The Guard

The Guard

"The Guard" is something that is talked about in Jiu Jitsu a lot (I mean Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, or the wrestling type of Jiu Jitsu). The guard is the other person's legs, which they wrap around you when they're trying to stop you from getting into the mount position.

Anyway, there's a lot of talk about it. In stand-up fighting, there's minimal talk about the guard. For MMA fighters, boxers and kickboxers, who form the bulk of professional fighting athletes these days, they pretty much have one type of guard - it's where your hands sit on your chin, and you take the impacts of the other person's punches on forearms, shoulders or back of the hands.

A good video that goes over this type of guard is here: 

Let's call that the Closed Guard.

Whilst this is an excellent type of guard, it really does have a few flaws.

First up, it basically has evolved from boxing, wherein you have some gloves on (they're usually pretty massive), and you can take a heck of a pounding. In this case, it is a fantastic defence.

But in a pure street-fight scenario, you do not have gloves. So you're going to cop that punch in the back of your hand, take a solid concussive impact on your head - and if you're not really well conditioned, that's going to hurt a fair bit. Granted, if you are conditioned well, you'll probably take it okay, but you are guaranteed to get hurt a bit at the least.

The other basic type of guard is what I call the Open Guard.

And this is the interesting part: this guard is taught in Karate, Kenpo, Tae Kwon Do, Wing Chun, all types of Kung Fu and virtually every "Martial Art."

It is also sneered at by all boxers, kick-boxers, MMA fighters and so on. Because most of the time it doesn't work.

But why doesn't it work?

I mean, these arts were developed when people were still chopping each other to bits with swords. People had knives too, and they'd be more than willing to stab you with them. The Japanese weren't exactly known for their kind nature in the past few hundred years.

So why "doesn't it work?"

I wondered this a lot myself, and then tested one of my instructors in some pretty rigorous sparring. And watched more You-Tube... and sparred some more people... and so on and so on... and do you know what I discovered?

These Martial Arts have not been taught correctly.

That's all it boils down to.

The Open Guard works just as well, and often better, than the closed guard. Because it also blocks the nasty groin shots that are so effective in a street fight - and cannot be used in a sporting environment such as boxing and MMA. These are actually sports, even if they are incredibly brutal, and so their techniques reflect this.

So How Have They Been Taught Incorrectly?

Okay, so with a statement like that I have probably made an enemy of every single instructor throughout the world - and a large number of them could annihilate me.

But my point is, in fact, that I have seen people use these open guards effectively, but often fail to pass it on to their students in such a way that the student is going to survive in a street fight.

And let's face it, you don't want to just survive in a street fight. You want to dominate. You should be able to control the fight so that it ends the way you want. Or at least, you should be pretty bloody confident, and have the skills to get you out of almost any trouble you get into - and that includes things like weapons, and group attacks (because how many fights happen with just one tough guy?).

It comes down to a lack of correct drilling.

In Kenpo for instance, there are several hundred techniques. They get progressively more complicated. You practice them in the air. Then you practice them on an opponent. You know what your opponent is going to do. Then you do the move, and he let's you do it.

There is no REALITY there.

The most basic reality of a real fight is that you do not know what is coming your way. So you have to drill accordingly.

Also, you have to drill people really trying to hit you - and you should know more than a single technique move once the fight has started.

Now, often the reason given for lack of such drilling is that someone's going to get hurt (particularly if there are knee shots, throat shots, groin shots, etc.). And that is a valid point. But you can modify techniques to a degree. And there's no reason why you can't practice basic blocking and counterattacking with great reality.

Personally...

I'm going to practice both guards - open and closed. Because the great thing about the closed guard is that if you don't know what's happening, you just brace up and take the hit. At least it won't knock you out, and you should survive okay. But if you've got your wits about you, and you're as quick as lightning, you should actually be able to block the attacks that come in - and that leads to some really cool techniques.

The most important thing is to actually start the drills on a low enough gradient that people can do them - and then build up a step at a time, with reality the whole time. Eventually you should be able to do this:

And that's really, really cooool. It's also yet another tool that can be used - and who would think you could move like that?! It's just a matter of drilling, drilling, drilling.