Butterfly Guard, no-gi

[Gavin LeFever]

My BFG has always been a neglected position, top and mainly bottom. A lot of coaches and fighters swear by it in MMA especially, but I never found that connection.

I'm decent with the standard BFG sweeps and armdrag series, but I just don't see that special spark a lot of fighters see in BFG. I feel it's an easy guard to pass since one does not need to open it (often the hardest part of full guard passing) and it doesn't lend itself to submission opportunities as well (feet often getting stuck or held).

On top, I just smash the hips, flatten the bottom man and take the pass he gives me.

On bottom, I just keep from going flat, make an angle, and work my armdrag / sweeps until I get one of the other, always ready to stand up if I'm losing the position.

Anyone know of any strong BFG instructionals, especially no-gi? It's a position I need to spend a lot more time working.

 

[masada555]

Stephan Kesting's DVD will give you a lot of techniques, but doesn't really give a gameplan.

Mario Sperry's Secrets of Submission Grappling has two good discs on the butterfly guard, all no-gi. He shows several good sweep chains based on their reactions.

Robson Moura has a butterfly guard as part of his Fusion set. It's been very well reviewed, but it's all gi.

Finally, Saulo's no-gi set, Freestyle Revolution, doesn't have a lot on butterfly guard bottom, but the passing the guard disc is heavily focused on passing butterfly.

 

[lethalazn]

I swear by it too....but that's because I'm a midget, i'm sure other people have their own reasons

Trick is to keep distance with your hips so you don't get smashed and so you CAN sit up, and you should drill having your guard passed without using your hands, it's the only way to get your hips used to playing any kind of open guard

it's not for everyone and you don't NEED a good butterfly guard to do well...but you everyone needs a functional open guard of some sort

 

[Max Shane]

There's different ways to play butterfly, and you just have to know the moves for each way and then transition from style to style. It's good to have confidence in your half guard/deep half and x-guard games though, cause then you can transition like mad. If I keep pummeling and working for bfg sweeps, he will catch on. However, if you abandon pummeling and drive a leg through and make an x-guard/deep half guard transition you stay a step ahead and on the offensive.

I suck at basic bfg hook sweeps, however I mostly play bfg/sitting guard. It's a great position because you're relatively safe while staying unstrained; No fear of leg locks, if they engage cool if not I but scoot. Just don't let them grab your ankles or distract you.

I like to work for arm drags, guillotines, inverted armbars, and sometimes kimuras. If I see room to transition to x-guard I'll do that. If he's staying tight, I'll work on getting to a front headlock position off of an overhook. If something opens up off that, I'll just keep linking my butterfly games and switching between them. It's a relatively easy guard to keep. Main thing, like any game, is be ahead of your opponent.

Check out Marcello's X-guard/BFG book.

 

[kenban judan]

shrembi's dvd coming out in a couple of weeks, i am counting the days -oh, yeah among other things, teaches the "killer butterfly"

 

[Gavin LeFever]

i feel the same way, max.

some people use x guard like a transition between bfg and half, but i end up using bfg as my transition so i spend little time there.

good points all. i did learn a lot of my bfg top passing from saulo, just too bad he doesn't spend time on bottom bfg.

 

[txfighter13]

You really need to work the different grips double under, over under, etc. Once you have that the butterfly guard should operate the same.

 

[the heed]

you got questions about butterfly guard? ask Zankou. that man knows a lot about it and has a thread here some where he wrote this great explanation about it.