Closed Guard Passing 101Filed Under: Instruction
Passing the closed guard is just something you need to know. Sure, you can always try ground and pound while you’re in the guard, but you expose yourself to the danger of submission. For a lot of guys, they want to pound away in a more dominant control position, like side mount, where blows are generally unanswered and submissions from the bottom are rare. In MMA, almost all closed guard passes are initiated in one of three ways:
- Striking the face: This often gets the opponent to unlock the ankles either to free up the legs to go for arm submissions/defense or the guard pops open just because he is distracted by the pain. From here, the guard is open and the double underpass, knee through thigh lock-down, etc, become available.
- Bicep control/Stack attack: Guard escapee holds down biceps as the first step, and from there he can pop up, weight forward stacking the opponent in the guard. The guard is broken by simply shaking his legs to the ground and pushing (simple shake) and executing a knee through or throw the legs to the side standing pass. If the guard remains tight, he can crab walk over the opponent or flip him on his front by to stepping over to one side using knee-lock pressure.
- Wedging and Grinding: After posturing up, escapee wedges out with one knee behind him – stretching out opponents legs, and grinds down on a leg with an elbow.
Below are several of the more common MMA guard passes, with videos and written tips on how to pull them off.
Tags: closed guard, guard, guard passes, guard passing, mma guard passes, mma passes
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- BartB
- 28 Jul 2008 11:34 PM
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