Escape from half guard

[Joshua Scott]

Maybe this has been covered somewhere on here already, I don't know. I train traditional gi jiujitsu at a school in my town.. I've only been doing it for a few months and sometimes I do okay, but I often have trouble escaping from the half guard. I often get my back taken with it and was wondering what your guys ways of escaping from half guard are.

any input is very appreciated.


josh

[Khaos Keith]

there are lots of ways out of the half guard, i prefer the no hand pass while keeping head and arm control up top, or putting a lock down on there leg and rolling to the truck. Also to stop them from taking your back you should always fight for that underhook on the same side as your leg thats caught, but more importantly if THEY get the underhook, you need to put on a deep wizzer. ingrain it into your dna, if they have an under hook, you get the overhook. this will stop them from being able to pass to your back.

[Damian J]

Check out MTS episode 61. Awesome stuff for passing half guard. Really good for gi and no gi, IMHO. And one good thing I've found is getting solid at passing on both sides. I like to actually use the knee slide with my left knee over their left thigh. Everyone seems to be better on one side. That's usually their weaker side from bottom. Check out that episode. It's always going to be a little tougher in the gi to get that leg through, but it's still the same fundamentals. Good luck. Hope this helps.

[Joshua Jarboe]

Shoulder presh.

For standard half-guard, I like to get head and arm*, turn the free leg almost perpendicular to my opponent**, get the arm which is under the head real deep and apply sufficient shoulder pressure to turn the head. Grab pants***, push down on his legs, wiggle wiggle, push push. With the pressure you are putting down with your shoulder, he will be unable to resist you forever. Slide into three-quarter mount when you get your leg free enough.

* there's a gi hack here wherein you feed your opponents lapel under the shoulder but I don't find it helps too much compared to the kind of shoulder pressure that works no-gi.
** getting your free leg perpendicular to your opponent will probably require you to lock out your trapped leg with your foot perpendicular to him ...this will help you once you get to the wiggle and push stage.
*** assuming gi. In no-gi, you probably won't need to, he's probably wearing short and his legs are probably dripping in his own grease

Other tips:
You must deny the double underhooks or you're in deep trouble. If he gets an underhook on the far-side, consider using a whizzer?
With your free leg, avoid putting your knee on the ground, have 'active toes'
Improve your half-guard game and pay attention to what people are doing that is beating you!!
Sometimes when my opponent tries to pummel for the underhook you can threaten a kimura.

One white belt to another, hope it helps.

[Joshua Scott]

Thanks for the info guys, I'll try out some of it this week and let you know how it goes. Nobody put me in half guard today - I rolled with a black belt from brazil that lapel choked me in this slow spooky way that I wont forget for a while. It was like getting wrapped up by a snake..

Learned about the Lockdown today and tried it on someone- it's pretty brutal- maybe if I get lucky I'll get a twister this week if I can sweep someone with it lol

[Apperz]

Must admit most of this is taken straight from Eddie, but I recently did a mini-halfguard workshop for our drills team. Before taking it as gospel make sure you look at my belt colour

Halfguard Lesson Plan

If you have the far side underhook:
-Knee Slice Pass.
-Double Underhook Pass.
-Shoulder Smash Pass to Arm Triangle or, if opponent turns in, Mendes style back take.

Opponent has underhook:
-Back Step Pass (Capoeira).
-Back Step Pass to return to Knee Slice.
-Back Step Pass to return to Mendes style Back Take.

Neither has underhook:
-Buttock Compressor against the lockdown.
-Fake toe hold to Twister Pass against defensive opponent using Z guard.

Note: Your goal should always be far side under hook with the knee slice / heel toe escape as your go to. The others are contingencies when your opponent makes a mistake (Double Underhook or Shoulder Smash), you make a mistake (i.e. give up the underhook and have to back step) or your opponent does something defensive (i.e. plays Z guard or lockdown).

-----------

Have I missed any passes, 10th Planet'ers? Would love to add as many as possible to my game

[Joshua Scott]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWwJKi4ZX8Q

keeping on my side and scissoring out sort of works sometimes. i like this pass. early in this phase of my jiujitsu training i find i prefer techniques with fewer steps. When things get super complex it can take a while for it all to click into place for me, so when I roll alot of it is intuition. it takes alot of time and drills to get things to be reflex, i can tell just from watching people.

thanks for the suggestions guys ill try all of it. also MTS 61 was great too.