I guess the question is in the title. I know I must be doing something hugely wrong. My half guard makes it way too easy for my partner to pull their leg straight through it. I have a lot more success with the lockdown but I don't want to have to resort to this every time. Obviously I am new, so I realise I am missing something that will be obvious to most others, but what is it? Thanks in advance.
Thanks Rambo! However, I guess I am really showing my newbieness here, but I dont understand what you mean? Do you mean if I don't let them pull their foot through? Well in that case, unfortunately I can't seem to stop that... Ever
Yes, you want to at least keep their foot from escaping from between your legs. Otherwise he's passed. Are you clamping down on their foot/ankle with your legs? Squeezing at all? Are you on your side? Do you have an underhook or do they? It's really hard to gauge what's going wrong from the description.
I try for the underhooks so I can work some sweeps, and I do feel like I am clamping with my legs. I form a triangle with them with one leg across the back of their knee and the other completing the triangle. In all honesty, even without being able to get the cross face, flatten me out or get underhooks my partner just shakes their leg until its through.
IMO a full on triangle is a waste in half guard. You have less control. Use the bottom leg to hook inside his leg, and cross the ankles.
Thank you very much. I will try this next time. Will this make it harder for them to pull their leg through or is it meant to give me more flexibility to adjust when they try?
How do they usually pass your half guard, knee slice, changing the base turning their back to you, or stepping back with the free leg to the other side?
They usually shake their trapped leg, like they are trying to pull it through bit by bit. It usually involves them partially standing but not always. I feel the leg "slowly slipping away" so to speak. Even much smaller and weaker people do this so I know its not a strength issue, I am slightly above average strength wise in my opinion.
Both, but I was thinking more along the lines of making it harder for them to pull it through. It's hard to clamp tightly with a triangle grip. Not that you always want to clamp tightly on the leg in half guard, but when you need to the triangle can make it harder.
Bite through the back of their knee with your guard leg. Cross your ankles (or even just squeeze your two feet together, arch to arch; it's stronger than you'd think). Place your outside knee just inside their hip, push against their hip by extending your outside leg; maintain the bite with the inside leg. With your top hand, block their neck or far shoulder. With your bottom arm, block the cross face by trying to wrap your hand like a paw around the back of their triceps; the bottom of your forearm should be what is making the blocking connection against their biceps/elbow, the hand acts as a grappling hook in a sense. Practice this posture (and maintaining/regaining this posture, if they successfully disrupt it) and your should not be able to be flattened out very easily nor should they be able to pull their leg through your guard, either forwards or backwards. The push/pull connection you establish around their hip with your legs creates the power you need to disrupt their base back and forth or load them on top of you for sweeps. Always be conscious of the grip fight. So if they start to grip your top knee to smash it down or pry it off their hip, your (top) arm blocking their far shoulder needs to leave it's station to address the threat. That can mean just stopping them from what they want to do and returning to the basic posture, or taking their sleeve/arm for yourself and setting up sweeps etc. I recommend you spend lots of time in the basic posture to solidify all the little adjustments and grip battles within it, even if it means fighting off the same attacks from your partner over and over.
TS, I'd strongly encourage to check this out. I know it's long, but it shows you how to build a strong half guard from the very basics (getting off your back and onto your side, etc) to sweeping to transitions to deep half. It also shows several good ways to pass the half guard using proper posture and pressure. It's a great positional primer, despite the video quality not being superb.
These are all great tips, and I will spend some serious time watching that video and encorporating the tips from the other posts. Once again, Thanks to you all for taking the time to help.
Sure thing, man. Pay especially close attention to the beginning section of that video, where they explain how to use the frame, underhook, and 'paw' grip to go from being flattened out to up on your side, and to block the crossface. My guess is that your problems in half guard have more to do with those things than they do with the positioning/tightness of your legs specifically.
in caio terra's half guard dvd, he advises against crossing your ankles, saying that you lose pressure at the knees when you cross the ankles. i've been playing around with both, and can see what he means.
