This morning during the 6am Jiu-Jitsu class at Crossroads BJJ we discussed moving from the closed guard to the open guard. In the case where the top Jiu-Jitsu player has established a good base and their arms are in the correct position it can be very difficult to either sweep or submit, so in order to take the top Jiu-Jitsu player out of position we move to the open guard where we can use our legs more effectively .
From the open guard we drilled 2 techniques when the top player is attempting to use a low style of passing. Low passes are very effective at keeping you close and tight to the bottom Jiu-Jitsu player which allows you to conserve your energy by being able to move slowly as you pass. From this position we drilled two bjj techniques, a sweep and a back take. In this open guard position we focused on keeping our bjj training partners hand as close to our strernum as possible which keeps them at the proper distance to use our legs to sweep.
We also discussed what happens when the top player does not allow you to control the position of their hand. In this case when we are unable to control the hand we look to move our hips and bring both of their hands to one side of our body, exposing a path to their back. As always Jiu-Jitsu is position before submission, so when the top Jiu-Jitsu player puts himself in the correct position we must first disrupt his position before we can either sweep or submit. In this mornings class we accomplished that by moving from closed guard to open guard so we were able to use our legs to create a situation where we we disrupt our partners legs or their arms.
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