Key Components Of Retention System

Question 1

What are the 3 physical skill sets of the retention system?

Answer 1

1 - posture skills
2- movement skills
3- framing skills

Question 2

Guard retention is made up of offensive and defensive cycles. How do we know what cycle we are in?

Answer 2

Offensive cycle -
We are in an OFFENSIVE cycle when we have a strong mechanical connection on our opponent through grips with our hands AND our feet. This allows us to break his balance and enter into the various forms of attack from bottom and prevent the opponent from creating any form of angle and distance to pass our guard.
If they move we move with them, because of our connection to them.

Defensive cycle-
When an opponent has broken our connection to him to a degree where he can create angle and distance on us, allowing them to pass guard.

A key skill for our development is to recognise when we are in a defensive cycle or an offensive cycle.

Question 3

What is the biggest error we can commit when it comes to jiu jitsu in regards to guard retention?

Answer 3

Confusing OFFENSIVE and DEFENSIVE cycles

Attacking when I’m a defensive cycle, and defending when they are in an offensive cycle is a huge common error in beginner students

Question 4

What are the 3 postures associated with the postural skills of guard retention?

Answer 4

• seated
• supine
• turtle

Guard retention is about the interplay between these postures, under pressure, using body movements.

We must be able to flow through these effectively.

While we flow we must be able to maintain our KNEES TO OUR CHEST and our ELBOWS TO OUR KNEES

Question 5

What are the 10 core movement skills required for guard retention?

Answer 5

• pommelling
• scissoring
• hip heisting
• back heisting
• rolling
• sitting
• inverting
• shrimping (3 shrimps- power, sliding, reverse)
• scooting
• propping

Question 6

What are the 3 main forms of framing in guard retention?

Answer 6

• forehand frame - use of our hands with extended arms as a long distance barrier
• forearm frames- forearm as a barrier between us and opponent
• back hand frames- backs of our hands as a ‘last ditch’ barrier between us and them

Question 7

What is the function of framing in guard retention?

Answer 7

Frames are temporary barriers designed to maintain space with our upper body when the opponent has passed our lower body.

They hold their ground just long enough to recover your lower body (legs) as the opponent tries to pass

Question 8

What is the key difference between each type of frame used in guard retention?

Answer 8

Each frame acts as a barrier at different distances between us and our opponent

• forehand games - long distance
• forearm frames - medium distance
• back hand frames - close distance

Question 9

What primary functions do all frames serve?

Answer 9

They prevent level changes by acting as barriers between us and the opponent.

They prevent control of our head and shoulders

They also create temporary barriers, preventing opponent closing distance and we can recover our legs and regain guard

Question 10

What are the 3 tactical skills of guard retention?

Answer 10

1• threat assessment- made via the demarcation line theory

2•appropriate reaction- determined via 5 requirements theory

3• finish every sequence in offensive cycle

Question 11

What 5 components make up the demarcation line theory?

Answer 11

Toe line

This is line that joins your opponent’s two toes, and it governs the distance between yourself and your opponent

If you step beyond the toe line in a clumbsy way, you give away connections to your opponent

For the guard passer, this is the first fundamental measure

Knee line

Unlike other demarcation lines on your opponent’s body, the knee line and toe line can rapidly change locations

The knee line is also connected to the hip line, in that if the knees are behind the hip line your opponent can form very strong frames to prevent chest to chest contact

But the moment the knee line goes beyond the hip line, you see chest exposure which a guard passer can exploit

Hip line

The most important measure in all of guard passing

If your lead leg steps to the hip line, it doesn’t mean much and your opponent can still attack you quite easily

But if your trail leg steps the hip line and you either go knee on belly or knee to the floor with chest to chest, you have now officially passed your opponent’s guard

As a guard passer, we are always trying to get our trail leg to our opponent’s hip line

Shoulder line

The shoulder line is linked to some forms of toreando passing where we move beyond the hip line and pass from a north/south situation

Centreline

The goal of the guard defender is to always align their centerline with their opponent’s centreline—if you can do this, nobody will pass your guard

Side lines

These 3 lines run from the shoulder to the hip, and you have one on your right side and one on your left side and the centre line

The person retaining guard wants to keep their centreline aligned with their opopnent’s, but the guard passer wants to get outside of their opponent’s side line

Question 12

What is the ‘jeopardy point’ and why is it significant in letting us know what cycle we are in?

Answer 12

The jeopardy point is the intersection of our hip line and side line

If an opponent passes this point then we are now in a 100% defensive cycle, where every reaction we take should be defensive reactions until we can realign with our opponent’s centre line

Question 13

What are the 5 basic sequential requirements that our opponents must satisfy to pass our guard?

Answer 13

• grip - get a grip on us
• angle - step out of our side line
• close distance- get passed our hip line
• change levels- get chest to chest
• pin- pin us for 3 seconds with one of our shoulders on the floor

Question 14

What are some of the appropriate reactions that we should take against the 5 requirements of guard passing?

Answer 14

• grips- breaking and negating our opponents grips
• angle - realigning through shrimping/scooting
• distance- frames to recover legs
• level change- more extreme actions like inversions to regain guard
• pins- most high risk reactions here, potential back exposure etc through pin escapes etc

Question 15

What are the body movements we must master for guard retention?

Answer 15

Leg pommeling
Shrimping- sliding shrimps, reverse shrimp 
Heisting- hip heisting, back heisting 
Sitting to guard
Scissoring our legs
Pendulums 
Propping to elbow
Shoulder rolling 
Inverting

Question 16

What are the two fundamental requirements we must have as a guard player?

Answer 16

Movement and connection.

