What we are going to do with right is the Closed Guard. In a closed guard, your legs are locked around your opponent. Some people lie here like this, they think that this is the closed guard. Especially if they are fighting with their hands, they forget about their legs. For the most part, your legs are going to be locked around your opponent. If you can, or they can still be locked if I start climbing my legs up over one of John’s (ph) shoulders here. This would still be a variation of the closed guard. You are going to take different grips to control your opponent; really you shouldn't be back here, because he can be doing things with his arms. You want to abstrude his posture; you want to break him down. The classic way to control is to grab his sleeve with one hand as you go deep in the cloth with the other. Here and pull him down.
Notice how I am also pulling with my legs, I am not just here, I am also bringing my knee towards my face, here. This would be one classic posture, some people like grabbing the gi and the pants, both the sleeve and the pants. Another posture with the arms that works well with the gi and no gi is the overhook. I am going to take this arm, and I am going to wrap the arms on, if he has a gi, I might open it, and fit it into this hand. We are here and here. Now to control his head with the other hand. If we are talking self-defense or MMA, that's a pretty good posture, because it's hard for him to land the killer knockout blocker. Yeah, he can chip away at my ribs, he can chip away at my head, and there are things I can do, where I am unlikely to get knocked out in one blow. Instead of the overhook, you can also do the underhook, coming under the arm, controlling the head and here. Yes, he can still harass you, I said it’s a neutral position; it's not a dominant position.
So that's how you can use your legs to control them in the closed guard. That's how you can use your arms controlled in a closed guard. Something else I should talk about is what your hips are doing. For most of the time, if I am attacking John (ph) if I am getting the advantage here, my hips are doing one of several things. They are probably not going to be flat here; I am going to be perhaps tilted. See how in beginning to come out to his back, or ultimately, my hips will be out this way. Therein, I am going to rotate in this direction, or that direction. Flat on your back with your shoulders on the ground and both hips on the ground, that's kind of dead position, I can choke him but not much else. So if I really want to start mounting an offense, there or here out to this side.
One important move in closed guard, and it’s still closed guard even though your legs are opening is to move your foot on to your opponent's hip, and typically you are going to turn and clamp down here. By putting the foot on the hip, in order to create that angle that we talked about, to move my hips in a circle, and I don't just want him to stand up, so I am going to do this to stay close. Yes, technically my ankles aren’t crossed, with that movement, of foot on the hip and turning 90 degrees is such an important part of almost every closed guard attack that I thought we’d included today in this part.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services