Bernardo Faria’s Crafty Knee Capture Sweep

By Corey Kuropas, December 31, 2016

Bernardo Faria is a champion of many talents in Jiu Jitsu. His deep half and z guard games are well known in the Jiu Jitsu community as his dominating style of pressure passing. But what people forget about the multiple time BJJ champion is that he also has a world class closed guard as well. No matter what happens in his matches, he is always able to go back to his closed guard to show his world class black belt level skills. Bernardo has a rather interesting sweep from closed guard known as the knee capture sweep. He uses it when his opponent’s stand up and try to pass his closed guard. This sweep can help anyone from white belt to black belt, to stop a standing guard pass. Let’s check it out.

As you see in the video above, Bernardo has a nice, strong closed guard. But, his opponent is able to grab his pants and stand up. When the opponent stands up, it can get dangerous for the guard player due to the different passing techniques or leg attacks. This sweep should take care of that. As Faria’s opponent stands, Bernardo does not allow him to open the guard. Bernardo opens his guard first and then closes it again, but this time he does it, he does it above his opponent’s knees. Once he has the guard closed again, he maintains a relatively decent control.

Once controlled, Bernardo sits up and drops his guard, but still has it closed. He then wraps one of his arms around both of his opponent’s legs and keeps his head tight to those legs. He posts his hands and escapes his hips to the side. Then he opens his guard ever so slightly and drives forward to get on top of his opponent. It is a simple, yet beautifully done sweep to prevent a guard pass and ultimately gives you a dominant position.

Mr. Faria is a world champion for a reason. He has his areas of Jiu Jitsu that he knows better than anyone else and is able to use those areas to win title after title. His closed guard is very underrated, and he has released a great DVD all about his closed guard.

Click here to see The Closed Guard, a four DVD set all about the best techniques from guard.