Remember your old friend closed guard? When you first started out in BJJ, it seemed so simple to wrap your legs around your training partners hips and wrap your arms around their head and they were caught in the web that was your guard. Very quickly, you probably realized that the satisfied feeling you received holding someone in closed guard was extremely short lived.

All the opponent needed to do was put some pressure on your chest and upper torso, creating a tiny bit of space for them to work their arms completely inside and wedge more and more of their body into that space to build up posture. Soon your opponent is beginning to distance themselves from you by posturing, adjusting the relation of their hips to yours and driving that frustrating knee into your butt, putting excruciating pressure on your ankles until finally they give way because they have no choice.

What if you were able to to inject your closed guard game with some performance enhancing elements? Joel Bouhey, a black belt in Hawaii under the legendary Luis Heredia, has developed a “next level” version of what we’ve known as the standard closed guard, known as the “Falcon Guard” that will have you dusting off and revitalizing techniques you’ve given up on and begin to terrorize your training partners and opponents.

The starting point for the “falcon guard” is its unique use of an overhook on one side of your opponent’s body that connects with the bicep of your other arm that is controlling the opponent’s head. This unique structure creates a a powerful interplay of pressure and pulling force that will make the opponent feel as though they’ve had their upper body trapped in bucket of cement.

This extremely strong position will give you a extremely formidable starting point from which to launch various sweeps, but also keep the opponent’s posture broken in an extremely efficient way that will keep them in the danger zone for you to attack submissions like arm bars or triangles.

Check out the short video below that will give you just a taste of the Falcon Guard and it’s ability to create a powerful and deadly canvas on which to display your submission game. In the video, Joel demonstrates a triangle variation and a classic armbar, both easily attained from the Falcon Guard.

Not only will you be able to add a powerful triangle variation and arm bar to your game utilizing Joel Bouhey’s Falcon Guard, but you will have sweeps, omoplatas, and pathways to D’arce chokes at your fingertips built off of this strong and dynamic position.

Check out the Falcon Guard instructional from BJJ Fanatics and add a new dimension to your guard game: