Lachlan Giles Explains Passing Half Guard
Of all the different guards one can use in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, half guard seems to be one those many students struggle with, and for good cause.
The half guard, and it’s many variations, combine elements from different guards. The half guard has a tightness aspect to it like the closed guard but also some more freedom like open guard.
A good half guard player will be utilizing their entire body to control their opponent. When you first begin Jiu Jitsu and play with half guard, you have not yet learned how to used every limb synergistically to achieve whatever objective you have set at that moment in time.
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As you progress, you begin to use your hands more effectively and also use your feet like hands as well, which is a huge gain in terms of skill level.
This improvement in body use can only make it more difficult for the top player pass the guard. The knee shield is already hard enough to deal with on its own, so what do you do when the guard player starts using more than just the knee shield to dominate you.
Lachlan Giles is world renowned Brazilian Jiu Jitsu blackbelt out of Absolute MMA in Australia. Lachlan is known for his amazing teaching skills and students around the world seek him for his great advice and skill set. In the following video, Lachlan gives us some awesome tips to help with passing the half guard.
What I like most about Lachlan’s teaching style is he doesn’t waste anytime on ideas and techniques that aren’t really effective. Lachlan also always explains the reason he does certain things, which is helpful because if you don’t know why you should do something, you won’t know when to do it.
Although some grapplers regard controlling the top leg to be the most important thing when passing half guard, I think Lachlan’s emphasis on the bottom leg makes way more sense, and it’s because that is the leg that is used to get to a different guard or to set up sweeps and leg entanglements.
Lachlan’s explanation of how to control the upper body is more realistic and practical that what others make it to be.
His approach is simple, and makes sense. After watching it, your execution from the Z-Guard will dramatically change for the better.
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