Half Guard

I'm slowly dissecting the Stephen Kesting half guard DVD. I've decided to do this based on the last tournament I was in. I won 4 of 6, and the two that I lost I really could have won. My problem was being stuck under half guard and I need to change that.

So, I'm watching video. I'm chasing people down to ask questions and most importantly, whenever I roll for the next two months, I'm either pulling half guard or fighting to get there somehow so that I can work it often. I'm going to also keep trying to work it against people my size so that I get really used to the weight of it.

I feel very good about this decision because it's about discipline for me. Sure, I could just go and work on fun things that I like. That would be a good thing too, because it keeps you interested, and I might do that half the time after about 4 weeks of working half guard. But forcing yourself to face your weaknesses, that seems to me to be the real first step in mastering something and it's usually something that I avoid doing in most things.

Anyway, I did a decent job of getting the underhook and framing to protect myself from the cross face. People still got it but I at least have a plan to get right of it.

I worked a couple of different sweeps from Kesting and really need to drill the foot hold sweep more. I have always had the far side deep half guard sweep in my arsenal, but that is too hard to really force. They need to give me the energy to do that. I also need to work on deep half guard entries from the underhook, so I can work the same start and then go into a various different games.