DANAHER BOTTOM HALF GUARD CONTENT:

Names of off balancing techniques:

• Half scissor kuzushi
• Half butterfly bump
  • Starting in half butterfly, bump their hip to floor
  • Grab their shoelaces under
  • Bump to put hip on floor
• Scoop half kuzushi
  • you can attack both legs with this. It’s the bomb.com
  • It’s technically an underhook, but we have a different name for leg underhooks
  • You can do it with hands locked or hands open.
  • Switch your hips to face from them to away from them
  • If they can bring their knees together (or free their scooped leg) they can leg lock you
  • They can stay down on knee or go to 4 points. You can’t really control that. If they go up, legs or x guard. If they’re down leg entanglements.
  • You can bring them up into 4 points if you want.
• scorpion elevator kuzushi
  • inside scorpion only unless you’re purple+ period the end
  • Makes it more difficult for top person to leg lock
  • Really good with a scoop grip
  • Not that useful if they can put their chest down
  • When you want to off balance bring their leg up so they look like a scorpion. Knees provide power hands provide direction. Hands push over to the side
• half butterfly elevator
  • Similar to scorpion. Bring knees to chest
• Knee lever kuzushi
  • works best if knees on the mat
  • Pinch knees
  • Push knees over
  • They typically don’t want to be swept so they’ll post with their leg or arm
  • This doesn’t have to be used to sweep. We can use it to off balance them and improve our grips
• tight waist tilt kuzushi
  • really common. Called seatbelt in wrestling but we already use that term so it’s tight waist
  • From the dogfight esque position
  • Scoop far leg roll back
  • If they don’t let go of wizzer it’s a sweep, but they will
• windmill kuzushi
  • often when they have cross face
  • Hold their leg with inside knee
  • Arms out windmill
  • One chops knee one hits head
  • Clamp (Traditional)
  • Z (Frame Based)

Kosoto hook can also be used to off balance, not shown in danahers instructional

GAMES:

CLAMP HALF GUARD FYJJ

KNEE SHIELD HALF GUARD FYJJ

HALF GUARD POSITIONAL

SEATED VS KNEELING - STRUCTURE AND CONNECTIONS