The Guard Position

In submission wrestling, the objective is to tap out your partner.  How?  Get your opponent into a lock or position which they find so intolerable, they give up – they tap.

Often, before you can get a submission, you have to get good position.  It’s a lot like playing chess – if you are one step ahead of your opponent and have your pieces well protected – you have a dominant position.  In grappling if you are one step ahead of your opponent and you protect all your limbs – you have a dominant position.  Now, in neither chess nor grappling does a dominant position guarantee victory but it sure helps.

The guard is not a dominant position.  It it neutral.  Between two grapplers of equal skill, neither the person in the guard nor the person holding the guard is dominant.  So for the top grappler, the objective is to break this position and assume a dominant one.  This video shows a few methods of doing so and points out a few common mistakes when trying to get out of the guard.