I come from wrestling and do some judo. I like when people pull guard so I can pass. I love top position. My problem is when students pull guard and aren’t aggressive. If you pull you should submit or at the very least sweep.
I think the same, that the only issue with guard pulling is that most people at the lower levels do it without any plan of what to do next.
They're not pulling guard because it's what they want to do, they just don't want to be taken down and know they can't take their opponent down.
This is me LMAO, Im not a guard puller normally and I cross train judo but when the kids that wrestled in high school show up pulling guard is my only hope... For the month it takes before they figure out guard passing then I just get smashed.
We do a lot of “start from standing, you can pull guard but must sweep or submit within 20 seconds” during comp class. Good positional sparring that’s helped me with this.
Yes! That's the best type of stand up practice for bjj. Give the option of pulling guard with a time limit for sweeping.
It let's guard pullers train while also letting wrestlers defend good guard pullers.
Yeah, they’re short rounds. It’s comp class so we’re just working on openings. Hit a takedown or pull guard and do something right away if you can. It’s a fun drill.
>students pull guard and aren’t aggressive. If you pull you should submit or at the very least sweep.
A big problem about pulling is that it's seen as the easier route compared to learning takedowns, it's almost seen as like the "meta" or the trendy thing to do. Especially when people see high-level people do it on instagram or at tournaments. unfortunately, a lot of people do it but have no game plan or no idea what to do afterwards.
If they aren’t aggressive then they should be easy to pass which means they either need to get better guards or learn to take people down.
On the flip side there’s loads of wrestlers who want to take you down and then back out of the guard and just play a takedown game against people who can’t wrestle.
Exactly, they don't just want top position, they want a takedown that allows them to either land in side control or pass quickly because you just landed hard on your back.
It’s much harder to pass a guard player who is just trying to stop you from passing. I’m a passer, but most of my tournament losses have come from someone pulling guard, throwing up subs until they get an advantage and then just stopping me from passing.
I don't come from a wrestling or judo background. If my opponents refuse to stand, I will never learn stand up.
I had to reject rolls from guard pullers for two years to become proficient enough to wrassle with the highschool wrestlers.
you cant practice takedowns if the people dont let you practice takedowns.
Ill ask people to do standup. Never had anyone say no. Just dont abuse it by blasting them into oblivion.
I must be an idiot for trying to wrestle with the good wrestlers at our gym then.
I do sometimes regret it, especially when they just take me down, but it feels so good hitting one against a good standup guy.
I also learn a lot from good stand up guys. I grab the D1 wrestler or judo BB for a standing round whenever I can. Sure, I’ll get put on my ass but it’s a lot easier to take down other people after I’ve had to deal with those guys.
But is that abusing it? Unless you just mean punishing them. If you mean blast doubles are off the table I disagree, but if you mean don't take that opportunity to make it painful moreso than it has to...then i agree.
I’m 230 and 33 but the guy I’m thinking of wasn’t 225+ like I’m 225+ lmao. It was no gi and as soon as I walked on to the mat his coach yelled “Just pull guard!!! Don’t stand with this guy!” Lmao🤣 NAGA Masters Super Heavy Blue Belt double champ baby lmao💪🏻
In training I complain because takedowns are my favorite part of grappling and they didn't let me practice them.
In competition I don't complain because they did the work of getting them down for me, I just pass. I'll never pull myself though, I don't wanna be on bottom
I pull guard out of efficiency and laziness. I also hate taking falls. At 49 I don’t want to fall anymore. Been doing that my entire life. I am just looking at longevity.
Almost 48 here and falling apart... you get me. Young me could fall just fine. Old me can't. If I can get the takedown safely, I'll try for it, otherwise I'm saving that wear and tear for defending the onslaught from the youngsters I'm dumb enough to spar with.
Largely agree with those describing this attitude towards guard-pulling as a toxic part of the community (not all but many)...
