The Closed Guard is one of the foundations of guard work in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) and is often considered the first line of defense of all guard games. In this position, you are on the bottom with your back to the floor. You need to have both legs wrapped around your opponent’s waist with your feet crossed (locked), holding your adversary’s hips close to you so you can control their posture and limit their movement. Closed guard sets up a ton of opportunities for sweeps, submissions, and transitions, allowing you to protect yourself while simultaneously creating openings to launch attacks.
Training closed guard teaches you to moaintain control, utilize leverage, and apply pressure effectively so you can better dictate the pace of a match. In tournaments, mastering the closed guard can be the difference between securing a victory and suffering a defeat. Expect to spend a lot of time here during a match because it’s a relatively neutral position that provides a secure platform from which you can execute a wide array of techniques, such as arm bars, triangle chokes, and sweeps.
Control and Effectiveness of Closed Guard
Closed guard, also known as full guard, is a fundamental defensive position because it allows you to control your opponent’s posture, balance, and the pace of the fight. When you’re in the closed guard, your opponent is deep between your legs, where you can work to keep their posture broken and shut down a lot of their early passing potential. You want your guard high up on their back, covering their head or arm in some way.
Establishing a good grip is really important to control your opponent and limit their movement. Obviously, this is a bit more challenging in No-Gi BJJ, where you don’t have a lap or sleeve to grab. Pull their head down or control their arms to prevent them from posturing up, and, if you’re training with a gi, slide your hand under their chin and get a firm grip on the collar close to their neck. With the other hand, grab your opponent’s sleeve just above their wrist. From here, you can keep them at a close distance and prevent them from improving their position and finding an opportunity to attack.
Benefits of Using Closed Guard
BJJ is primarily a submission-based art, and closed guard is a great position to start from if you want to control a match and prepare for offensive movements (such as sweeps or submissions). The most obvious advantage of using a closed guard is that it allows you to break and control your opponent’s posture so they can’t launch attacks or pass your guard.
Although it’s a defensive position, you can work it to your advantage through small, incremental adjustments. For example, you can take your opponent’s elbow inside their shoulder, and move into advantageous positions, such as a top lock, and initiate attacks and offensive maneuvers.
Opportunities for Submissions and Sweeps
One of the simplest sweeps from closed guard is the hip bump sweep. If your opponent tries to sit up and gain posture, you can go for the sweep. When they are almost at a 90-degree angle, open your guard, put your hand behind you, and drive your hips into them. Bring your arm to the other side of their head to keep their bicep connected to your chest. Lower your knee to the outside and push them over to achieve the top position.
If they have a tall posture, you can also come up and bulldoze into them. To do this, shoot your armpit to their shoulder, open your guard, drive your hip into them, and keep their arm tight against you. Block their leg with your knee to prevent them from rigging their leg out, and then drive and push over to land in the mount position.
Often, when you attempt the sweep, your opponent will try to shut you down by driving back into you. If you keep your hips close, you’ll fall back, but if you scoot out and create separation, you can drive your arm underneath and slip inside. Get your hand close to your chest and reach around your own arm. You can connect your hands and bring your guard up high over their back to finish a guillotine choke.
Another option is the Kimura. If your opponent is at a 45-degree angle, you can slide your arm over for the hip bump sweep but instead hook underneath their tricep tendon. Grab their wrist, sit back, and pull their elbow toward you while keeping a 90-degree bend in their arm. Collect your second wrist, scoot your hips toward the Kimura side, close your guard to prevent them from rolling, and apply pressure to finish the submission.
If your opponent creates separation, you can use a technical standup to snap them down and move into attacks like an anaconda choke, Darce choke, or guillotines. Post on your elbow, put your foot on their hip, and slide your hand behind their head. From there, you can move around to their back and look for back takes.
Developing a Strong Closed Guard
Closed guard relies heavily on core strength, flexibility, grip strength, and effective hip movement. To develop a strong Closed Guard, it’s essential to focus on specific exercises and drills that enhance these physical attributes and refine your technical skills.
Core Strength
Your core muscles help you manage your opponent’s posture. Here are a few exercises to work into your training to build strength in your core:
- Planks to improve overall core stability.
- Leg raises for targeting the lower abdominal muscles.
- Russian twists to enhance oblique strength and rotational power.
- Bicycle crunches for working both the upper and lower abs.
Flexibility
Strength training is absolutely important but do not overlook regular dynamic and static stretching routines. Flexibility and mobility training have an underrated impact on how you move on the mat. Incorporate the following into your workout routine:
- Dynamic stretching exercises such as leg swings, arm circles, and hip rotations. into your warm-up routine before training sessions.
- Static stretches at the end of your training sessions to improve flexibility and reduce muscle stiffness. Hold each stretch for 15-30 seconds, focusing on major muscle groups used in BJJ, such as the hips, hamstrings, quadriceps, shoulders, and back.
- Yoga and mobility not only improve your range of motion, but your balance and coordination too. Poses such as downward dog, pigeon, and lizard target muscles and mobility exercises such as hip openers, thoracic spine mobilization, and shoulder rotations can help increase joint mobility and range of motion.
Grip Strength
Where would you be without grip strength? Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is a grappling art, after all. Strong forearms and hands enable you to maintain effective grips and resist your opponent’s attempts to break free from your closed guard. You can build grip strength using a few key exercises:
- Dead Hangs: Hang from a pull-up bar to build endurance in your grip.
- Farmer’s Walk: Carry heavy weights in each hand to strengthen grip and forearms.
- Finger Curls: Use a barbell or dumbbell to target forearm flexors.
- Grip Trainers: Tools like grippers can be used to isolate and strengthen the muscles in your hands and forearms.
Closed Guard Drills and Training Exercises
Run hip movement drills such as hip escapes (aka shrimping), which are fundamental for creating space and repositioning in the guard. You should also work with a partner to practice movements that help you maintain guard control while your partner tries to pass.
You should also practice transitioning between attacks and submissions. Flow drills combine different submissions and sweeps and can help you improve the fluidity of your movements and reaction time. For example, transition from an armbar to a triangle, then to an omoplata. Focus on specific sequences, such as attacking an armbar while your partner defends, then transitioning to a sweep if the submission fails. It’s also good to set up specific scenarios you may encounter in a match, such as starting in a failed triangle attempt and moving to a hip bump sweep.
Closed Guard for Self-Defense
A big part of BJJ’s popularity is its real-world application. With enough practice, anyone of any size can use BJJ techniques to protect themselves from an attacker. The closed guard in particular, allows you to mitigate blows from an assailant. You can use it to keep your attacker close and reduce the power of their strikes while protecting vital parts of your body.
Master Closed Guard
In summary, the closed guard is not just for stalling but for creating attacking opportunities through micro-adjustments and angular advantages. By understanding how to keep your opponent off balance and break their posture, you can turn a neutral position into one where you have the upper hand and can put your opponent in real danger of submission.
