Key Takeaways
- Half Butterfly Mastery Brian Glick DVD Review — a 37-minute, 31-chapter No-Gi instructional that condenses Glick’s flagship Under Pressure: Half Butterfly Mastery into 8 parts.
- Two mechanics carry the entire system — the inside frame and the underhook — turning half butterfly into a home base you can return to from closed guard, mount, side control and turtle.
- The attacks are built to fire on your opponent’s reactions: Sumi Gaeshi, the pinch headlock, a shoulder-crunch triangle, the kimura, and clamp-to-ashi entanglements.
- The real buying decision is this $33.50 Fast Track versus the four-volume, $197 parent course — and each is aimed at a different grappler.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 8.5 out of 10.
Under Pressure Half Butterfly Mastery Brian Glick DVD DOWNLOAD
Brian Glick’s half butterfly game finally has a condensed edition. The Fast Track BJJ: Half Butterfly Mastery Brian Glick DVD takes the eight-part system he built in his flagship, four-volume $197 course and squeezes it into a single 37-minute volume — a 31-chapter sprint through the inside frame, the underhook, and every attack that follows.
At around $33 on sale (hurry), it is the cheapest way to see Glick’s entire half butterfly roadmap in one sitting — a Brian Glick instructional compact enough to absorb on a lunch break. The honest question this review has to answer is whether 37 minutes is enough to actually learn it, or whether this is a sampler that quietly points you back to the full course.
The Half Butterfly Guard, Reframed As A Home Base
The half butterfly guard is one of modern Jiu-Jitsu’s most underused positions — a hybrid of half guard and butterfly guard that keeps one hook active while the other leg stays connected to a trapped limb. It is the natural friend of the smaller grappler who spends rounds stuck under bigger, heavier partners, because it preserves an inside position even when you are flat on your back.
What separates Glick’s take from the field is his framing: he treats half butterfly as a pressure-defense position first and an attack position second. That is a genuine point of difference. Adam Wardzinski’s Half Butterfly Victory Blueprint builds the guard around balance, timing and sweep mechanics in the Gi, while Eoghan O’Flanagan’s Down Right Sloppy Half Butterfly teaches a looser, scramble-heavy version.
Glick goes the other way: his half butterfly is a home base you retreat to when everything goes wrong — from bottom mount, side control and turtle — and then convert into offense. It is the same “turn heavy pressure into attacks” philosophy that runs through his wider catalog, and it is also not the half guard system from his older Half Guard Mastery instructional, which is a separate product covering a different position.
Brian Glick: A Danaher Black Belt Who Teaches For The Non-Athlete
Brian Glick is a black belt under John Danaher and Renzo Gracie, and one of Danaher’s longest-standing students. He is the founder of 555 Jiu-Jitsu in Brooklyn and a top-selling instructor on BJJ Fanatics, where his systematic, concept-first teaching style is regularly compared to Danaher’s own. That credibility matters here, because this is a course built entirely on sequencing and structure rather than athleticism.
Glick’s own story backs up the method. By his account he arrived at Jiu-Jitsu with no athletic background and no confidence, and was told by his first instructor that he should probably find another activity. He kept showing up, spent two decades training under Danaher, and built a system aimed squarely at people without natural advantages. Elite competitors and world champions seek him out as a training partner and technical resource.
I can train with anyone, and I choose to train with Brian. He is an incredible instructor with an outstanding pedigree.
– Shintaro Higashi –
Half Butterfly Mastery Brian Glick DVD Review: The 8-Part, 1 Volume Breakdown
The entire course lives inside a single Volume 1 running 36:49, organized into 8 parts and 31 chapters. That structure mirrors the roadmap of the full Under Pressure: Half Butterfly Mastery course, which spreads the same material across four volumes and several hours — and even includes its own 37-minute executive summary. It is one entry in the growing Fast Track BJJ line of condensed releases, alongside titles like the Gi Mount Masterclass by Rafael Lovato Jr.
Section 1: Why Half Butterfly
Glick opens with the two load-bearing mechanics everything else hangs on: the inside frame and the underhook. In about a minute and a half, he establishes why these two details matter, and the rest of the course returns to them constantly.