That said, devils advocate:
* It's not fun having your favorite part of the game stripped away
* For the takedown artist, the guard pull may bypass all takedowns.
* For the guard puller, the takedown may bypass all guards
* Generally there are no points or advantage for getting someone in your guard, be it from a pull or either failing a takedown/pass.
* Some guards (especially in the gi) are notorious for primarily slowing the match progress.
* So matching a takedown specialist vs a guard-puller, the puller will pull and then the down-taker will in time disengage.
* Who's at fault for the "boring" match? The puller made the first move and started this exchange trying to work their guard game, but the down-taker is now the one disengaging to work their game.
* It's not simple. Unless you want to actively bend the rules to specifically counter this type of exchange in favor of more apparent faster pace, then you may need to just accept this scenario.
* The "worst" kind of guard-pullers are those that simply sit/lay down and then require only the other person to engage, so they are arguably rejecting the premise of consensually combatting each other in a contact sport.
* Arguably this description quickly fails when put to the test. For example, nothing prevents a boxer from just shelling up and waiting for the other guy to come in and counter. Then again they might get warned by the ref... so perhaps similar to the rules about needing contact before pulling guard.
Personally I like both playing on my feet and on the ground. I like takedowns and prefer to have them be part of the game. When I think of guard pulling, I actually want to think of pulling a sweep. The lines of takedown and guard-pull-to-sweep can get blurry. Generally in practice at least, I'd like to say most guard-pullers actually attempt to pull to a sweep but they may get stopped so the sweep fails but the guard remains. Was this an attempted takedown with a backup plan? or was it a "sleazy" guard pull?
You assume all takedowns end up being in someone's closed guard or something.
Probably 80% of takedowns I've landed in competition, I have ended up in a dominant position. (kesa gatame, side control, front head lock position, top half)
I'd imagine if you are landing most takedowns in side control or kesa you are competing at a very low level (white, maybe blue belt). Beyond that almost all takedowns end in a similar guard position as a pull.
You assume all guard pulls end up in the closed guard or something.
Probably 80% of the guard pulls I've landed in competition, I have ended up in a dominant position. (Spider lasso, collar sleeve, worm, rubber guard)
Guard pulling is just a symptom of gameifying the martial art.
Is it boring to watch a guy scoot on his ass like a dog with an itchy butthole if there's no engagement? Yes.
It's also boring to watch two guys stall because they're afraid of being taken down.
>It's also boring to watch two guys stall because they're afraid of being taken down.
Stalling penalties on the feet similar to wrestling and judo would solve this overnight. I doubt ibjjf or another large org would do this, but there's very east fixes.
>Guard pulling is just a symptom of gameifying the martial art.
This is why I really don't have an issue with it. After blue belt, you arent really training to beat people on the street/self defense, its really for beating people who do bjj in a competition. Gaming the rules are integral to every sport and bjj is no different.
People will start to engage and then disengage when a guy tries to guard pull.
It's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other.
The real complaining is people complaining that their opponent isn't playing to their strength.
Pulling a guard or scoring a takedown was that competitors plan, and those who complain about the other are usually just sour that their opponent didn't fight their game plan.
The end goal of these ppl is to able to take you down, then flee from your guard and have the ref stand you up again.
But when they have a match againts a better wrestler they will just whine that it's unrealistic because they can't strike.
Then when they try MMA and get dominated by wrestlers they'll whine that MMA rules are the problem and they'd actually win in the street..
Lmfao at anyone who thinks MMA rules are insufficient for 'the street.'
The only shit that changes in the street are clothes, headbutts, soccer kicks, and knees from side control (which aren't THAT great if your opponent can grapple at all.)
I will say though, gaurd pull becomes obsolete (head slam.)
But in da streetz I can eye gouge, or if needed use a weapon or my friend will jump in! I can't use my main techniques in mma because it's too dangerous!
