POSITIONBOTTOM

Closed Guard

Sources and other names

Also called: close guard, closed guard, closed-guard, full guard, full-guard, guard

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Start with the example · Playing bottom

Closed guard is the one position in jiu jitsu where being flat on your back means you're winning. With your legs locked around their waist you control their posture and their distance — they can't retreat, they can't advance, and their submission threats are close to zero while yours stack up.

The chapter

The whole bottom game reduces to one fight: their posture. When they're bent forward, your sweeps and submissions chain into each other. When they're upright, none of it works and the clock runs on your guard instead.

For the top player this isn't a neutral position — it's a hole to climb out of. The entire job is to protect posture, stand up, and open the legs. Coaches literally describe passing as escaping.

Playing bottom

Nothing on this list works while they're postured up, which is why breaking posture comes first — it isn't a technique so much as the tax you pay to unlock the rest.

1Break their posture
Strip whatever grips they have on your hips or chest, then pull your knees toward your chest so your legs — not your arms — fold them forward until their hands hit the mat.
WhenThe moment they settle into your guard, before their grips are set — and again every single time they rebuild. This is the entry to everything below.
2Cross collar choke
First hand goes knuckles-deep in the far collar while their posture is down; the second hand grips behind it. Elbows come back to your ribs and you curl them in to finish.
WhenTheir posture is already broken and they start driving back up into your grip — or they burn both hands fighting your legs and leave the collar unguarded.
3Scissor sweep
Collar and sleeve grips, shrimp your hips out to make an angle, lay your shin across their beltline, and chop their base knee with your bottom leg while the collar grip pulls them over it.
WhenThey kneel tall with weight drifting forward over you — especially the instant a knee lifts to advance. The chop takes the leg their balance lives on.
4Hip bump sweep
Open your guard, sit up onto one hand, swing your hips over your posted arm and drive your shoulder through their chest, chasing the arm on the side you're bumping toward.
WhenThey lean back — to rebuild posture, to sit on their heels out of choke range, or to stand. Their weight moving away from you is the sweep.
5Kimura
Sit up over their arm, wrap the wrist with one hand and thread the other behind their tricep to lock your own wrist — a figure four. Fall back, hips out, and run the knuckles toward their spine.
WhenThey post a hand on the mat — usually to stop your hip bump — or lock their hands together to hide an arm. The hip bump and the kimura are one decision with two answers.
6Triangle choke
With one of their arms inside your legs and one outside, shoot your leg over the free shoulder, lock your shin behind your knee, cut an angle toward the trapped arm, and squeeze knees to finish.
WhenOne arm in, one arm out — most often the moment they push a hand into your chest or belly to open the guard. That push is them threading their own head into the choke.

Also worth knowing

ArmbarWhenTheir elbow drifts inside your hip line — climb your legs high and swing to 45° before they can pull it back.
Arm drag to the backWhenTheir arm crosses your centerline, on its own or because you dragged it there.
GuillotineWhenThey duck their head low while keeping distance — and unlike the armbar, missing it doesn't hand them the pass.
Overhook and angleWhenYou need movement against someone who just holds on — the overhook pins their arm while your hips walk off-center.

Why you keep failing here

“My guard keeps getting opened.”
WhyYou're letting them posture. An opponent with a stacked spine and straight arms wins the opening battle every time, kneeling or standing — the guard doesn't get opened so much as conceded.
FixMake breaking posture your first move instead of a reaction: strip their grips and fold them down before they finish settling, and treat every posture rebuild as the start of the same fight.
“I can hold closed guard forever, but nothing ever happens.”
WhySquare hips. Attacking from directly underneath means pushing straight into their strongest line, so every attempt feels like it needs twice the force it should.
FixGet a grip that pins an arm — overhook or collar — then walk your hips off-center. Every attack in this chapter starts from an angle, not from underneath.
“Every armbar attempt ends with me stacked and passed.”
WhyAttacking the arm while square under their weight line invites the stack — driving forward into you is their best answer and you queued it up.
FixStop fighting the stack and convert it: their forward drive is exactly the energy the flower sweep feeds on.
“The moment they stand up, my whole guard game dies.”
WhyClinging to closed ankles while they rise just means the guard gets opened at a worse angle, with gravity on their side.
FixOpen on your terms: as they stand, snag a grip and enter an open guard before they break the lock — the players who stay dangerous here are the ones who choose when the guard opens.
“My submissions evaporate against bigger, stronger opponents.”
WhyStraight-arm submissions ask you to out-extend a stronger arm with gravity against you — the armbar especially can be a losing bet on raw physics.
FixReorder the menu: sweeps and chokes first, and prefer attacks like the guillotine where a miss doesn't cost you the position.