If we have neither movement or connection, we will have our guards passed a lot easier.

If we don’t have connection (grips, leg grips)
Then we need to have movement, we need to move to stay aligned with our opponent

Question 17

Why is Guard Retention such an important part of our development in jiu jitsu?

Answer 17

When you have confidence in your ability to retain your guard, then you feel feel safe in attacking from guard, without fear of getting your guard passed.
If you don’t have confidence in retaining guard, you will only hold onto your guard in fear of losing it, and you won’t have the confidence to actually attack from guard, therefore you won’t progress offensively.

Question 18

The guard retention system has two broad areas, what are they?

Answer 18

1 - general system based around principles and concepts

2 - specific moves (how to counter specific guard passes with specific retention methods

Question 19

In the general system, what two cycles is the guard position divided into?

Answer 19

Offensive cycles
Defensive cycles

Question 20

What denotes being in a good offensive cycle?

Answer 20

When we have strong connection to our opponent through grips with our hands and feet.
These grips enable us to break our opponents balance, enter into forms of attack from bottom and prevent our opponent from creating angle and distance to pass our guard

Question 21

What does our opponent need to create to pass our guard?

Answer 21

Angle and distance

Question 22

What denotes us being in a defensive cycle?

Answer 22

When our opponent has broken our connection to him to a degree where he can create angle and distance upon us.

Question 23

What is the number one error danaher sees people make when trying to retain guard?

Answer 23

When people confuse offensive and defensive cycles.
People make the mistake of attacking when they should be defending. Attacking in a defensive cycle, defending when they should be offensive

Question 24

What type of system is the General System?

Answer 24

It is a heuristic system, not an algorithmic system.
Guard play is so fast moving and rapid changing, it is impossible to give an algorithmic system. Heuristic systems give a broad map of skills to retain guard

Question 25

How do we know when an offensive cycle is to becoming a defensive cycle?

Answer 25

Our opponent has broken our connection or even just reduces our connection to him to a degree where our legs aren’t in contact with him or the ground, this means he is capable of getting to an advantageous angle and closing distance upon us.
Now that they have this tactical position the will begin guard passing

Question 26

What do we need to keep in mind while going between the 3 postures under pressure of a strong physical opponent?

Answer 26

We must be able to flow between SEATED, SUPINE and TURTLE postures seamlessly and effectively. While
Using these postures we must keep our knees to our chest and elbows to our knees. The more our knees drift from our chest and elbows from our knees the easier we become to pass by opponent

Question 27

How do we fight the 5 sequential steps of guard passing when our opponent is trying to pass us?

Answer 27

Grip- we fight them by breaking their grips and denying them grips

• angle- realigning our body with body movements like shrimping or scooting
• closing distance- frames will hold him off long enough to recover our legs and get inside position with our legs
• level changing- we might have to use more extreme actions like inversions after our opponent has changed levels on us and is virtually on top of us
• pin- we are now in a crisis situation and are getting pinned, now we must now employ back hand frames and risky moves like sitting up etc which may give back exposure

Question 28

Why is it CRITICAL that we finish every guard retention sequence in an offensive cycle?

Answer 28

It is very difficult to retain guard against persistent combination of passing attempts.
We must be able to take the fight back to the opponent so he is just as afraid of your offence from guard as you are of his passing from top. As it is just as difficult to defend against a striker by consistently dodging punches by blocking, dodging and rolling, without firing and strikes back.. it is also very tough to start a good guard passer who is combining passes together, and working recently to get around your legs.

** so at the completion of every guard retention sequence, FINISH IN AN OFFENSIVE CYCLE**

This allows you to keep aligned with them.

Danaher strongly recommends keeping a cross collar and sleeve cuff grip and to place a foot on the hip and other foot on the bicep (CCCB guard)

Question 29

What are the two most common unforced errors people make?

Answer 29

Head exposure

Chest exposure

Exposing these massively increases your opponents ability to pass your guard

Question 30

What is the 4 step heuristic guard retention system?

Answer 30

1- identify threat based on demarcation lines and the 5 requirements of guard passing

2- react with appropriate level of response using frames and body movement (10 body movements)

3- recover our legs and our centreline alignment

4- finish in an offensive cycle (CCCB guard in gi)

Question 31

What are the 6 most prevalent and effective guard passes?

Answer 31

1 double under
2 over/under
3 toreando
4 leg drag
5 knee slice
6 long step

Question 32

What do we need to keep in mind with the relationship between our knee line and hip line when an opponent is trying to pass our guard?

Answer 32

We should keep our knee line above our hip line (knees to chest).
If our knee line goes below our hip line our legs get extended.
Extended legs are easy to pass, retracted legs (knee line well above hip line) are difficult to pass.
Unless we have 4 points of contact with opponent, we should always monitor our knee line and keep it above hip line

Question 33

What is the ‘jeopardy point’ in guard passing/retention?

Answer 33

The jeopardy point is the intersection of the sideline and hip line. This makes the person retaining guard in a 100% defensive cycle.
It is the point where the guard passer wants to be as quickly and as often as he can, when trying to employ any pass, he must create angle and distance and get to the jeopardy point with his feet/knee when trying to use a method of guard pass

Question 34

What are the two most fundamental requirements of guard retention?

Answer 34

Movement and connection

If an opponent tries to get angle on us and we don’t have movement or connection it’s only a matter of time before he passes us.

Question 35

What do we need to keep in mind regarding our centreline and opponents centre line, while retaining guard?

Answer 35

We need to keep our centreline and our opponents centre line aligned with each other.
As long as our centreline faces our opponents then he is in our guard

We must use movement and connection to achieve this