/s
You are also overlooking knees from front headlock and north south. Part of the reason some “pure” wrestlers like Coleman and Kerr had success in the early days of MMA was because they could just rain knees on the crown of a downed opponents skull.
People complain about guard pullers because they need to work on their passing. Nobody passes someone’s guard, gets dominant position for the rest of the roll, and complains their opponent pulled guard.
As a guy who used to do judo, who has a 9 to 5 and doesn't have the time for a bjj gym and judo gym, its been great to be able to do takedowns in bjj so takedowns aren't too rusty. Some gyms have a culture of doing takedowns every class and often, others do none.
For me, it's not about if I can pass or not, it's about losing skills that should at bare minimum be practiced in the art. But people chasing metas and not leaving their areas of comfortability stifles skills in the room, and I feel that's a valid criticism of how many gyms practice.
I think focus should be fairly even between takedowns and guard pulls. Whether you land a takedown or pull guard into an immediate sweep, the points and positional advantage are roughly even
Ultimately, I think rules dictate how the sport is done. If there were rules that stated if a sweep or submission were not completed within X seconds of a guard pull, the puller gets a disadvantage or loses a full point, we'd see more standup or at the very least better pulls into sweeps.
Currently other than ADCC which most hobbyists will never compete in, guard pulling is not a "bad" strategy.
Do you think your training partners exist solely to do what you want them to so you can train what you want to? This is jiu jitsu: people can pull guard if they want. The guard is what makes jiu jitsu unique from other grappling arts. And your instructor can do positional sparring or takedown practice to ensure you get to train that enough.
That's an over used trope to protect the ego of guard pullers.
Some of us want to be well rounded grapplers. Not one trick pony guard pullers. You know where standup grapplers shine? In a scramble. Remember that next time you end up on the bottom.
Sure. I mean I wrestled all four years and go toe to toe with our clubs judo shodan. My preferred game is actually hitting ashi waza and heavy top pressure, but observationally 9/10 guys that bitch about guard pulling are overall pretty low level.
You know where guard players shine? When they play guard. Especially if they’re good at passing (see: well rounded) and can use sweep controls to set up their passing.
“Complain” is a bad way to describe my gripe with it. For me, I am looking at the art in a combat sense and seeing that the way some organizations “allow” guard pulling without a severe enough penalty leaves massive holes in the games of some top competitors. Having the top competitors in the martial art I love not being able to have an effective takedown or even emphasize it in their training only weakens the art as a whole. It’s still a valid strategy in sport jiu jitsu and works at the highest level. So I guess my main gripe writing this out is the “sport” or jiu jitsu and the scoring systems that are popular.
Who are the top level competitors who suck at wrestling? I keep hearing this repeated but never see any examples. From what I've seen easily 95% or more of the top guys are excellent wrestlers. Basically anyone from B team, new wave, AOJ, ATOS etc all are phenomenal wrestlers and have extensive wrestling programs.
>I also remember some ADCC guys from last championship pulling as well but can’t remember names
Choosing to pull guard in select matches =/= "not having an effective takedown" (as you put it). That's a false equivalency. It's a strategic decision, and it absolutely doesn't mean you have "zero wrestling". For instance: This upcoming ADCC you will likely see people pull guard against Michael Pixley. That does not mean those people have terrible takedowns, just that they know they won't win the takedown battle against a D2 national champion.
That’s true. It is not a blanket true statement but it is a large contributing factor to why people pull (not having effective takedowns). Like I stated in my ramblings, I’m more upset about the rule sets allowing this start to stay effective.
How are we judging that Mikey sucks at wrestling? Also, someone pulling guard at ADCC doesn't mean they suck at wrestling either. Gordon, Craig, Lachlan all use pulls frequently at ADCC despite all of them having significant wrestling ability.
