Hi,
i'm playing a lot of Z-Guard recently and having a lot of succes with it. However i've encountered a problem, that hasn't been adressed in Craig Jones' Z-Guard course. Some guys manage to put me in an arm-in-Guillotine when i'm on bottom in Z-Guard. I manage to defend for a while since my top knee keeps their hips away, but if they hold on to the guillotine and switch their hips eventually they manage to pass and guillotine me. How can i defend this?
My ideas so far are.
- More handfighting to prevent the guillotine in the first place.
- Doing what lachlan shows here at 1:30 when they try to grab my head Youtube: rja-2KKDGb0:196
I want to try out some options later today. Do you guys have any ideas what else i might try.
I am not a Z-guard specialist but I do use the guillotine from half guard top a lot to either pass, mount, or submit.
KEEPING DISTANCE
First of fall, it should be really hard for them to encircle your head for the guillotine if you are using proper leg pressure to keep their knee in front of their hip, as Craig does in the first two positions he discusses in the video clip below. In general you are looking to back heel with your bottom leg while extending your top hip to force their knee in front of their hip. This will ensure your upper body is too far away for them to get their armpit over the back of your head.
You can arch your back (while extending your top hip and backheeling with your bottom leg) to keep your head away from them. If you really need to, you can even use two stiff-arm hands on their shoulders to get your head far away from them -- although I don't think the arm frames are usually necessary, unless you are much shorter than them.
Keeping distance is a good strategy if you want to play conservatively. It is also a good strategy if your goal is to play for overhooks into triangles (like Craig's game).
[URL unfurl="true"]https://grapplersguide.com/second-portal/lms/lessons/z-half-guard-different-leg-positions-craig-jones.26629/
BACKROLL / LEG ENTANGLEMENT
But actually it's not such a bad thing if they try to guillotine you -- they need to shift their weight forward quite dramatically, and often need to switch their hips too. This big shift provides you an opportunity to hit a backroll sweep or entangle their leg.
This strategy is definitely risky and probably something you will need to drill to get the timing if you haven't invested the time into these moves yet. You need to have a good read on when they are trying to shift their weight forward, and you also need the speed and reflexes to have the correct reaction in time. If you mess it up, you are basically feeding the opponent the D'arce choke. But it can be very high percentage when you get it just right.
The backroll sweep will look a lot like the variation that Lachlan shows at 1:32 in the video you linked. However, one thing that might work better is to use a cross lat frame, instead of letting them get chest-to-chest like Lachlan does. Assuming you are on your right side, you would use your LEFT forearm to frame against their left lat muscle. And try to keep your left knee as close to your chest as possible to make it harder for them to control your hip. Usually you will probably back roll over your right shoulder (or at least, I do). The one that Lachlan shows is a lot more like Roger Gracie's variation, which can be very powerful too (obviously) but for me personally I prefer the safety of having that cross lat frame. The only problem with the cross lat frame is that in the beginning you might get D'arce choked, which is not a problem with the Lachlan/Roger style.
If you haven't developed a good back roll, you can drill it. Actually, despite its simplicity, it is a very subtle movement, just like shooting a double leg or throwing a right hand. It took me years to develop a really smooth back roll, and I still drill it to this day. For me the key is to be able to have good balance on one shoulder and tricep without letting my head touch the ground (ie, no pressure on the neck).
To entangle a leg, you can scoop their leg with your right arm while using a cross lat frame with your left hand. Alternatively, you can use two arms to grab their leg (which is riskier). Keep your left knee as close to your chest as possible. Either you will do a back roll sweep, or (if they try to base against this) you will have the opportunity to transfer their weight over to your left side onto your hands, giving you the "floating Z guard position" that Craig teaches.
I'll reiterate that if you get these moves wrong, you are feeding the opponent a D'arce choke. Probably other submission attacks as well. I think this is true of both grabbing the legs, and also the cross lat frame.
BECOME AN ACCORDION
Finally, I would just add that the Z guard is not just for keeping them far away, you can also use it to pull them in close to grab their other leg or do a backroll sweep. You can expand (extending your hip) and contract (bringing knees to your chest) back and forth like an accordion to get them off balance, while also scissoring your legs to the side. This constant motion will give you more opportunities to attack while they recover their balance. If you try to initiate all of your attacks from a static Z-guard, it probably won't work well against a high level opponent.
In bottom z guard, I like to frame on my partners shoulder and bicep on their far side as my hub position. This creates a frame so that they can’t get close enough to control my head. When I begin my attack sequence, I will go to different gripping sequences.
When I am attacking the guillotine from top half guard, I usually do so when they don’t have frames to keep me away from their head and their upper body is curled towards me instead of being postured away.
You might want to watch Hinger’s guillotine attacks from half to reverse engineer a defense.