How to Keep My Guard Closed

tehk1w1

tehk1w1

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Here's my problem, whenever I'm on my back and my opponent is in my guard, I have a really, really hard time keeping him there. I have really short legs, and as a result, it takes virtually no effort for them to break my legs apart and pass my guard.

Any tips on how I can prevent this from happening? Do I need to strengthen my leg muscles more? It's not so much a matter of my legs getting tired, it's just I can barely get my legs around my opponent to begin with.
 
If you have short legs closed guard is probably not going to be your thing. I know it will suck for a while but work your open guard. Open your legs before your partner gets a chance to break them open. When you first start you will get passed a lot more but don't get discouraged. Keep on working it.
 
the closed guard is not a stalling position.

as you will learn techniques, you need to create combo sweep/sub attempts from the closed guard.

If he is busy defending sweeps and sub attempts, he will not have the time to break your closed guard.
 
I prefer to control one of the arms with both hands and use my legs to break posture. I'll pull the head down a little bit but my main focus is on isolating an arm to set up a submission or a sweep.
 
tehk1w1 said:
Here's my problem, whenever I'm on my back and my opponent is in my guard, I have a really, really hard time keeping him there. I have really short legs, and as a result, it takes virtually no effort for them to break my legs apart and pass my guard.

Any tips on how I can prevent this from happening? Do I need to strengthen my leg muscles more? It's not so much a matter of my legs getting tired, it's just I can barely get my legs around my opponent to begin with.
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Break down their posture. One way is to get a deep grip on their lapel and grab the gi behind the elbow on the same side as you have the lapel gripped and pull them down.

Honestly though closed guard is probably not going to be a strong part of your game because of your legs. I have the same problem and basically I never play closed guard. You're still new though so stick with breaking their posture :)
 
Cool --thanks for the pointers!

Sucks having short legs. All the tall guys can throw on triangle chokes with no effort -- I feel like a boxer with T-Rex arms.
 
I have a weak ass guard to. I also havent rolled in awhile. We just gotta keep training, get better and stronger. But I have a pretty good controlling top game. People tell me Im a good wrestler, but I have never wrestled a day in my life and my takedowns suck balls haha. Just always start from the bottom.
 
Closed guard is not going to be ideal for someone with short legs you are always going to have a natural disadvantage while in closed guard with little room for error. Butterfly, x-guard, and half guard are going to much more accommodating for your body type. With those guards your short legs will tend to work to your advantage.

Don't necessarily abandon closed guard but, definately learn to transition from closed guard to butterfly and half when you feel your closed guard being compromised.
 
don't relax and chill. If he has time to just break your guard you need to get more active.
 
Like everyone has been saying keep working your closed guard. But also open up and work other guards. I had alot of success with spider guard and half guard early on. De la riva and x guard took alot of practice to start getting anything.
Also keep in mind if you can sweep from half guard and get on top you can do kimuras, chokes, and americanas all from top half gaurd. One of my favorites is to lock in a kimura from bottom half guard and use it to sweep to the top position. Im also liking loop chokes and baseball bat chokes from bottom half.
 
The other thing i forgot to mention is that you shouldn't just keep your guard closed. You need to open it to attack. Put your feet on his hips.
 
mtruitt76 said:
Closed guard is not going to be ideal for someone with short legs you are always going to have a natural disadvantage while in closed guard with little room for error. Butterfly, x-guard, and half guard are going to much more accommodating for your body type. With those guards your short legs will tend to work to your advantage.

Don't necessarily abandon closed guard but, definately learn to transition from closed guard to butterfly and half when you feel your closed guard being compromised.
Click to expand...

Best advice.
 
Vector_X said:
don't relax and chill. If he has time to just break your guard you need to get more active.
Click to expand...

exactly.


I'm 5'7 and I play guard with the idea that whenever my opponent has posture - it's defcon 5. I don't ever let them get posture without a fight. when someone is non stop trying to posture/ prevent you from breaking them down, they give you overhooks, wrist control, etc.

People make mistakes when you know how to break them down often.




Frodo said some very earth shattering advice to me that has tremendously helped my game.

"here are three options that work in go or no-gi:
pull down on his head if his head is in front of his hands

pull out his elbows if hes trying the lame "pressure point break" or simply has them in the wrong position.

get wrist control on one arm. escape your hips out that way slightly as you break his grip so you aren't pinned to the ground. now arm drag him across your body.

at the same time as doing one of these ways to break posture, you should be doing a "crunch motion" where you bring your knees to your chest with the full guard still locked. This movement helps to pull him forward and break his balance."



as long as you can cross your feet behind them, you can play closed guard. you just aren't given any room for error when it comes to posture. Also, your hip movement has to be much better than someone who can just throw up triangles with their long legs (not saying they don't have to attack from good angles, just saying there is more room for them to be "lazy" if I must)
 
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A lot of people will say closed guard doesn't work well if you have short legs, but there are a lot of closed guard retention techniques that I rarely see taught. It makes me wonder if people would have the same opinion if they knew them.

Some day, I swear I'm gonna make a video about the movement I learned that really made my closed guard easy to maintain. It's a simple looking scissoring motion that works no matter how short your legs are.

Anyway, learning how to use your legs is key. Check out what Braulio shows. Don't worry about the choke but look at what he does at the one minute mark.

YouTube - Braulio Estima Instructional
 
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