26: Being held in guard
Being held in guard
If your opponent has any sense at all, she will try to hold you in guard until she can get a submission or a roll over. Let me make this perfectly clear:
You have to pass her guard.
I can’t tell you how many times new judoka have tried to choke me from within my guard. It’s embarrassing. It basically can’t be done on anyone approaching your own weight--and few people approach my weight. Still, because I look vulnerable on my back, people always, always try to choke me. They never, ever succeed.
You cannot win from within guard.
The reason is simple. Every time you reach in to choke, your opponent will push you away with her legs. You will be left hanging onto her collar with your fingertips, leaving your arms at full extension, ready to be broken like a little girl’s heart.
To win, you need to pass her guard.
Passing the guard (down the middle)
The rules of judo forbid standing up while wrestling, so the easiest way to pass the guard (by walking around it) gets scratched right away. That leaves two obvious ways: you can go between your opponent’s legs, or around one of them.
Moving between your adversary’s legs has some pretty obvious dangers. Unless your careful, you run the risk of being swept, strangled, or brought back into guard.
The key is moving slowly. If you are sitting back, you are in very little danger. You expose yourself when you let your opponent sit up or pull you down. Don’t let him do that.
Principle 15: Climb up the body
To win from the top, think of climbing up and defeating each part of the body in turn. The feet usually pose little problem, but if they are hooked around you, you will need to remove them. Then neutralize the legs. Once they have been broken off, and your adversary’s guard is open, hold his hips. Press on, sensibly. Isolate and immobilize each part of your opponent's body in turn.
Climbing up the body is quite obvious, but many judoka try to skip ahead--and it’s nearly impossible to do so. When you're sitting in someone’s guard, you'll be tempted to try a choke. I used to try to all the time: after all, his lapels are right there! He’s begging for it!
You probably haven’t heard of the Duhem-Quine thesis. It’s a great idea though. I learned about it by nearly having my arm broken 8 times by a smiling Japanese black belt half my size.
I used to choke people from guard by standing up, grabbing a lapel or two, and forcing my weight down on my opponent’s throat. It sounds brutal, and I admit that it’s not pretty--but it’s a legitimate choke, with a name: katate jime.
In other words, I used to try to crush my opponents from within guard. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. Importantly when it didn’t work, I blamed my technique--naturally. After all, when something goes wrong, it is foolish to say that the technique is broken. It is sensible to say that only my application of it was wrong. Why throw the baby out with the bath water?
Well, when my chokes didn’t work, I said to myself, "My technique needs work. I need to squash uke harder." Sometimes I said, "Clearly, I need to use more knuckles." I never said, "This technique is stupid." And why would I? I am sensible. I know that it is utter vanity (or genius) to question the canon.
But then I met Yoichi. Yoichi was the smallest, nicest, humblest Japanese judoka one could ever hope to meet. He is much smaller, and much nicer, and much more humble than me. So when I crushed him and thrust my knuckles into his throat, I thought I had a quick win. That is, I did until he disappeared from under me and popped something tender in my elbow that should have stayed where it was. And then did it again. And again. And again, until I damned near cried.
Yoichi showed me that I had been going at things all wrong: I thought the fault lay with me. In fact, the fault lay in the choke.
I think that many fighters continue to choke from within guard because we’re not very good grapplers, and because, like me, we have a hard time invalidating our assumptions.
Katate jime isn't a great choke, and it is especially dumb from inside the guard. The same goes for the other thrusting chokes: ryoto jime, and tsurikomi jime. They are all very hard to get because they rely on uke being unable or unwilling to move away. And few people lack the motivation to move away from a choke.
In order to get a good choke, you will need to rethink your assumptions. Chokes aren’t done like they are in the movies. A very well executed choke requires little effort. Poorly executed chokes require quite a bit of work. But all chokes are done from a completely dominant position--one where you could just as easily punch, choke, or laugh at uke.
