Can one defend all submission attempts if you have a really good guard/half guard in MMA?

Question

I don't have any MMA training so I'm just curious, if I get taken down, land on my back but have the other person in a good guard, would I be able to defend any type of submission?

The other reason I'm asking is b/c I see a lot of strikers who sometimes get taken down but the so called BJJ expert isn't able to do anything if they're in the striker's guard.

Answer 1

Simply put, there are no submissions from within the guard.(You can't do them even if there were any)

It's actually REALLY dumb to try to attempt a submission from within another guys guard.



For example the Americana shoulder lock, done from inside someones guard will expose your balance and move your weight to one of his sides, making it extremely easy for him to take your back.

All he has to do is move his hips to the side, also preventing you from being able to finish the lock, swing his free arm and grab your lats and then swing himself, or climb onto your back. Possibly also choking you, and i'm pretty sure that if you're dumb enough to give your back to him like that he's probably more skilled and he'll choke you out FAST!

Answer 2

The guard lowers your opponent's options but it does not give you 100% defense.



A BJJ expert who can't pass a guard isn't really an expert either. But in MMA even a striker generally has trained a fair amount on ground work. Thus the BJJ player stuck in the striker's guard could be playing it safe to avoid being submitted by the striker.



There are a lot of possibilities from any position but the guard should technically give you the advantage over the guy trapped in your guard.

Answer 3

your right in the sense that you can't get submitted when he's in your guard but here's the thing you are missing. if the bjj expert is in your guard he is happy to be there, why? because he knows he can't be submitted and better yet he knows you cant punch him well and certainly not knock him out. so he'll ground and pound and grind at you until he feels your tired, hurt, knocked out, or make a mistake that allows him to pass easily. He won't just try to pass the guard because there's no reason to give up any kind of position with the chance he might make a mistake even though highly unlikely but why even give a small chance when he's at such and advantage already.



This advantage is heighten if the guy on the bottom is proud of himself for having a dominant position on an expert bjj guy.

Answer 4

Oh, I doubt that. In BJJ, you spend the majority of your time either defending guard or passing guard. A pure striker, with no BJJ training, isn't going to be able to prevent a BJJ expert from passing his guard. My guess, with all due respect, is that you're misreading what the fighters specialize in. Usually when someone can maintain guard, they've spent a lot of time in BJJ. The guard is actually the staple of BJJ. And when someone can't pass guard, they just go ahead and beat the guy down.



And to answer your question, that's the real danger of having someone in your guard. It's not simply a matter of not letting them pass. You have to keep threatening with submissions and prevent then from striking you. In the words of Caesar Gracie, "Take a Jiujitsu black belt and punch him in the face once, he's a brown belt. Punch him twice, he's a purple belt". So avoiding strikes, especially when your head is backed up by the planet, is of primary concern.



If you don't train BJJ, you're not really going to have a good guard. You won't have put in the time it takes to develop skill at controlling your opponent and actually working the guard. The guard is, at best, a neutral position. Half guard is even less advantageous. Only the premier BJJ guys can defend themselves from that position in an MMA type situation. Again, it's not so much subs you have to worry about, it's getting your head caved in.



But with no training, could you prevent subs? Not really. From guard, you're susceptible to leg locks, and just about nobody, especially a newbie, can adequately defend leg locks. Plus, you have to worry about a few arms and neck locks, the most obvious being the "can opener". Without submission training, you won't know how to defend them.



To defend submissions, you have to understand submissions.



Edit: right, no submissions from inside the guard, huh?



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Idau2AjsU70



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzCUHjPJz04



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lOEZwv0CoM

(see about 1:50)



Two leg locks and a neck crank. I get leg locks all the time.

Answer 5

the guards you'll find in mma most often are going to be full guard(open and closed) half guard, butterfly guard and rubber guard. as far as submissions go, that would take too much space to list them all. go buy a good book on submission fighting and you'll see what i mean.

Answer 6

One does not submit from INSIDE another's guard. One passes the guard to a superior position like side mount or full mount, then submits. You'd understand a but more if you visited an academy and watched competitors train. Most academies will permit you to observe, all you have to say is that you're interested in joining and wanted to watch. Actually, most academies will give you a free week or free class.



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Answer 7

Not necessarily. Top BJJ guys who get hit 10-15 times in the face can go from a blackbelt to a whitebelt pretty fast. Once someone is beat up it is easier to get a submission.

Answer 8

I have a really good guard and it really depends on what you are going for vs what he is wearing...



example if he is wearing a hoody or something, you could go for a lot of different things like spider guard, inside collar chokes, have more success with arm bars and double arm bars with a high guard, but if he is just wearing a t shirt you are probably going to spend most of your time holding his posture down with a high guard and waiting for him to tire out or sneak around and get his back in a street fight senario.



im not sure If I would bother going for sweeps in a street fight, so thats sort of out of the question.



i would hold his posture down and see how he reacts to me moving my hips and see what submissions I could consider attempting.. but beware, if he has more training than you or if you go for an arm bar when you clearly don't have any chance at getting it, he will pass your guard and you are ******.



ive only been in two street fights where my jiu jitsu needed to be utilized, one guy had a basic jiu jitsu background, took me down after some knees to his ribs with a single leg back when I knew nothing, and I put him to sleep with a giotine.



second one we clinched, I took his back and we fell down in my side, I was mounted on him and he was grabbing onto my bicepts trying to push me down so I slid my leg underneath his head and purposly rolled over onto my back and put him into a triangle and broke his elbow instead of going for the choke then went for the choke until my girlfriend came and told me to let the guy go.





if you land in someones guard, posture up, and keep raining those elbows and dont let him grab onto your arms, back of head or lats

Answer 9

you don't submit from inside the guard. If someone is in your guard then you have many options to submit them. Also, you will never be able to stop all submisions. Some are unstopable, but they are hard to set up.

Answer 10

theres a defense for everything...but theres very little an opponent can do to submit you when he is in your guard...but there still is a couple things he can do especially if youre a beginner. (such as the can opener)

Answer 11

the goal if put into a guard is to pass the guard, if the bjj expert cant pass the guard then he's not an expert at all.

Answer 12

no