This week was used to review what we’ve covered so far and to ensure we understand what the key points are. Key points: The main objective for the bottom player is to gain dominant head position. Control the centre of mass after obtaining head position. The main objective of the top player is to prevent […]
In the fight for head position, the obvious thing for the top player to do is to use his hands and arms to push the bottom player and prevent her from closing the distance to gain head position (head to chest). Regardless of which hand is dominant, his outside (crossfacing) arm will be able to […]
Until now, our focus has been on what the bottom player is attempting to do. The top player as been providing resistance, but that resistance has been unskilled. We shall now begin dealing with a skilled opponent. The first objective of a skilled top player who finds himself in half guard is to gain good […]
We are now well aware that the main battle that is occurring with half guard is that the bottom player is attempting to gain dominant head position and the top player is trying to prevent this from occurring. A common way the top player does this is by squashing the bottom player with his bodyweight. […]
Last week focussed on gaining good positioning. With good positioning, sweeping becomes easy. The aim of this week is to introduce the most common (and hence easy to apply) half guard sweeps. The next two months will be spent on dismantling our opponent’s counters so we can perform these sweeps. A note for those interested […]