Half guard can be one of the best and worst places to start initiating a guard pass. Some people have made a career from forcing half guard and smashing people from there. This is a common method of passing by a lot of elite level grapplers. Marcelo Garcia, Rafael Lovato, Rodolfo Viera and many other famous bjj competitors are all notorious for forcing their opponents to play half guard so that they can pass.

What can easily lead to your demise when trying to pass half guard is if your opponent gets and under hook. The under hook can be one of the most difficult 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. So what do we do if someone gets the under hook? Well, there are so many options that we have.

Today countless numbers of jiu jitsu practitioners around the globe are using a dangerous half guard game, knee shield, frame and under hook to shield tons upon tons of opponent pressure, elevate them to sweep them, reverse them and attack or perhaps to set up a Tom DeBlass style attack from bottom half guard.

With the resources available now it’s the perfect time to overhaul the half guard you’ve been working or to add it to your arsenal.   Or maybe they’re a student of the Craig Jones’ style Z guard with its dynamic and painful knee shield and hip clamp.  Because of the recent explosion in popularity of the half guard, there must also be an explosion of new ideas of how to defeat it.

David Avellan has a solution for stopping a half guard player, passing, rather smashing the Z Guard. This strategy really works.

Do you know how to shut down a half guard player?

Another match review, this one goes back to 2003 I believe in a Grapplers Quest West Pro Finals against Moacir “Boca” Oliveira. Funny to think I was here in Las Vegas over 15 years ago, and know I’m living here today. 🙂

Boca was hailing from American Top Team, right in my backyard of Miami, FL. I know he was notorious for having an excellent half guard game, so my coaches were in my ear the whole time telling me what to do.

I break down all the tactics and techniques that allowed me to overcome the half guard in this close match up. The video quality is quite poor, as this was an old video shot from a potato, lol, but you can make it enough to see the action.

If you want to learn more about how to stop and smash a dangerous half guard player, you need to to check out the great Neil Melanson and some of his DVD’s that he made with us. His products are some of the most sought after and it is for good reason. IF you want to learn how to DESTROY the half guard and a lot of other positions with very unique and effective techniques that you will probably not see anywhere else, this is your guy.

Neil can give you such a competitive edge because his style is so different. He has his roots in catch wrestling, but he does it all. Some of his no gi techniques are literally unheard of and they have helped some of the top UFC competition get to the pinnacle of competition.