Forcing halfguard - a viable strategy?

[ValveBJJ]

I always try and force half guard to pass from there rather than have to deal with spider or DLR

 

[Kaffe]

I love forcing half guard. Gives the flexible bastards less room to murder me in.

 

[traficante]

Then I am happy for you as you got a lot of good answers. I just wanted to ask to make sure you got the answers you needed.

At first I thought of making the thread about both strategy and the exact techniques but then I figuered it might mess up the discussion too much so I ended up making it this way instead.

 

[traficante]

I always try and force half guard to pass from there rather than have to deal with spider or DLR

That's the original reason why I started using those tactics I generally don't want any part of those fancy guards

 

[ozyabbas]

It's an excellent strategy, especially against flexible guys who invert out of torreado style passes. Getting to a good half guard position against someone that is good is the difficult part. Getting into the half guard of good half guard players is not a good idea which is why some teams use passing strategies that avoid being put in the half guard.

 

[BJJNotes]

Putting guys in half-guard is my bread & butter passing game. I prefer to flatten them out in HG and work different passes from there. However, I also have a few other standing passes that I like to use in case I can't get them there.

Bottom HG is also my bread & butter. I'd rather be there than most any other guard as it just seems to work well for my body type and I can force a lot of sweeps and even submit guys from time to time. I developed my bottom HG first and I think that helped me become proficient at working/passing from top HG.

So to OP, if this is working for you, then yes it's a viable strategy. I'm finally starting to realize that not everything works for everyone in jiu jitsu and that we all have certain things that we are naturally better at than others and I think it's important to find these things for each individual practitioner.

 

[Ice 9 Cobra]

Lovatos pressure passing is a great instructional on forcing half and passing from there

 

[traficante]

Bottom HG is also my bread & butter. I'd rather be there than most any other guard as it just seems to work well for my body type and I can force a lot of sweeps and even submit guys from time to time. I developed my bottom HG first and I think that helped me become proficient at working/passing from top HG.

With me it happened the other way around but now halfguard is definently my favorite guard position altough it may not be the most advantageous for my body type (I'm a tall guy even for my weight class).