Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in Massachusetts: Defending the BJJ Sitting (Butterfly) Guard #4

In the fourth video in the Sitting Guard call-out drill series for maintaining and defending the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu sitting guard, or butterly guard, 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 retaining guard when an opponent stands and tries to drive you back and pass by stepping between your legs, or splitting your guard.

Again, these techniques and movements are shown without a kimono (or "gi"), but the entire series works equally well in both no gi submission grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu with a kimono.

First Prof. Whittier and his assistant begin by demonstrating the "split" pressure, when your opponent stands to pass, steps between your legs -- splitting your guard -- and drives you back by driving his knee into your chest and set up the knee slide pass.

As the opponent drives in, Prof. Whittier slides his hips backward with a vertical shrimp enough to create enough space to insert his outside instep against the instep of his opponent's advancing leg. He then hugs the leg on that side with his outside arm.

Here he explains some important details regarding the grip he has on his opponent's leg... instead of wrapping his arm around the leg like a curl, he slides his forearm down so his hand grabs low on the foreleg, thereby eliminating any space for his opponent to underhook him.

Next, Prof. Whittier details three primary follow-ups from this position:

1. Sweep 1: His free arm grabs his opponents far wrist, then rolls into an assisted butterfly sweep. Instead of sweeping with his instep, or hook, inside his opponent's thigh, however, he elevates his opponent over with the hook under his opponent's instep.

2. Sweep 2: He dives underneath his opponent, underhooking his opponent's far leg with his free arm, and continues to roll through by elevating his opponent over (opposite direction from Sweep 1) completing the sweep and winding up in position to pass his oppt's guard.

3. Circle to Single Leg: As his opponent tries to drive him back, he wraps his bottom leg around his oppt's ankle and circles toward his back while driving his shoulder into the back of his oppt's knee making it impossible for the oppt to square up to him and flatten him out. Once he gets offline enough, he can then go to his knees or feet for any number of single leg takedown finishes.