As we are working on opening the closed guard this week, I thought I’d kick my two cents worth on the subject. The best piece of advice I have received since I started training has been to stand up in the guard. What I mean is essentially what you guys have learned this week: getting a frame, maintaining good posture and then standing up. This is easier said than done. When I first tried to stand up in someone’s guard, all I got was broken down and swept. When I tried the next time, I got arm-barred or horribly choked, no big deal. This continued to happen and continues to happen to this day. But eventually I started standing up in my friends’ guards and eventually I started breaking those guards. It is not easy to stand up, and it’s not a silver bullet, but I believe it is one of the most effective ways to break a guard.
When framing off, keep one hand on your partners chest/sternum. With your other hand, monitor his hip. By setting up this frame, you can react to your partner’s leg and hip movement. With a gi, I’ll grip both of my partner’s lapels, holding them against his chest. From here, I’ll sit up with a straight back and my eyes to the horizon. I can see my partner in my peripheral vision, and I act as if there’s a cup of water on my head, or a pole running from my head through my body to the floor. Once I’ve established this posture, I’ll start to stand up. First, I note which hand I have on my partner’s lapels. If it is my left hand, I step up with my left foot. If it’s my right hand, I step up with my right foot. Let’s say I step up with my left foot. I plant that foot close to my partner’s torso, at about his ribs. This motion brings my weight up, but I maintain good posture, eyes always on the horizon. This weight shift frees my right foot to rotate out from under my butt and back. Now I stand up fully in a staggered stance. This stance is important to maintain, because your partner can hold his guard if he is squared off to you. From here I let go of my partner’s opposite lapel, but I slide down my grip on my partner’s right lapel (assuming I stood up with my left foot). My right forearm goes to my partner’s left knee or I can grip the pants at the knee. From here, with little shakes, I look to open my partner’s guard.
We’ll go over this a little more this week. Friday open mat is a great time to drill the moves you learned over the week. Keep training hard!
