"when i'm playing half-butterfly and have my preferred grips i actually want my opponent to try and stand"
..."try and stand" - means he started on knees or combat when you first attached, then he tries to stand. The original question had to do with making contact and attaching. You need to quickly establish as many "points of control" as you can via your grips and feet in a way that controls the distance between you as well as his ability to go around and past you.
I agree on the half-butterfly to seated guard. However the x-guard is obtained very nicely from de la riva as well. When the opponent points his knee out over your de la riva hooking leg.
de la riva to x-guard
when he's passing that way
de la riva to 1/2 guard
when he's passing to the other side.
de la riva to spider guard
is just an option is he goes from standing to combat or knees. These 2 work well together since you can continually trans. back and forth
I've been using the "Z guard" against both standing and kneeling (including guys in "combat base") guys.
The way I do it against standing guys is by pinching my knees together, crossing my ankles behind his leg, pulling my knees to my chest and using my hands to clear his hands off my legs. Come to think of it, it does look a bit like a tight reverse de la Riva guard.
Sometimes, especially if he's not trying to back up, I might play a bit looser type of Z guard against standing opponent and then my knees will be more spread apart. The only problem with that is that sometimes that gives your opponent space to slide his shin over your thigh. But you can stop that by placing one or both hands on the inside of his knee.
I'm not as good yet with the Z guard against standing opponents as I am against kneeling ones, but my strategy is pretty much the same in each case: I attack mostly with the following moves: A) Underhook his free leg and work for oldschool and related moves, B) kimura, C) switch to closed guard and attack right away and D) sweep him over my body by grabbing his pants at his knee and pushing my top shin into his bicep (BJ penn does a similar "bicep slicer" sweep from full guard).
I've also found out that if you have a good and dangerous Z guard, good opponents will often leave themselves wide open for you to switch to closed guard. So Z and closed work well together. I'm using these two guards alot now, along with basic "foot on hip with same side sleeve grip open guard", "foot/feet on bicep(s) spider guard" and "bicep slicer spider guard".
Last but not least: If you're gonna play a lot of half guard, you HAVE to have good solutions to the main types of half guard passes. Luckily, I've finally got a series of moves that work very well for me :)
jonpall,
what do you do against the cross-knee (margarida) pass from z-guard?
also, have you considered adding the arm triangle to your z-guard
offense? (duck under his crossfacing arm, pressure back into that arm
with your head, and take the arm triangle grip...it's not hard to figure
out how to do it)
"what do you do against the cross-knee (margarida) pass from z-guard? "
If my knee is low on his hip (note that I don't slide my knee all the way across, only in front of his near hip), I might slide my knee a bit lower, i.e. in front of the center of his thigh. That blocks the pass. I'm assuming that he is starting the pass but hasn't got his knee over your thigh and onto the mat. Otherwise I have shrimp and pull my leg out from underneath his leg, which is harder to do.
"also, have you considered adding the arm triangle to your z-guard offense? (duck under his crossfacing arm, pressure back into that arm with your head, and take the arm triangle grip "
I have thought about it, but it doesn't sound so good to me since I'd be so stuck underneath him and crushed. And I can't shrimp my hips out because his free leg is in the way, I think. So I gave up on that very early. Perhaps I shouldn't have, I don't know.
To respond to my own very first post on this thread, here's how this week's experiment led me to change how I "attach from guard bottom":
(One of the main changes I just made was using Z guard more than half butterfly. But to each his own.)
If he's kneeling or standing and reaches out with his arm to grab me somewhere, his elbow has to travel away from his hip on that side. That means his hip is "open" and I can put my foot on that hip and also grab the wrist or sleeve of the extended arm, with one or both hands. Then I shrimp onto my side so that my foot on the hip is the "down" leg and play a very vanilla open guard from there. More specifically, if my left foot is on his right hip and I'm grabbing his right wrist or sleeve, I'll shrimp to my right so I'm on my left side. My right foot will play around with pushing on his left bicep, left knee, trying to triangle him and stuff like that. It's not that easy to pass that type of guard. If I start to lose my grips, I might switch to foot on bicep spider guard, bicep slicer spider guard, closed guard or Z guard.
Alternatively, if his butt raises up from the mat, or his butt is simply not touching the mat, I'll slide my leg between his legs and get Z guard.
Doing one of these two things seems to be making it much easier for me to start DOING some type of offence from my guard when guys have disengaged and I've lost all contact.
jonpal,
I guess my understanding of what's called z-guard is a little different...sort of like 1/2 guard, but the shin or knee of your outer/upper leg goes on his hip.
Your latest description of how you attach is very similar to mine...After grabbing his sleeve, you might also try to grab his right collar with your right hand to keep his posture broken after he reaches out....or I shrimp to the other side, so that the left leg is my top leg and my right foot can get a hook behind his left foot...If I don't have that collar grip, I prefer to be on my right hip, so that the foot on his hip is my top left. This allows both my right hand and right foot to get better hooks and grips (ie more points of control).
