Passing Half Guard with the Body Lock
Great Pass With The KING!
Playing top half guard can be frustratingly difficult because it is very easy for the guard player to slow down your movement. Dealing with the multiple frames and grips is difficult enough to deal with in half guard while you also have to defend against sweeps and submissions. For smaller grapplers, like myself, it is important to learn the best ways to deal with the bottom person’s movements so as to utilize them to pass their guard.
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Many techniques from bottom half guard require the guard player to get an under hook. If the guard passer does not know how to stop and defend the under hook correctly, it is very likely they will lose in that position. It’s not all bad, however, because in order for the guard player to get an under hook, they have to sacrifice their knee shield.
Passing a half guard is also difficult because of the knee shield, and it is not easy at all to get rid of the knee shield. As I mentioned, however, if we ‘allow’ our opponents to get their under hook, they will lose their knee shield. So if we know how to stop the under hook, we can finally start looking for passes.
The first thing that needs to be done after the bottom player gets an under hook is to flatten them out. This can be done in many ways, of which not many help with passing. One method of flattening them that allows for solid passing is using the body lock. In the following video, Gordon Ryan illustrates how to get the body lock, flatten your opponent, and finally pass their guard.
This form of passing requires the top player to place a lot of pressure on the guard player to stop their movement, especially the hip escape. One thing difficult to see in the video that Gordon does to increase the amount of pressure he can put is getting off of his knees. If your knees are on the ground, you will cut down the amount of weight you can put down against the guard player. By getting off of your knees and staying on your toes, you can place huge amounts of pressure against the guard player.
In the span of about 18 months: Gordon Ryan Went From 163 Lbs To 232 Lbs & Back To 194 LBS & Transformed Himself From a Relatively Unknown Grappler To The Best No Gi Grappler On Earth
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