Defeating the Deep Half-Guard

Yesterday's class at the Dark Horse was all about defeating the half-guard and deep half-guard. 

Defeating the half-guard by pushing them flat:
The half-guard is a great position with lots of defensive possibilities, but it's also half-way toward setting up a nice smash pass (or X-Pass) for the guy on top.  Either can be set up easily, just straight arm the torso of the bottom player and grab their inside knee.  No gi, you'd just cup the hip and knee.  At this point, you want to step up with your inside leg and simultaneously pull their inside knee up while keeping pressure on the bottom player's torso to control his hips.  Literally, you are going to turn the bottom player onto his back, with knees in the air to set up the smash pass pressure.  To smash pass, simply keep going!  Alternate route: You already have your hands set up for a great X-Pass, leave the hands where they are and step around the inside leg to move to knee-on-belly.  Pretty slick!

Deep half guard:
Really, this comes down to two things: prevention, and unwinding. 

Prevention: The deep-half guard can be stopped before it's started.  As they leave their head up (when moving to close up the deep half-guard) or when they are just starting to set it up and are on the way in, a simple cross-face will do the trick nicely.  Grab the head and lock them out. 
Bonus: If they have their hand already buried trying to get in deep, just switch your hips to trap this arm.  Your cross face and switched hips create a really nasty position that is very similar to reverse kesa gatame (basically, you are just doing Xande's half-guard pass at this point).

Unwinding:  If they are in deep already and only controlling the leg (and not the belt), then you have the option of unwinding the position.  You basically just underhook their far arm to turn them into you, then switch hips to reverse kesa gatame again.  You end up sort of laying next to them.  Now you can drive your head to the other side of them and get up on that knee they are still holding onto and work your cross-knee pass.  OR...simply go for it and move right across them to 3/4 mount.  Either way: good for you, bad for them.


Good class!