I've been playing around a lot with lockdown half guard and just among my group of training partners it has given me a lot of options to reverse, to control posture, to sweep and to set up some devastating submissions. As a smaller guy, I find I get put on my back a lot, and when dealing with a skilled BJJ player, they're not keen to let me back into full guard, so some type of half guard literacy is needed.
The thing is...I think from a defensive standpoint, few guys are going to know enough about BJJ to effectively keep me from getting full guard, controlling posture, and then either sweep, stand, or submit them. I will admit to not having practiced integrating grappling with strikes in a few months, and I probably should, but does half guard have a defensive context? Does it compare favorably or less favorably with closed guard in the various evolutions of classes that stress a weapons based environment?
I do, of course realize that the best option is keeping the fight where I want it. I'd much prefer the mount or the back, but again...most of my training partners have a couple pounds and, ever increasingly, a few years, on me, and the benefits I've listed above, of this new half guard game I've discovered, seem like they'd be fantastic for controlling an assailants ability to access and deploy weapons.
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