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- May 24, 2009
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What are the best counters to someone posting on your face/head/neck with their hand and forearm and grinding on you, when you are trying to play bottom half guard? This is something I should have learned a long time ago, being largely a half guard player, but didn't, because the technique was frowned upon in my old gym - so I didn't develop counters (because I rarely faced it).
Last night when rolling with an athletic young white belt with what seemed like a solid wrestling background, I ran into this strategy...eventually, getting very fatigued and having been stalled out from my normal half guard sweeps and dealing with the discomfort, I relaxed to regain some energy and then transitioned to deep half...but I feel like I should have been doing something different rather than being nullified and forced to switch to deep half. Experienced grapplers rarely seem to use this technique. Looking back maybe I should have grabbed the sleeve by the wrist for a sleeve drag; or grabbed the sleeve with my other arm to set up a standard arm drag; or even maybe gone for an arm triangle....what do you guys find effective against this "wrestling top half guard" strategy of posting/grinding? Of course none of these ideas occurred to me at the time...are these good counters?
Last night when rolling with an athletic young white belt with what seemed like a solid wrestling background, I ran into this strategy...eventually, getting very fatigued and having been stalled out from my normal half guard sweeps and dealing with the discomfort, I relaxed to regain some energy and then transitioned to deep half...but I feel like I should have been doing something different rather than being nullified and forced to switch to deep half. Experienced grapplers rarely seem to use this technique. Looking back maybe I should have grabbed the sleeve by the wrist for a sleeve drag; or grabbed the sleeve with my other arm to set up a standard arm drag; or even maybe gone for an arm triangle....what do you guys find effective against this "wrestling top half guard" strategy of posting/grinding? Of course none of these ideas occurred to me at the time...are these good counters?