There is a major difficulty to be aware of in maintaining the position that you describe. His left hand is able to grab your left pant leg to pull your foot off his hip and step around to your side (usually to a knee on stomach). You can't turn towards him, b/c he can lift your left leg and arm to keep you flat on your back. If your roll away from him, he'll get your back.
All good points. But I think our understanding of the Z guard is exactly the same. I'm not sure how you see it otherwise. It's just half guard with your outer leg's knee in front of the hip or chest.
"outer leg's knee in front of the hip or chest"..okay. Just couldn't visualize this while he's standing.
I'm contributing a lot to this thread, b/c I'm very interested in this aspect as it's currently the focus of my game improvement ("attaching" when the other guy is standing) :-)
A diff. tech. that I don't often do, but I'm going to put more effort into experimenting with...After getting the sleeve grip, then get inside leg hooks with both of your feet b4 moving onto other things. I'm not a big fan of the butterfly guard, but if he's standing, it seems to be a good way of not only controlling his left/right movement, but he can't really "hip jam" you forcing your legs up in the air. Foot on the hip requires maintaining the correct range so that you don't get it "hip jammed" up into the air, or get it overextended and collapsed...No matter what the technique though, my general philosophy is "points of control" via grips, hooks, etc. 2 is not enough. You need at least 3.
I think my biggest problem right now, is staying on my back and not sitting up when he steps back...to use my hands first to get grips, protect my feet from being grabbed, etc...get the hands going first, then the feet...pawns first, then bishops/knights followed by rooks order of opening game.
For what's worth, I realized that I've perhaps been thinking TOO much about principles like 3 points of contact, being on my side, pummeling with my legs, etc., instead of just constantly ATTACKING with a combo of my best moves, i.e. my A GAME from all of my best guard variations.
Just doing guard retention and attacking every now and then doesn't work as well as simply ATTACKING constantly with your A game and then shrimping like mad if your opponent starts to pass your guard, IMO :)
You know, I was playing z guard last night and had some difficulty when my opponent sprawled his legs far back and basically stalled, with his hips low. I find a lot of guys try to do this -- to walk out backwards with hips low, and convert your z guard into a "leg pin" pass. Any idea on a good strategy from there? One thing that seemed to work as an option for me was to convert to quarter guard -- if he is sprawled back, that gives you the space to just lift your block leg up against his chest and start the quarter guard game.
Overthinking can make your game too static and that's a problem. kindof agree with you here, but just not to that extreme. I'm 130lbs after dinner, 95% of the time i'm giving up at least 30lbs. Believe me, I don't try to play a static retention game. I'm constantly moving&shrimping&threatening trying to off-balance my opponent and keep the attacking INITIATIVE while he is more defensive minded. This creates the attacking/submission/sweeps opportunities and increases their success ratio. There is only 1 predator. The other is prey. This mindset keeps you on the offense. If I begin to play a static game, the bigger/stronger opponent is gonna force his will upon me. This could easily lead into a whole new thread "attack sequences". Do you think of them as a group? Key ingredients in putting together a sequence. Given multiple starting attack choices, how do you decide? etc....so I'll digress b4 it goes off topic.
Think about the white belts that you roll with. They try to choke you while they're inside your closed guard (esp the big guys). It's not gonna happen and they're making themselves vulnerable...posture and pass first. Similar logic here. Put yourself in good situations.
Getting back to the original "attaching", I also try to stay at a diagonal, rather than square to my opponent, forcing him to one side as I try to get grips, hooks, etc.
Mighty Cthulhu, about him sprawling on your Z guard:
Some form of sprawl pass and moving backwards is one of the smart ways to deal with the Z guard, so your opponent is doing the correct thing.
The best answer I can give you is this: Spend as many hours as you possibly can from this position against a variety of opponents - that's the most important thing to do to get better at it, or at anything for that matter.
But like you said, raising your knee up from his hip to his chest can sometimes create the space for you to get under him, under his stomach, which is one of the best spots for you to be in from the half guard. From this position, you can pull his legs back towards you with your leg and arm.
Other things that can work against the sprawl is to cross your ankles or toes and pinch your knees. Then your half guard isn't as loose and his leg becomes more stuck. I do this when I have to, actually. It can also work very well if he tries to stand.
Also, if your posture and structure is good, and you're always attacking, everything will be harder for your opponent, including sprawling on your leg.
If everything fails and he's about to pass your guard by sprawling on your legs, I suggest pushing his chest with your top knee, pushing on his head with your same side hand, free your bottom leg and switch to some form of open guard. And don't let him grab your bottom arm when he's almost passed. It can be very helpful to base on that elbow of yours so that it's too far away to grab and it gets you onto your side, in a perfect spot to bail to the turtle position if you have to, or recover your guard somehow.
Hope this helps,
jonpall.
That helps, thanks. I seem to recall that Stephen Kesting's dvd suggests to just go to open guard if the opponent refuses to engage your half guard and keeps moving backwards from you. So maybe you just can't force it that hard.
To add to this thread, check out two awesome sweeps that you can do when your opponent stands up in your Z guard:
www.bjpenn.com
In episodes, May, May 09, Technique 1 and 2 show it.
I got tech. 1 against a purple belt today (but he was going easy on me, although I didn't find rolling with him easy).