Originally Posted by
Ross Davidson
I like that summary, Mike. If I'm in bottom half though, my goal is to get out of it. It's not a great position for a fight, however, if you're good at getting out, it can be a great transitional phase for you. My game is centered around lockdown half. Everything I do depends on me having an excellent lockdown sweep/homie control/kimura control game from bottom half. However, if I'm going against someone who is good at jiu jitsu, bottom half can be a nightmare for me if I'm not 100% on my game and transitions. And that's kinda the idea, I guess. Most guys in mma don't spend too much time preparing to win from the bottom, in effective ways. There's such a high priority on wrestling that getting top position out of the gate is the only way a lot of people will grapple in mma. So when they inevitably get stuck on the bottom, there's not much they can do.
Oh yea, my guys I train with have killer half guards too, just based off of butterfly (super stomp). They are Marcelo guys after all ;)
Turns out that the black belt at my gym is actually the guy credited for naming Z guard too. Stephen Kesting actually referred to him as the positions namer. Needless to say he's a z guard master, though he rarely uses it anymore.