To get to this position, you need to climb out of uke’s guard. Then you need to climb your way to your opponent’s back or shoulders. The way to do this is simple: start by controlling the legs of your opponent. If his feet are hooked around you, or if he has you in half guard, you will need to start right at the bottom and unhook his feet. Then pin his legs and hips to the ground. Then pin his shoulder blades.
Interestingly, the first steps almost always require very little effort. Judoka commonly immobilize uke’s body by reaching up to the lapels, like we do on our feet. It isn’t necessary. Uke can be pinned like a bug, just by pressing with an open hand on the area around her belly button.
Try it the next time you are being held in guard. Press one hand flat on your opponent’s belt knot. Unless he’s enormous, he won’t be able to sit up. This gives you an enormous advantage.
Breaking his guard
Use this technique to pin your opponent’s lower back to the ground. Once this is done, you can pin his upper back--from within his guard--by raising his hips. Jam a knee as far under his butt as you can put it. Work your way free of his legs by twisting your own hips, stepping back with your free leg, jamming your belt-hand elbow into his thigh, and pushing his inner thigh with your free hand. His guard will pop open. You’re half-way home.
Going down the middle
When you find yourself in this position, you have a choice. You can either go up, between uke’s legs, or you can go around one. Both strategies work, and both have vulnerabilities.
To go up the middle, start by pinning uke’s leg to the floor. Push with and keep your hand on his inner thigh. Don’t let go. If you do, you run the risk of being put into a triangle choke.
Push his leg right down, then step on it with your inside knee. This is the leg you are going to climb over as you come up uke’s body and into a hold down.
It is here, though, that things get tricky. Uke’s in a bad position: you’ve pinned him on his back with your right hand, and his leg is pinned with your leg. You will need your other leg to move. Your left hand is free, but can’t do much. All this means that in order to move up into a hold down, you will have to let go of something that is serving you very well.
The biggest difficulty is staying out of the dangerous middle distance. As you pass over his legs, he may try to keep you away by curling, shrimping, or pushing with his freed knees. As soon as you let go with your right hand, if he has any sense, he will try to do just that. To prevent it, you need to keep his left shoulder to the ground.
I haven’t found an easy solution. As far as I can tell, it’s just a tricky thing to do. It can be done, but I’ve always found it to be a bit of a scramble. Your goal has to be to keep a diagonal pin on uke, keeping his right hip and his left shoulder down. His right leg is held by your legs, but his left shoulder, well, you just have to get to it before it pops up.
Passing the guard (around the back)
There is another easy pass. This time, instead of going up and between uke’s legs, you will go around one.
Once you have broken uke’s guard, as described above, slip your right arm under uke’s left leg. Pull it up and onto your shoulder. The lower (or higher, in this case, as he is on his back) on uke’s leg your shoulder is, the more leverage you’ll have. If you can, get your shoulder right down to his calf. Be sure to keep your left hand on uke’s inner thigh, or you’ll be unconscious before you realize your mistake.
Lean forward and force uke’s left knee up to his chin. If you are being nice, don’t 'stack' uke much. If you want to make your adversary squirm, raise his hips off the ground, and put his weight (and yours) onto his shoulders. It will squeeze the breath out of him.
When uke is nicely folded, you are stuck in a position similar to that above: in order to progress, you need to let go and risk uke’s escape. Your goal is the same: You want to keep both of his shoulders on the ground. When you pop your head under uke’s leg to finish the transition, you will release the pressure on his shoulders for a second, and uke, if he has any sense, will try to escape. You will just have to scramble to keep him down.
The good news is that when you release his leg and the pressure on his shoulders, he will likely try to roll away from you instead of towards you. It’s a stupid thing to do, but almost everyone does it. When he rolls, you have a choice. You can either unhurriedly squash down the shoulder he is trying to raise a full 180º in the time it takes you to move 45 cm, or you can let him roll and take his back. In either case, you will end up in a nice position.
As you come around, you should find yourself in one of two positions: kesa gatame or yoko shiho gatame (side control).