Home About Copyleft Contact Donate Archive Home » Jiu-jitsu Techniques Jeff’s Half Guard Sweeps 13 July 2007 691 views 3 Comments Back in the days of MMALibrary.com, Jeff Rockwell had put up a series of half guard sweeps. He taught starting from a sitting guard and diving in deep as a counter to combat ba se. I’ve used my internet sleuthing to re cover the m so I could add them to my notes here. I’m currently focusing on half g uard and want to work on these. It’s all Jeff below: Sweep #1 I got the first of these from watc hing S haolin Ribero and the last t wo from watching the Nog uiera brothers in the last P ride. When you put them all together, it is a f ormid able series of sweeps and re versals, I’ve been having a lot of succ ess with them recent ly. Whil e the main place I’ve been applying them is vs. Combat Base (knee up insi de guard), there are LOTS of places to aquire this positio n from, ie. escaping mount, escaping quarter mount, escaping backmount, etc. BJJers Over 40 Only Stop Get ting R un Off The Mat! Learn 7 Mat Punk Survival Secrets Judo Tatami Mats High qu ali ty Tatami Mats fo r Judo and Martial Arts Je ff’s Hal f Guard Sweeps | Jiu-jit su Techniques | Braz ilian Ji u-Jitsu | A... http://www.aesopian.com/173 /jef fs-hal f-guar d-swee ps / 1 of 13 08/06/2009 14:51
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Alright, here I am facing an opponent who has taken a “Combat Base” posture (knee up inside my guard),
to defend against standard attacks. As you can see, I am sitting up, not laying flat on my back, and my
right hand is on the ground for base. My left hand checks his shoulder to moniter his movement. In this
picture, there is a lot of space between his knee and his butt for me to work with; however, even if there is
only a few inches of space, I have still found this entry to work.
My right leg is going to shoot inside the space between his right leg and his butt. Sometimes I will
momentarily grab his right leg with my left hand to hold it in place. Here I am starting to dive my right leg
in between his right calf and his butt. It is important that I dive DEEPLY, no half-hearted moves here. Myright hand leaves its based-out position and follows my right leg…
...also diving between his legs, and coming to rest as an underhook beneath his left leg. Even if he is sitting
his weight back on his left leg, it is hard for him to resist this, as I am rocking all my bodyweight up
underneath him.
This is the “Seated Half Guard” starting position. My head should be tight against his left hip, and I am so
far under his body that we are almost facing the same direction. My ankles are crossed and my legs are
squeezing to control his right leg.
Here is an important detail: if at any time, he is able to put his right knee down on the ground, I simply putmy left knee in front of his right hip and back out into a normal half-guard position. I don’t want to stay
crunched up under him if his knee goes down, as he will be able to crossface me and kill my game. The
knee in front is pretty easy to get here, though, so if you have a good normal half-guard game, this will
If the opponent stays low, I look to block his left knee with my right hand, come to either back control or
side control. Shogun showed us that this can be countered by standing up and twisting out of it, though, so
be ready to follow with a single or double leg if he stands.
Sweep #3
The last sweep in this series. For now.
Here I have acquired the same position at the start of the previous sweep, and I am rocking my body hardto my left, attempting to come out the back door.