Try This Bizarre But Effective Half Guard Sweep with Paul Schreiner

Posted by BJJ Fanatics on August 15, 2020

There may not be a more studied, practiced, or applied position in BJJ than the half guard. This positional titan of the art has been used in thousands of ways by practitioners all around the world as a hub to launch favorite attacks, transitions, reversals, and passes as you'll notice many of today’s best BJJ players force the half guard, just to get into a preferred passing situation. Hobbyists and pros alike have taken the half guard and added their own innovations and advancements to create half guard games that have become infamous in the BJJ circuit and objects of desire for fans of the position.

A quick internet search will send you down a rabbit hole that you could spend years examining and there’s no shortage of info on the subject but there are names like Bernardo Faria, Tom DeBlass, Lucas Leite, just to name a few, that are responsible for elevating the half guard to its current status with their incredibly proficient and effective individual half guard games.

Even with all of the metamorphosis the half guard has been through, it still continues to evolve at a rapid rate and other big names continue to contribute their own special findings. One of these names is Paul Schreiner.

Schreiner has been a black belt in BJJ since 2007. He’s also been an instructor at the Marcelo Garcia academy in NYC since 2010. He's widely regarded as one of the best instructors in the country and he takes what could be considered a scientific approach to BJJ with intelligent strategies and genius technical details often being the centerpiece of his teaching. Schreiner's time on the mats in NYC has no doubt lent itself to dissecting the enigma of BJJ and this is very evident in his instruction. BJJ Fanatics is honored to work with Schreinier and in his latest release Connected Reaction: No Gi Half Guard Passing he's revealing some of his best kept passing secrets paired with phenomenal guidance and incredible detail.

Schreiner feels that passing the half guard is one of the most effective ways to control and dominate a dangerous opponent and in this series he shows a variety of his own signature methods to do so. Not only are Schreiner’s methods unique, they are also effective, as many of the MGA athletes have demonstrated at the highest levels of competition.

Check out this amazing pass that Schreiner showcased with Bernardo Faria. This is incredibly technical and looks to be an ultra effective way to leave the bottom players guard in your rearview mirror.

With the half guard we can almost always rely on the bottom player searching for an under hook. This is one of the best ways to implement a half guard game plan and it's very common. Here, Schreiner is starting from a situation where he has already beaten his partners knee line but the bottom player has also acquired an under hook.

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First, Schreiner looks to sort of crimp the under hook with his body to take the steam out of it. He then begins the action of moving backward to get his partner to follow him. As this occurs, Schreiner fishes for and secures his own under hook on the near side of his partner's body. Schreiner then returns his partner to the mat and takes an over hook on the far arm. With the upper body secured, Schreiner rolls his right hip to the mat. This may look as if Schreiner has made himself vulnerable but he uses his left foot to hook his partners leg, denying him connection to the mat which prevents any defensive measures or attempts to reverse. To release his bottom leg, Schreiner begins to move it forward until it clears his partner's bottom hook and then circles back over top of the shin, trapping the leg. Pushing off of his toes and opening his knee, Schreiner now makes a smooth, unobstructed transition to the mount, winning the exchange and achieving a dominant position.

This may seem a little unorthodox but all the bases are covered here and man is this slick!