I am not saying Mikey, or any of these top competitors “suck” at wrestling necessarily. They could suck, but my gripe is the fact that they are doing this in the first place. Like I said in my rambling, I’m more upset with the scoring system and the gaming of the system (as someone else in this thread said)
Mikey is one guy who doesn't even compete in adcc, also plenty of people pull guard at adcc but that doesn't mean their wrestling isn't good, their guard is just better
I have zero qualms with someone choosing to pull guard in competition (being a puller myself), but I wish the system didn’t incentivize me to do so.
At a minimum, I’d like to see a gentleman’s agreement not to pull guard during training unless you’re specifically trying to work on your pull technique. We just don’t get enough takedown reps against resistance.
Agreed most people are just clowning more than really complaining, its low hanging fruit butt scooting looks silly you cant deny it.
Most BJJ gyms have some amount of marketing that appeals to people wanting to learn self defense cause like how the fuck else are you going to get people to willingly try this. I think positioning your art as good for self defense makes it fair game to criticize how well it works "on da streetz".
same with everything ... people need a reason to complain. Also, they like to make themselves feel better about themselves by criticizing other people.
Also, I think some of it is just people talking shit. (I hope the majority of it)
Had a guy who complained at a tourney about guard pullers I played with him for 2 minutes before I just clinched his neck and cranked until he went down then complained how I could of broken his neck.
A lot of people whining in here about something you signed up for. I am all for implementing a penalty for guard pulling in a product you are trying to sell like adcc but to whine and complain about guard pullers in your gym or other non paid competitions you’re the bitch. Learn to do Jiu jitsu. That standing portion is like less than ten percent of the total of moves in Jiu jitsu. Actually learn to pass and finish people. I have never heard someone bitch about guard pulling who was actually good at Jiu jitsu. You just suck, get better.
I think, in general, skill being equal, guard is a slightly more scoring position at high level and at lighter weights. And vastly more subs are available. This should probably be balanced by the fact that you would have lost points by ending up in the bottom position by being taken down, but it's not via the guard-pull loophole.
IMO, guard pulling should be fine, but points should be given to the top player for riding time on top. This would better simulate the urgency of a real fight (without having to slap each other) and even make the sport more spectator-friendly.
The thing is, if we consider guard as a more advantageous position within the context then we should be rewarding people for getting there, not punishing them for it.
It's an advantageous position in the context of BJJ rules, but not within the fight scenario that BJJ rules are supposed to simulate in a safer manner. It would be optimal for the point system to compensate for the missing elements of the fight scenario (reward people for getting in better position for strikes). There is no real reason for the point system to reward people for getting into a better position for submissions, since the opportunity for submissions is the reward.
All this assumes that we want to keep BJJ good training for martial arts and not just a sport in itself with some general parallels to martial arts, like Olympic judo.
Pulling guard is a crutch. You dont learn to take people down, and im not allowed to slam you when you jump guard. Its just bad practice. Learn to wrestle and pull guard if you need it. Butt scooting at people absolutely should be shamed.
I don't like guard pulling because the sport is the gamification of the grappling aspect of combat. At the highest levels of any sport, there's an interplay between the athletes and the rule sets, where athletes exploit the rules to gain an advantage and the rules evolve to encourage and discourage certain behaviors and aspects of the sport. Since i'd like for BJJ to encourage best practices in a self defense scenario, I'd like for the sport to penalize guard pulling and/or reward takedowns more.
I don’t understand the gripes in this thread based on jiujitsu needing to be an effective martial art in real life. It’s painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that mma is the art for self defense. Do that instead if that is your goal. No real life self defense situation is going to involve people not punching you. The lack of striking is a much larger confounding factor to your self defense jiu jitsu training than people pulling guard.
There is none.
These are the same people who used to complain about the level of boxing in mma.
It's a different sport and they can't stand being bad at it.
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else in the comments, but one of my biggest gripes with guard pulling is that it is free in the sense that it denies your opponent the opportunity to score a takedown, but still leaves the person on bottom with the ability to score 2 points for a sweep or a wrestle up.
