Categorization of guards

Foreword: Some guards work better for kneeling opponents, whereas some guards are primarily meant for standing opponents. Then, on top of this, some guards are excellent for bogging down the opponent (holding), whereas some guards come with very intuitive and powerful sweeping options in exchange for defensive potential (sweeping).




Continuing from the foreword, this is not to say that the holding guards do not have any offensive potential, or that you cannot use a sweeping guard defensively. Spider guard, for example, ties down the opponent really well while also offering easy sweeps. However, "the best defence is offence" certainly rings true for the sweeping guards: you had better sweep or submit your opponent right away, or you are fucked.

Guards that offer defensive potential, but require active effort and vigilance from the guarder, are categorized under "active holding".

In general, bogging down an opponent by tying them up and pulling them down works only in gi. Because things are so slippery and precise grips can be kind of hard to maintain, no-gi is "dynamic" in the sense that "holding guards" lose some, or even all, of their holding power due to the lack of fabric.

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Let us think about this holding versus active holding thing in terms of deadlock and livelock.

In deadlock, everything is ground to a halt; this is what happens when you manipulate your opponent's posture and hands just right in the gi, and they cannot do anything to break out of it.

In livelock, there is a lot of activity going on, but none of the activities actually lead toward progress; in this case, your opponent may well be stepping all over the place and grip-fighting harder than schoolgirls playing pattycake, but your opponent is not actually making any progress toward passing your guard because you are constantly disrupting them, playing keep-away with them with frames at just the right times, etc.

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Without further ado, here are the categorizations. "kneeling/standing" does not refer to the guarder's posture, but whether they are mainly suited for kneeling or standing opponents. Holding/sweeping categorizations follow from the foreword.

Butterfly: kneeling, sweeping

Collar and sleeve: standing, holding

Closed guard: kneeling, holding

Deep half: kneeling, sweeping

Detached butterfly (where you are sitting in the "butterfly guard" stance, albeit against a standing opponent): standing, sweeping

DLR: standing, holding

• In no-gi, you need some modifications to retain holding power:
• Try using both hands to control one of your opponent's arms
• Alternatively, grab your the shin of the hooking leg with the same side hand (e.g. if you are hooking with the left leg, you hold your left shin with your left hand) such that the wrist passes under the crook of the knee
• Despite these modifications, DLR tends to become much more active no-gi. You simply cannot play lazy tug-of-war.

DLR-X: standing, sweeping

Half butterfly: kneeling, active holding

Koala guard: standing, sweeping

Knee shield: kneeling, active holding

Lapel (gi-only): standing, holding

Lasso: standing, holding

Lockdown: kneeling, sweeping

Old school/underhook-pummeled-and-on-your-side half guard: kneeling, sweeping

Reverse half: kneeling, sweeping

RDLR: standing, active holding

• You may opt to grab your the shin of the hooking leg with the same side hand (e.g. if you are hooking with the right leg, you hold your right shin with your right hand) such that the wrist passes under the crook of the knee.

Shin-on-shin: standing, active holding

• Your opponent cannot simply drive into you and flatten you out with shin-on-shin, so it offers some surprisingly powerful defensive potential in that respect. However, you, the guarder, needs to scoot back as the passer advances on you.

SLX: standing, sweeping

Spider: kneeling, active holding

Worm (gi-only): standing, holding

X: standing, sweeping