MasterclassBottomGuard
Perfect Guard Retention
John Danaher
Keeping your open guard when they try to pass
John Danaher's lesson on guard retention: keeping the passer in front of your legs.
/
Seated open guard
Feet and hands on their hips, biceps or sleeves keep them at a distance. The hub for every open guard.
Your bookmarks
Press Bookmark while a detail you want to rewatch is on screen.
Essentials
You’re sitting up facing them with your feet active, no legs locked. It’s the connecting point to almost every open guard, and the place you land when they break your closed guard or stand up.
Your goals
- Keep at least two points of contact: feet, shins or grips
- Keep your knees between you and them
- Move into a sweep, a guard, or wrestle up
What they want
- Pin or move past your legs
- Get to your hips and flatten you
Key principles
- Distance management: too far you can’t attack, too close you get smashed
- Hands and feet work together
Common mistakes
- Leaning back on your hands so you can’t move
- Letting them grip and pin both legs
Techniques to learn
Each one opens its own page and video.
Where it leads
- Other side
- Passing open guard
- Moves from here
- Closed guardButterfly guardHalf guardStandingSpider guardDe La Riva guardReverse De La RivaSingle leg X
- In courses
- Open guard set
- Seminars
If this happens…
- they stand and reach for your feetGrip a sleeve or ankle and put a foot on their hip or bicep
- they try to circle around your legsShrimp and turn so your feet face them again
Seminars
All seminars →Longer seminars, classes and masterclasses that teach this. Free on YouTube.
Full seminarBottomGuard
Wrestle Up Fundamentals
Knight Jiu-Jitsu
Coming up from seated guard to a top position
A full seminar on wrestling up: getting from a seated or grounded guard back to the top.
Class recordingBothGuard
Constructing/Deconstructing Guards
Chris Paines
Why guard works, how guards are built and how they come apart
Chris Paines explains the logic of guard: why it works, how to build one and how to take one apart. A concept class filmed at a BJJ Globetrotters camp.
Advanced detailsTransitions, threats, reactions, troubleshooting and a sparring drill
1. Overview
Feet and hands on their hips, biceps or sleeves keep them at a distance. The hub for every open guard.
Key controls
- Active feet on hips or biceps
- Grip sleeve and ankle
- Frame and keep distance
In this position
12 transitions · 2 sweeps · 4 submissions · 1 takedowns · 3 reactions · 2 troubleshooting fixes · 1 sparring exercise · 6 techniques
Read about itGrapplearts articlesBJJ Heroes
Finish this lesson
0% of this lesson0/34 videos completed · 0/6 techniques practiced
Test yourselfSeated open guard lesson quiz5 questions · pass with 4