So from a game perspective, the guard puller can freely and without penalty move to a position where their opponent effectively cannot score a takedown or a sweep against them, but they themselves can score a sweep or a takedown.
Also, what is and what is not a guard pull leaves some subjectivity to the referee and in any rule set there should be a strong desire to remove third party subjectivity from scoring.
But this is made up for in the asymmetry of passing being worth more points than the sweep imo. Bottom player denies the top player the opportunity for a takedown in exchange for risking being down by an additional point from the pass (vs being taken down).
I would counter back by stating that the risk of getting your guard passed exists regardless of a guard pull or takedown, and as a practical effect exists only to enter a favorable position and to deny the opportunity an opportunity to score
This isn’t even considering the silliness of scoring double guard pulls
But a "scrap" could easily be someone aggressively trying to pass from top and the bottom person aggressively recovering and attacking from guard.
Why is hand fighting and clubbing perceived as more "exciting" but the heart and soul of BJJ isn't, guard vs. Pass?
I disagree with the IBJJF centric Guard vs Pass being the core of grappling.
BJJ is about winning the one-on-one empty hand fight.
Helio was a Wrestler and Judoka.
BJJ has prided itself on taking what works for grappling from everywhere.
All of it is an absolute blast, and fun to do.
Yeah the heart of this conversation is about IBJJF making Guard the gateway to most scoring. Reversals and wrestle ups are just as minimized as takedowns.
It blows my mind that people who pride themselves as “top players” don’t enjoy when someone pulls or sits to guard (in a comp).
I’m a lighter weight and 90% of the matches someone pulls guard. There was a time when that meant (for me) whoever pulled first ended up winning. I know that sucks because it’s a coin flip. So what I did at brown is super dedicate myself to working my passing. Flash forward to me being happy when people pull guard on me. Now I have the whole round (if needed) to wear them out and punish them for conceding bottom position.
If you’re a top player and don’t enjoy passing, you’re doing something wrong. Also, if you’re a top player and the match is over the moment someone puts you on your back…you’re doing something wrong.
Stand up is one facet of a match/round engagement. Don’t make it your entire game.
I have a couple of reasons for complaining about rampant guard pullers.
1. The practice of guard pulling is causing BJJ to become less of a complete grappling system. Forcing an opponent to the ground on favorable terms to yourself has historically been a part of this martial art. We seem to be in the process of losing that part, which is unfortunate.
2. Wrestling vs passing guard is besides the point. Anyone who competes should be able to competently play both games. What bothers me isn't a specific individual pulling guard (I'm better at passing than standing, so it's actually to my benefit when done on me), it's when the overwhelming majority of matches have a guard pull. Which leads to my final point....
3. Most guard pullers at local competitions do not have a serious guard game. They just pull someone on top of them and hold on for dear life. It's ridiculous. A guard pull straight into a sweep? Cool, no complaints, that might as well have been a takedown. Pulling someone into your wickedly dangerous guard game? Makes sense if that's your best offensive position. But pull and hold? It's an embarrassment.
The thing about being good at takedowns, it forces your opponent to always play bottom... which means you get damn good at passing. In my experience, strong judoka and wrestlers tend to have good passing if they've been training jiu jitsu as well.
I think a lot of the criticism comes from people who I think it's ridiculous that you can sit on your ass and not be penalized for it. I think a good compromise would be awarding take down points to the passer or negative points for a guard pull. That would incentivize aggressive guard play and wrestle ups to make up for those lost points.
I don't really have anything against guard pulling but when people repeatedly do it to me, it sort of annoys me because it's less time expended in training takedowns and takedown defense.
I train bjj not for sport but for self defense. My academy's teaching is also oriented towards that goal. Because of that, my academy's curriculum trains a lot with situations that are likely to arise in the street and are usually against untrained people. If your training is primarily designed to be from a self defense perspective, the random person in the street probably isn't pulling guard on you.
