Many BJJ practitioners have made a career from forcing an under hook half guard and sweeping or taking the back. This is a common method of playing guard used by a lot of elite level grapplers such Lucas Leite, Bernardo Faria, Tom DeBlass and others…
If you get an under hook from bottom half guard, it can easily lead to the demise of the top player. The under hook can be one of the most powerful and game changing aspects of the half guard. Both from bottom and top, in half guard, we are almost always fighting for the under hook.
Struggling to escape from Half Guard?
Here is one, quite easy way to do so (although it does require your opponent to have their bodyweight distributed in a certain way).
Michael Zenga demonstrates it on the video below:
If you want to learn some of Lucas Leite’s best techniques that have been proven in competition, check out his DVD set, the Coyote Half Guard. Lucas divulges all of his best sweeps in the DVD and you can learn how to play Half Guard just like him. Lucas has won the worlds at black belt in the gi and has won the nogi worlds 3x.
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