ALTA Week 3 Grappling

Grappling – Passing the Open Guard

In the previous week, we used an open guard to up-kick and sweep from the bottom position. This week is the other side of the equation. Our goal will not only be to avoid the attacks from the bottom player but to press on with our own agenda, which will be to get past their legs to a more dominant position. We’ll start from distance and work our way closer.

Kick the legs and/or stand back to let them up

If the person on the bottom is doing a good job of pointing an up-kicking leg towards you and it doesn’t seem that safe to get closer, you always have the option of kicking their legs. Good targets include the calves or the thighs. You’ll need to find a good angle to land clean and respect the potential upkick that will come back at you, towards your knees in particular. It’s very common that the danger of upkicks isn’t worth the risk. You’ll quite often see the top player in this situation will stand back and allow the bottom player to stand up, resetting to a striking position. That decision comes down to risk/reward. If the top player has a striking advantage, standing back and letting the bottom person back up is the correct decision. If, on the other hand, the bottom player is a dangerous striker, it’s probably best not to let them back up. You have to weigh up the risk/reward for each situation.

Posture on approach

Most importantly, keep your head back on approach. You will be tempted to lean forward to grab their legs, but if your head is close enough, the up-kick can reach your face and that is not a good result. You also need to make sure to approach with a split stance (ie. one leg in front of the other). We learned the “Idiot Sweep” last week which sweeps an opponent when they stance square to you. Don’t fall for that when you’re the top player. 

First Connection

As you approach, the bottom person will up-kick or push you back with their feet on your hips. If you want to pass, you’re going to have to endure that danger zone until you find your first connection. Usually this is a foot on your hip (with the same ankle being grabbed by their hand). Your first priority will be to get their foot off your hip while using your shin to press against the back of their upper thigh (hamstrings). This will compress and restrict that leg, reducing their ability to kick on that side. Their other leg is still a threat, so the next goal will be to snatch that. It may take a couple of goes, but you will be able to grab around their ankle with your hand. Use that grip to both prevent an upkick and to stop them hooking behind your knee. At this point, you’ve eliminated most of the danger and provided you keep your balance here, you now have an opportunity to strike.

Ground and Pound – Stage 1

Use your arm that’s closer to land some shots. You can jab straight forwards, hammer fist or hook. Just pick open targets and be accurate. The goal here will be to force the bottom person to let go of your ankle as they will be likely to use both arms to protect their face against your punches. Don’t use your hand that’s furthest from them to punch. That hand has an important job (to keep a tight grip of the leg they want to upkick you with). At this stage, just focus on lead hand strikes. 

Re-adjust as necessary

As we go through the stages, it’s likely the bottom player will get a leg free or swap which of their feet is pushing on your hips or which of their legs is up-kicking. You’ll need to adjust in real time to neutralise the threats and maintain control of their legs. As you may imagine, this is never going to be easy.

Passing the legs

It’s common to see an opportunity here to push the bottom player’s legs to one side and just pass at this point. You could advance to a side control or knee ride situation although, there’s a good chance a scramble for position will happen, where the bottom player may get an opportunity to wrestle up. Again, you have to weigh up the risk/reward based on your ability and theirs in terms of grappling. This may or may not be the correct choice, but it is an option and will get you past the danger of up-kicks. 

Ground and Pound – Stage 2

This is the preferred option in most cases. In stage 2 we advance to stand directly over the bottom player, using pinning pressure and punching down on them with both arms. This is where you have to be hyper aware of the Idiot Sweep. Keep their feet off your hips and their knees close to their own head. You can achieve this by lifting their feet up as you walk forwards, advancing to catching behind the back of each of their knees giving you the ability to push their knees towards their head. This compresses them into a very uncomfortable, cramped position. Pin them there by driving forwards with your own hips against their lower back and focus on punching through their legs. It won’t be long before they choose to let you pass (either by letting their legs fall to one side, or by them back rolling into a turtle position). In either case, be ready to progress to a top dominant position as they capitulate to your pressure.

Drilling this scenario

There’s quite a lot of detail and variation in the steps above. The best way to get really good at it is to play the position with a gradually increasing level of resistance. Now that you know both the top and bottom of Open Guard, both partners can really present each other with realistic pressure. You can drill this best with a shark tank drill. Just be sure that the purpose of drilling is for everyone to get better. There’s no winners/losers so park your ego and always adjust your resistance to your current training partner. It should be difficult, not impossible. Offer each other different cues and present opportunities to use all the variations of the position. The goal is to make the full gambit of techniques second nature. This can only happen with high volume reps and playing the position for extended periods of time.