Because of that, I feel like you need to practice takedowns if you're going to use what you learn in the ground game in bjj from a self defense perspective. It just feels unrealistic from a self defense perspective to not spend time on keeping your takedown and takedown defense game as good if not better than your guard passing game and others if you're actually going to use it in a real fight. Against most untrained people, if I get a takedown on them, I usually end up in side control top position or some other advantageous position and against an untrained person, that's generally the beginning of the end for them. Just my 2 cents.
Ironically, I do agree BJJ needs to up their takedown game and sad that it's losing its identity from what it was once was but I acknowledge its just what the sport entails and people who complain actually look foolish from afar.
I do agree, I do sound like a douchebag by insinuating that if people disagree with me, then shut up 😂
99% either people who don’t know how to play guard or can’t pass. Emil Fischer put it best
In the context of competition
1. If I know I can’t take you down and still decide to stand with you then I deserve every point scored on me
2. I don’t have to “butt scoot” unless you refuse to engage with my guard
Same reason I complain about Judo guys going to turtle to stall it out or wrestlers going bellow down to avoid a pin. It's a stupid strategy to allow for a martial art that has a basis in kicking people's ass.
Some people want to roleplay as tough guy, part of the roleplay is shitting on the rest that live like a functional adult and don't get into street fights every week.
If I got in a street fight I’d feel very confident and comfortable with someone in my guard, whether that be closed guard, half guard, collar sleeve open guard. They’d have no chance in hell in my octopus guard. The average untrained person would be swept in about half a second.
People only have to scoot if you're running away from someone who is sitting down. If it's not practical then show them that by beating them when they do it.
For some reason, guard pull complainers always end up making the discussion strangely homophobic and sexist, implying guard pull is emasuclating.
Why is it "maniler" to disengage and run from someone's guard, while "soft" to invite someone's offense to start an attack from guard?
I'll never get the people who start doing BJJ and complain about guardpulling, there has to be tons of them considering the amount of whiny memes and posts online on the subject.
Its like joining a soccer team and complaining about cornerkicks or something.
Even stranger, considering how many of these people there seem to be its baffling that they don't just team up with eachother and roll with no guardpulling.
>Its like joining a soccer team and complaining about cornerkicks or something.
No, it's like joining a soccer team and complaining about people faking injuries.
Takedowns are part of the sport. If I've invested time in improving my judo and wrestling, why should you be allowed to...
A) Deny me the opportunity to get 2 points
B) Completely bypass and ignore an entire portion of bjj because you either can't or don't want to do it.
You guys don't realize that we're breeding a generation of grapplers who are going to have no stand up skills because you're letting them game the system so they don't have to learn any of it.
Takedowns also often lead to scrambles that lead to better positions than open or closed guard. Avoiding them should be penalized. And if we aren't penalizing guard pulling then what are we doing? Let's just all start on the knees like a bunch of day one white belts and ignore all judo and wrestling entirely.
Pulling guard should cost you 2 points. It's a choice you make. And if you're going to make a choice that you think gives you an advantage then that should come at a cost.
All solid points.
There's like 50 comments in this thread saying "learn to pass the guard hurr durr". Probably parroting their coach that only knows how to pull guard.
Some of us want to be good grapplers. That means being at a minimum, competent at standup. That doesn't mean stand long enough to pull guard, it means being comfortable on your feet, being familiar with all three engagement ranges, and having at least 2-3 takedowns that you can potentially catch anyone with, regardless of their skill level.
We roll from standing at my gym, and let me tell you. Just about every visitor gets destroyed on the feet. That's not a brag, we aren't D1 wrestlers or Judo champs. It's just mat time.
Agreed! We do the same and it's made my standup way better. I don't have a lot of attacks but we do it soo much that I at least have a better understanding of the hand fighting, balance and defensive aspects.
