Guard Retention

Danaher on guard retention: frames, hip movement and making the passer start over instead of chasing a single recovery.

Adam Wardzinski on how not to get smashed in butterfly: staying seated and keeping the hooks alive.

Jon Satava on butterfly guard retention, from Marcelo Garcia's school.

Gordon Ryan on the basic principles of butterfly and open guard, including not getting flattened.

Lachlan Giles and Ariel Tabak list the five most common guard retention mistakes, including playing too close and having no backup guard when the first layer is beaten.

Chewy's seven reasons your butterfly sucks, mostly retention and posture problems before any sweep is attempted.

Eight reasons guard retention fails, and Chewjitsu's fixes for frames, hips and inversion.

What to do when De La Riva is getting smashed: recovering the hook and not turning into a knee cut.

Stephan Kesting on countering the leg drag: frames, the granby and getting the leg back in front.

Twelve guard retention concepts explained through alignment and frames, including when straight arms are fine and when they get you armbarred.

Rob Biernacki and Stephan Kesting close their spider guard series by shutting down the leg shuck pass: sit up on their push, shrimp, reloop the foot to the bicep and get the grips back.

Jon Thomas' simple, effective leg-drag defence: hip movement and inversion to recover the dragged leg.

Jon Thomas on three simple tricks that massively improve guard retention, drilled with a partner.

Why hip escaping with the top foot on the mat gives the passer the knee-to-chest space they want, and why the high pummel retains guard better. Lachlan Giles with Ariel Tabak.

Andre Galvao on escaping the leg drag from the Atos guard-retention system.

Analysis of Gordon Ryan's own body-lock defence: a white-belt concept (frames and hips) done at a black-belt level.

Three ways to defend the body-lock pass: frames, hip movement and wrestling up before they walk around.

A fundamentals overview of the lasso guard: grip control, breaking posture, then the basic sweeps and submissions that follow. A good first stop before the specialist videos.

Principles of the spider-lasso guard (four-finger pocket grip, knees high, constant pull) and three sweeps including a butterfly hybrid when they step a leg up.

Jon Thomas on defending the toreando from the bottom, which is also what standing passers have to beat: frames, hooks and not letting them circle.

Partner drills for guard retention: timing and frames rather than memorising a sequence.