Breaking Jiu-Jitsu Guard Posture Training »

The other night we worked some breakdowns from an opponent posturing in guard. I found this drill from a series of techniques on grapplersguide.com which has just become one of my favorite new websites.

Posturing in Guard

When you are in top guard position, basically your main goal (in a grappling scenario) is to pass the guard. There are very few submissions from the top guard position. Most of them are leg locks, heel hooks, or kneebars. Though all of those are great techniques and can be used, they should be used at a higher level. After you are first able to pass the guard.
Control the hips - when you want to posture up in guard, you want to control the person’s hips. Hip movement is key to the person in bottom guard. The ability to rise, maneuver, and switch hips is vital in the bottom guard position. So the person on top wants to take away this ability and pin the opponents hips to the mat. We accomplish this by placing our hands on the person’s belt or pelvic area and drive back
Head up high - while you drive back with your hands, you want to keep your head up high and your shoulders back. This creates space for you to start passing, but also limits the options a person has to break down your posture and negates some submission attempts such as the triangle, guillotine, etc.
Note: I am going to bring camera to class again soon and will demonstrate some of these positions.

Breaking opponent’s posture

One tip that I read on Grapplersguide.com that stuck with me is that when you want to break your opponents posture, you should attack starting with the head and work your way down to the wrists.
Series of breaking down attacks

1. When opponent is posturing, sit up into him, grab the back of his head (not his neck) and pull him back down into you.
   Notes: We actually found this one to be a little more difficult to pull off. It was harder to reach the opponents head, and when you did, it felt very weak. We switched from just grabbing it, to using a Gable Grip. This proved a little more effective. I think this technique would be best used when the opponent is first starting to posture and has not locked out yet.
2. Attack the elbows when opponent postures.
   Notes: This one seemed a little more effective. What you do is when the opponents postures and locks out his arms you take your hands and come from the outside of their elbows, and wrap your hands around them from the outside in. (refer to video) Flare your elbows and pull their arms out, and bring them down into your with your legs. Obtain an overhook.

3. Wrist attacks 1 of 3
   Notes: This is similar to attacking the arms, but instead you attack the wrists. My hands come over the top of their hands and hook their thumb area with my hand. Pull out, and again pull them down into you with your legs.
4. Wrist attacks 2 of 3
   Notes: This is a different variation which I liked a lot. Your grab your opponents wrists, not hands, and you push their wrists up into them. From here you have 2 options. One you can then try to pull them back into you and get double underhooks. Or the version shown at Grapplersguide.com is take your feet, put them on his hips, and push away. This allows you to create some space to attack with open guard, or get to your feet.
5. Wrist attacks 3 of 3
   Notes: This is a two on one wrist attack with two variations. The first one would work better with a gi and really needs a video to demonstrate. But, if I am attacking their right postured hand, my right hand is going to grab first, closest to their hand, thumb down. My left hand will grab right above my right hand, thumb down. From here, I pull the arm out and towards my head. My right hand keeps control, while my left hand swims to the inside of his arm to get an overhook. Pull him into you with your legs.
   The last one is when you have the same hand grip, but you pull the arm to the right, across your body, like an armdrag. This allows to have their arm pinned across their body and you can start working for the back.

Here is some video of Ryan and Oz Pariser working some armdrags and posturing. Ryan is brown belt in Kobukai Ju-Jitsu and one of our top students. Oz Pariser is a blue belt in Kobukai Ju-Jitsu and a professional MMA fighter. I am going to add some more video to this post later.