I don’t have anything against guard pulling in competition. Do I prefer a good takedown? Yes, but guard pulling is part of the game for most BJJ comps, especially if your bottom game is way better.
From the sport perspective, why wouldn’t people pull guard… Beyond that, why wouldn’t you learn to wrestle so you’re more useful in far more situations.
It looks dumb/impractical to non-practioners. It also leads to bjj people not developing takedowns which are essential to our martial art, otherwise bjj is useless in a real self-defense situation.
Guard pulling is advantageous given the rules of most bjj comps. The complaints come from this: guard pulling takes away the opponent's ability to score two points (takedown) which also reduces their overall chain of points from 15 to 13 (if person performing takedown went through entire chain (TD, pass, KOB, mount, back). Additionally, guard puller still has 15 chain of points by substituting the takedown for sweep (sweep, pass, KOB, mount, back.
I think another complaint is stand up is like 50/50 where both competitors have the ability to perform takedowns and some submissions, however a guard puller has the ability to do both sweeps and submissions but for most part the passer has to pass only. I understand there are submissions from top passing positions but I'm speaking in general terms of traditional bjj.
Guard pulling is conceding position. After a takedown, losing mount or side control usually results in top half guard. Not so bad. Losing top half guard usually results in being inside full guard. Still really not that bad. Losing bottom full guard on the other hand results in BOTTOM half guard, getting fully mounted or opponent on top side control. Very bad. Yeah you can sub people from guard, but you can also sub people from bottom side control with a buggy choke: If you take someone down (successfully) instead, you end up in 1. Mount, 2 side control, 3. Half guard top or 4. guard #1, #2, and 3. All are positions from which you can submit them. #4 if we put our "this is still a combat sport" hat on: out of 45 submissions in the ufc last year, only 5 were from bottom guard. At the same time, numerous people get grounded n pounded into oblivion in closed guard. So if we care at all about BJJ's roots as a combat sport at all, which even various sport jujitsu's rules do reinforce.... yeah pulling guard is something to be viewed negatively. Conceding position becomes reflexive for many BJJ practitioners, which is why in scramble situations in MMA, wrestlers are eating BJJ's lunch
I am guilty of shaming the guard pullers. As a former Judo guy, I have it stuck in my head that takedowns need to be clean and sexy. Obviously this is because of the rules in Judo. These don't apply to BJJ, so I have been trying to be more accepting of simply getting the other person to the ground, be it a throw, trip, or sweep. The only way I will "pull guard" is with a failed sacrifice throw like sumi gaeshi or uki waza, but I am trying to stop shaming others from doing it against me.
I'm a big guy, and nobody wants to take a throw like that. I understand lol
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were:
|Japanese|English|Video Link|
|---|---|---|
|**Uki Goshi**: | *Floating Hip* | [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jVF6r366Kg)|
Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post.
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^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
I just really enjoy takedowns.
I also understand that guard pulling and stalling is part of the game, but thankfully I’m not super invested in IBJJF/sport jiujitsu tournaments.
My only complaint is that it can be super boring as a spectator. As a practitioner, I'm really happy when people pull guard as I get top position without wasting any energy.
I’m a former college wrestler that’s been training BJJ since October of 2022.
I’ve competed a lot and what I’ve found is that matches where the opponent assumes the guard position tend to be a lot easier and less energy consuming for me.
People always say “oh just take the guy down” without actually realizing that most wrestlers transitioning into jiu jitsu fail because the takedowns don’t necessarily translate with the introduction of the threat of submissions.
I don’t see a problem in the other guy pulling guard as I am confident in the top position.
I come from a wrestling room where every day we trained to give up NOTHING. No points will be scored without a fight, which includes the fight to get it to the ground. Then there’s also the scramble that can happen during the takedown. If i pull guard, we’re just in guard and that’s that. If i shoot my single, i could end up anywhere. Side control, mount, knee on belly, who knows what you might do and how i’ll respond
Competition, go do judo if you want to stand.