Section 2: Getting To Half Butterfly From Everywhere
The entries are where the home base thesis earns its keep. Glick shows the path in from closed guard, seated butterfly and reverse De La Riva/split squat, then — more unusually — from bottom mount, side control and turtle. Being able to rebuild half butterfly from your worst positions is the single most useful idea in the whole set.
Section 3: Sumi Gaeshi
The first major attack set is the Sumi Gaeshi, taught in reactive, proactive and pullback variations. The reactive version is the one most students will reach for most often, because it fires the moment the top player commits forward.
Section 4: Pinch Headlock
Next is the pinch headlock, a control-and-choke hybrid. Glick covers the core mechanics first, then chains it into Sumi Gaeshi finishes to the inside and the outside.
Section 5: Pinch Headlock To Shoulder Crunch
The shoulder-crunch transition is a signature of Glick’s system. From the pinch headlock, he shows the forward shift into a triangle, giving you a submission threat the moment your opponent reacts to the headlock.
Section 6: Kimuras
The kimura section covers the no-wrist kimura, following the roll, and two chapters on dealing with locked hands and posture. It is a useful reminder that half butterfly is not only a leg-lock position.
Section 7: Integrating The Clamp
The longest section is the payoff for No-Gi players. From the clamp’s chest-to-chest position, Glick moves through the knee lever and then into the ashi garami entries — near leg reaping, back side and cross ashi, plus far leg scoop-and-heel control, outside knee and the lat kneebar.
Section 8: Troubleshooting
The closer deals with three common counters: the Estima lock, the leg lace and the knee cut. It is brief but gives you a starting answer for the moments a sharp top player breaks your sequence.
Practical Application
The realistic way to use a 37-minute condensation is as a roadmap, not a textbook. Watch the whole thing once to internalize the progression, then drill one part a week with a partner. The inside frame and the underhook are the two details worth installing immediately, because every attack and entry in the course assumes you already have them. Once those are in place, the Sumi Gaeshi and the clamp-to-ashi chain are the highest-return additions for a No-Gi bottom game.
Expect the techniques to land faster than you might assume — the reactive framing means most of these attacks trigger on the opponent’s forward pressure, which is exactly what a bigger training partner gives you for free. What you will not get is the deep-dive troubleshooting the parent course’s later volumes provide, so treat the Fast Track as a map you will eventually want to expand.
STREAM OR DOWNLOAD: Half Butterfly Mastery Brian Glick
Who Is This For?
This half butterfly instructional is aimed at white and blue belts who want a structured, low-cost introduction to the position, and at smaller grapplers who spend too much time flattened under heavier partners. It is also a smart way to audition Glick’s teaching style before committing to the $197 full course. No-Gi players will get the most out of the ashi and kneebar finishes; Gi players who want lapel-based variations will find nothing for them here.
It is not for advanced half-butterfly players who already own the parent course — this is a recap of material they have seen in far more depth. And it is not a substitute for the full system if your goal is to build half butterfly to competition level. For that, the four-volume Under Pressure: Half Butterfly Mastery is the real investment, and this Fast Track is best understood as its on-ramp.
Pros And Potential Drawbacks
Pros:
- A clear, logical progression — 8 parts that move from frame, to entry, to sweep, to submission, to counter.
- The two-mechanic foundation (inside frame and underhook) makes a complex guard genuinely teachable in a short runtime.
- “From everywhere” entries, including mount, side control and turtle, are rare and immediately useful.
- A real leg-lock payoff — ashi garami and kneebar finishes give No-Gi players a finishing path, not just sweeps.
- Strong value at roughly $33 for a complete system roadmap.
- Glick’s Danaher-lineage teaching is systematic, calm and easy to follow.
Potential Drawbacks:
- 37 minutes is a condensation — technique detail is thin next to the $197 parent course.
- It is a roadmap rather than a complete system, so most students will still want the full course for depth.
Fast Tracking the Half Butterfly
The Half Butterfly Mastery Brian Glick DVD is exactly what it claims to be — a fast, focused version of Glick’s half butterfly system that covers the full eight-part roadmap in 37 minutes. As a low-cost introduction, a refresher, or a way to test whether Glick’s method fits your game before buying the full course, it earns a solid recommendation. As a complete system in its own right, it is intentionally not that, and no one should buy it expecting the depth of the four-volume parent.
Reviewed by: Ognen Dzabirski, BJJ black belt, full-time coach and gym owner. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication
