Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Massachusetts: Defending the BJJ Sitting (Butterfly) Guard

In this, the first in a series of videos detailing a call-out drill for maintaining and defending the sitting guard, or butterly guard in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), BJJ Black Belt, Muay Thai and Mixed Martial Arts trainer Stephen Whittier (The MMA Performance Professor) of Nexus Martial Arts & Fitness in Wareham, MA shows the basics of defending your "borders" and handfighting with your opponent so that he cannot get dominant grips on your legs and pass.

Although this series is shown without a kimono (or "gi"), then entire series works equally well in both no gi submission grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu with a kimono.

The first call out Prof. Whittier refers to is "Psycho Baby," a funny term for the opponent's attempt to use his head to drive into your head/neck area and push you on your back (thereby separating your knees from your chest and allowing him to pass your guard). In the basic version of this drill, the opponent simply walks on all fours, relentlessly trying to push forward into your chest (hence the term "psycho baby") as you angle offline with a vertical, or upright, shrimp movement. The keys to your movement is to maintain proper posture as you do it -- knees to your chest, head slightly in front of your hips -- while shrimping, and also to create a frame with one arm and moving yourself away from the frame, effectively parrying the psycho baby past you as he drives forward.

If your opponent's head is mid-level, you will typically place your hand on the side of his head and angle off. If his head is high, you can frame with your forearm under his neck and angle off, and if his head gets low, to try and duck under your frame, you can snap his head down as you sit out of the position, then re-establish your posture.

The second call out is "Handfighting," or gripfighting. This works exactly the same in the sitting guard as from a standing clinch position in wrestling. The first thing on your body an opponent must control to pass is your legs, so this drill prepares you to constantly defend against your opp't getting those grips, or stripping his grips immediately if he does.

The key to effective handfighting is to constantly maintain good posture, and if your opponent starts to get to close, use the vertical shrimp mentioned above to angle, regain your distance, and then reassert handfighting again.