When I was a white belt I thought the key to having a good guard game was to lock on and hold guard no matter what. Now that I’m a black belt I’ve come to believe that making your guard impassible is less about locking down and more about knowing when and how to bail out when you feel your guard is getting passed. If you can prevent your opponent from securing a scoring position (side control, knee on belly, north/south, mount, back take), then you can make your guard impassible.

This is my take on quarter guard. Quarter guard has become one of my go-to guards lately. I feel like it’s on a continuum of my bottom game: Stay on your side, control a hand So, of course if you play quarter guard flat on your back, it’s really more like a 3/4 mount position. Which is bad. However, from my side, it gives me easy access to deep half and/or transitioning to half guard, both of which are fine positions to be in:

This is my answer to an opponent pulling closed guard on me. I find this so effective and high percentage, I rarely use closed guard myself. Sometimes it takes a little patience to make this happen, for example if they don’t want to let you grab the arm, but it works very well for me.