This is a very old Guard break, which I learned in the nineties. I never liked it because I feel that it only works on white belts, but people here in Germany loved it and whenever I was teaching it (which I usually didn’t do) people were eager to learn it. I guess the reason for it was that it was simple to learn and worked on other beginners immediately.
When people are loving it and I can’t change their mind, I tried to make it as technical and efficient as possible and made a video about it. Here we go.
This kind of femoral pressure point guard break, is actually in the kata of traditional Danzan Ryu Jujitsu, from the 1920s. --And, as you know, it works great IF someone who has absolutely NO IDEA how to grapple inexplicably puts you in their guard. --We should all be so lucky!
But just FWIW…
There is actually a “gi-only” version of this break that doesn’t attack the femoral pressure points, but rather attacks your opponent’s hip/groin flexibility. The two techniques LOOK about the same, but what makes the gi version powerful is that – because of the belt – you can do a biceps curl as you drop your forearms downward & outward to spread your opponent’s thighs. That changes things quite a bit.
I actually like that break, especially for beginners. I don’t see it taught very much, but it’s easy to learn --easier than most “knee on tailbone” type breaks which students seem to struggle with.
But again, without that belt grip, it’s just not very strong.
It’s so irritating when a white belt tries to just grind his elbows into you hoping you will open. No I won’t but I will sweep you and then when Inopen your guard and slice through stay on your leg with my shin for awhile and make sure it makes you squirm.
What about can openers? I hate guys that do can openers and I used to be one. Will I open my guard from one? No. Will I submit? No. Will I be pissed at you in the am for a sore neck even though I arm barred you? Yep every time.
I’m one of the few people at my school that like closed guard, most prefer open or half guard. But I’m longish , an have good core strength so I’ve love working in closed guard. An trapping my opponent.
No, it’s just gay to have a man in that position simulating face to face man sex. I leave that position to guys who like having men anally penetrate them while making eye contact.
I use closed guard to stall on the heavier dudes at my gym. Had a guy in my closed guard for 2 or 3 minutes and he gets so irritated that he just started choking me with one hand around my throat. When that didnt work he tried to break it and got caught in a triangle. I can hit kimuras and arm drags or at least set up the arm drag from closed guard after I get them flustered because i have pretty long legs with decent strength that makes it harder to break guard compared to other people at my gym.
I don’t know if this is white belt shit, but I’ll add my story. I start going to BJJ class and my only knowledge of BJJ pretty much had only come from watching MMA, so I wasn’t familiar at all with the gi. One of the first few classes, I’m sparring after class, and the colored belts are going soft as usual. I finally switch over to this kid (white belt w/stripes), I can’t remember what position I was in, but he grabs my collars and crosses them hard as he can. I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my skull. I think it got me so off guard, because it never occurred to me to use the gi in an actual choke.
Amaury Bitetti, who is arguably one of the best guard passers in BJJ history, breaks the guard like this. However, the way he establishes his grips and distrubutes his weight makes all the difference. Very similar to what Shen describes in an earlier post.
