Normally, when beginners (or kids) start with guard it’s necessary to teach them closed guard. Closed guard helps build confidence in guard, as it’s the easiest to control your opponent’s movement. Once you’ve developed confidence in your closed guard, you need to become more adventurous with your guard – leaving it open, switching to an X-Guard, etc.

When you first do this, you’ll get passed – a lot! – but it’s important to persevere as the long term payoffs cannot be understated.

Match 1 – Kirsty & Sean (32 secs, 8MB) At the start you can see Sean is very tight with his closed guard despite Kirsty moving backwards. This would be an ideal time to release your guard and go for a pancake flip or a single leg shoot). Sean instead pulls Kirsty back down and executes a nice sweep – note how he controls her leg and far arm, creating a good lever. Of course, he really should have reset to guard instead of holding mount for the rest of the round!

Match 2 – Ciara & Leigh (31 secs, 7.8MB) Leigh’s first “armbar” isn’t on correctly, although it could have been turned into an Omoplata. We’d rather see kids tap if they’re in something unfamilar than push through and risk injury. As they progress, they’ll gain better awareness of how/when they’re in danger. Leigh could have finished the triangle had he pulled down on the head, instead he opts for a sweep. This is the type of sweep Sean could have done on Kirsty when she pulled back.

Match 3 – Danny & Ciara (13 secs, 3.3MB) Danny teaching a masterclass on putting pressure on the stomach when in Guard Top!