How often do you get stuck in people’s half gaurd when you’re trying to pass? Let me make it easier for you – you’re not trapped, it is just a matter of perspective. As long as you’re on top, and preventing the bottom person from getting to a better guard, you’re not stuck, you’re in charge.
The true art of the top half guard position in BJJ is to learn how to maintain it without getting swept, or allowing the person to re-guard in a guard that allows them a lot more free movement. The Half Guard Top DVD By Henry Akins Half Guard is a great resource on mastering both how you can stay on top of the half guard as long as you want, and how to pass it effortlessly.
Key Takeaways
- No-Gi BJJ DVD with 3 hours of material spread over five parts.
- Explores the concept of building a home base before passing and submitting.
- Contains an entire volume with common questions answered by Akins.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 9 out of 10.
HALF GUARD TOP DVD AVAILABLE HERE!!!
What are Your Objectives From Top Half Guard?
One of the most intuitive guard positions to play in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is the half guard. people tend to gravitate towards it from both top and bottom, even when they have absolutely no idea what they are doing (which is most of the time).
As useful as the half guard can be for a bottom player, it is just as annoying to a top player looking to dismantle and pass it. What is on your mind whenever you’re stuck in the top half guard? Most likely it is wondering how to extract that one leg the opponent has that is preventing you from completing a pass.
Well, let me unveil the truth – the leg is not important. Focusing on it means you abandon your awareness of the rest of your body, making it easier for the bottom person to transition to a different guard or use the leg as a lever to sweep you.
our goals when on top should be to make sure you stay in the half guard, and even more importantly, that you stay on top, not allowing the opponent to grab a better guard. In other words, you need to use the top half guard to stall, until the opponent accepts you’re staying there.
That is when you can think about passing it, as now, you only have one guard to deal with as opposed to the whole array of BJJ guards. The Henry Akins Half Guard Top DVD we’re looking at today might come in handy for this last passing part.
Henry Akins: One Of Rickson Gracie’s Best Black Belts
Henry Akins is an American Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt under one of the most legendary figures from the Gracie family – Rickson Gracie. He has been a standout coach for decades now, conveying the knowledge he gathered from Rickson to the masses in the BJJ world, without the restraints on details that the Gracies are known for.
Akins started training BJJ in the early 90s, after somehow ending up with one of the legendary Vale Tudo tapes featuring Rickson. He tracked him down and started training immediately, often traveling to Brazil as well. In 2004, Rickson Gracie gave Henry his black belt during a training session in his residence.
Later on, Rickson, who initially helped out as an instructor in Luiz Heredia’s gym before becoming a black belt, became a fully-fledged instructor in Ricskon’s Academy. Akins was the third American to receive a black belt from Rickson.
Game-wise, Henry Akins has that old-school, never-say-die style of grappling, revolving around the very basics of the sport. he is versatile in any position and goes as deep as possible with the details that make everything tick. With plenty of instructional to his name so far, the Henry Akins Half Guard DVD on passing is the first time he addresses the subject so far.
Half Guard Top DVD By Henry Akins: A Detailed Review
This Henry Akins Half Guard instructional is intended for No-Gi grapples, with nearly 3 hours of super high-quality material inside. As always with Henry Akins, the organization throughout the Half Guard Top DVD is pristine and logical, easy to follow and the addition of an entire volume dedicated to common questions and answers is pure genius!
Part 1 – Home Base
In the opening parts of the Half Guard Top DVD, Henry spends a lot of time dissecting how to set up your base when playing the position, so that you don’t have to fend off sweeps all the time and not get any passing done.
There is a lot of talk about base and positioning, as well as bridging and the opportunities this common BJJ motion provides for the top half-guard player. Akins sticks to the concept of a home base, a position that makes you invulnerable from the top half while allowing you to work offensively. It is also a safety net that you can fall back on any time something doesn’t pan off.
Part 2 – Launching Attacks
Once you’re safe with a home base, Henry moves on to attacks. blending together submissions and passes, this Henry Akins Half Guard Top instructional starts with a knee bara against the low knee shield, and goes into different methods you can use to dismantle the dreaded Z-Guard.
Aking, following the Gracie old-school approach to passing, does not want to spend time in side control, and aims to pass directly to the mount or back mount every time he can. As he shares different passing techniques and strategies he also covers grip fighting, and when to fall back to home base instead of rising your position.
Henry also dedicates a lot of attention to the position and the ways you can use to free the trapped leg. His system revolves around clearing the knee line, just like with leg lock defense, but does factor in low half gaurd variations like the quarter guard too.
Part 3 – Pummeling
Pummeling is an essential skill for grapplers to master but it extends beyond just pummeling with the armed. you need to be able to pummel with your legs just as effectively, especially if you want to become good at guard passing.
Akins shares lateral motion based on pummeling a lot in this volume, basing it all on the opponent’s reactions. Once again, most of the forward movement in this part of the Half Guard Top DVD is aimed at getting to the mount or the back.
A particularly interesting way of passing half gaurd, somewhat forgotten these days, that Henry demonstrates is the use of an inside hook. He uses it to both help his passing and kill off a potential butter-half hook for the bottom player, sprinkling in a diabolical calf-crusher submission in between.
Part 4 – Counters and Defense
The final technical portion of this Henry Akins instructional addresses the key aspect of playing top half guard – not allowing the opponent to sweep you, submit you, or take your back.
In that sense, Akins looks at the Kimura as the primary threat that allows the bottom person to achieve any of the three threats I just mentioned. With intricate and subtle body position Henry resolves all three issues at once, opening up a risk-free direction for passing.
Much to my pleasure, and I believe everyone else who’s ever been stuck in lockdown, Henry Akins demonstrates how to deal with the most annoying of half guards, and combines it with the powerful knee cut to get out.
Part 5 – Q&A
The final part of the Half Guard Top DVD by Henry Akins is like a podcast, where he and Michael Zenga go over a bunch of questions that Akins answers in depth. Seriously, this volume is the longest of the entire instructional, with Henry and Zenga chatting for more than 40 minutes!
Forcing Half Guard
So, how can you use the information for the Half Guard Top DVD By Henry Akins to improve your game? The first thing to consider is where dealing with the top half guard fits into your overall game plan from the top.
My personal passing tactic these days, especially against skilled opponents, particularly in a No-Gi setting is to force the half guard from top. The thinking behind this strategy is that it provides me with just one guard to solve as opposed to the myriad of options the bottom player has otherwise.
Forcing a bottom player to play half guard is easy – just sit on one of their legs. However, if that person knows how to play the half guard, staying on top while fending off attacks and passing successfully requires the same amount of effort as passing any guard does.
The gains from forcing half guard are that you take away a lot of the athleticism and pace of grappling exchanges by taking away the bottom person’s chances of moving. As long as you’re on their leg, they can’t get up, which means you are fairly safe from seeps and can think about winning the grip fight and advancing, just like Henry shows.
DOWNLOAD TOP HALF GUARD DVD BY HENRY AKINS
Stay on Top!
Staying on top, whether it is in someone’s guard or past it is a skill that requires a lot of time on the mats. As easy as it is to understand as a concept, staying on top of someone resisting you can be a very demanding task, and you need to figure out how to make it easier by any means necessary.
When in doubt about what you need to do from the top, get in half guard. it is a proven tactic that will greatly reduce the bottom player’s options and will allow you to dominate, salon gas you’ve picked up the Half Guard Top DVD By Professor Henry Akins and mastered its contents.
