Hi Richard,

First of all, I am entirely new to grappling and I really enjoy it alot. This site is just an invaluable source of information to me since I can sit at home and just watch techniques over and over and then go to the gym and try them out. Great work!

I wonder if you can make a video where you teach how do defend against people passing your guard? I.e. what are some good defences when the other guy breaks your closed guard and tries to pass his knee over or tries to go under your legs?

Would be great if you could make a video on this!

mbman wrote:
I wonder if you can make a video where you teach how do defend against people passing your guard? I.e. what are some good defenses when the other guy breaks your closed guard and tries to pass his knee over or tries to go under your legs?

First off- welcome to the boards, mbman!

Now, I will try to make a video of this soon. There's a couple of videos that have been requested, but I'll try to work this in soon.

As a quick reference- there's a few issues that I'd like to bring up regarding this topic immediately. First is the statement of "breaking your closed guard" and the reason being that your guard should very rarely be closed in the first place. I VERY SELDOM close my guard because closed guard is just for stalling. I use a closed guard to break my opponent's posture, but then it's back to sweeping him. Next- SHRIMP YOUR HIPS OUT! All the time- you should be moving. Your opponent should have a hard time isolating any part of your lower body to begin to pass because you should be threatening his base with a sweep at all times. It's hard to be on offense when you're focused on defense. That's the mentality that you want to keep at all times on the ground. GET OFF THE FLAT OF YOUR BACK!

Closed = no openings
Thinking stictly from and MMA mindset. Closed guard is a means to stall out the action. Either to give me time to regroup, set up a sub or force a refs to stand us up. The ony time it's bad for a guy to pass my guard is when he passes it against my will and I am not set up for a reaction. I have worked with too many guys who get beat in their own minds just because of the BJJ point system. They get it drilled in their heads in practice that if he passes you've lost.

I teach my guys to constantly look forward. Screw what just happened. It happened and it's in the past and can't be changed. Most every new situation presents new opertunities. And in my experience, the guy who reacts first to the what is at hand wins. When you are offnsively passing you have a goal in mind... forcing the other guy to think. Thus giving you the upper hand because you are a couple seconds in his future. Now if you recognize a guys pass attempt and react offensively you get a couple seconds into his future. The only time you are equal in a grapple is when you are tied up. This is a very simplistic way of looking at it. But the next time you roll. Instead of wastin time thinking "damnit he passed me". Try being the first to think "what can I do from here".

Hi again Richard,

Any idea of when you might do this video? I am looking forward to it very much and am eagerly awaiting it

I'm very busy, I'll try to get to it this weekend. I've started a new job recently, and it's been very demanding. Soon it will slow down (as the training schedule concludes), and I should be back to normal.

Due to request, HERE is a video on breaking down your opponent's posture when you're in guard.