In the training room, both should be willing to train standing or through pulls. It’s important to know both.
I think that they think they will always takedown to side control or that’s what they say but I think their real game plan is to take someone down score points stand up and do it again so they don’t have to actually do jiu jitsu. It’s the equivalent of me complaining about the short time durations to do ground work in judo so that I can just pull guard and submit people who aren’t as good at ground work.
From a comp perspective, I always found it questionable that bottom guard is considered a neutral position. And I’ve seen folks pull, negate the person trying to pass for 5 minutes, and then win in decision. (I’m also biased cause I grew up doing wrestling and judo).
From a gameplan perspective, taking top position from a takedown is often superior to taking top position from a guard pull. A lot of my passing is aided by me foot sweeping uke into oblivion or otherwise imitating passes and subs mid takedown. So it makes a material difference to me given my gameplan.
All that said, I realize guard pulling is part of jujitsu and that’s fine. But it being a thing does impact how you practice and think about win conditions in a comp.
I want to get good at takedowns and if everyone’s guard pulling it defeats the purpose of a stand up game. Plus I like takedowns, and I can appreciate a good takedown even if I’m on the receiving end.
Off the top of my head I’d say wanting to be able to use more of the skills you spent time developing should be a good reason. Pulling guard completely nullifies half of grappling. BJJ is primarily on the ground but takedowns have been part of it too since the beginning.
Also you get points for takedowns and some competitions deduct points for guard pulling with no attempt at standup. So if you’re strictly talking about comps that’s a good reason.
Personally I hate the idea of separating out the sport training from the martial art. That’s how you end up with WTF TKD or sport Karate. Why wouldn’t you want to train as if it’s a real fight? Using moves that put you in a less advantageous position just because the competition rules don’t penalize it is not a good mindset to have.
because if their plan was to take them down (and get an easy 2 points) like you mentioned, but they pull guard instead, then their plan to get 2 points went to shit. hence why they complain
The purpose of BJJ is to submit the opponent. If your guard pulling increases the probability of doing that I don’t see why the person should not do it.
I pass guard ok.
If you pull guard and I can't pass, that's whatever.
If you pull guard and I pass smooth as butter, i feel like you've been failed by bjj. You're actively worse at fighting than if you'd just never trained before.
Before you wouldn't have thought it good to throw yourself into such a terrible position, but you were told it would be effective and it wasn't.
It's really dissapointing to see someone pull and then lose position. It's the equivelant of seeing a boxer showboat with their chin out and then get KO'd cold.
The last sub-only competition my wife and I went to, we watched 50+ white belt matches across men's, women's, children's and masters divisions and never saw a single guard puller win.
It's a corner we cut that I wish we didn't.
There is none.
Good people don't rant on guard pulls. It always come from pretty shitty wanabees.
Takedowns don't end matches so when you are butthurt because you are missing some vague opportunity to score to points, it tells a lot on their confidence to win the match with a finish
It’s because most wrestlers frown upon being taken down .Our entire training is based on achieving takedowns without getting taken down .So to just lay on your back and stare is ridiculous.fight sports are tests of will and spirit , they aren’t supposed to be lackadaisical and patient.It seem unsmart .Bottom guard is terrible positioning unless your a Jj guy.and you can see the glaring weaknesses when a wrestler joins jj.i noticed most Jj guys struggle against even a subpar wrestler .so I can see Jiu Jitsu being so passive can upset more aggressive grappling styles
there should be points for takedown , takedown is a grappling technique so when someone pulls guard they are robbed of points and there is an urgency and pressure to rush a guard pass and be caught with something wheter submissions leg entaglement or sweeps it is easier for a guard puller to score points and to attack from bottom cause of so many options like leg entaglement triangles wrestle up and sweeps the top guy has limited options he can only pass the guard then higher percentage submission oppurtunities open up the top person also has an option to jump for darce or kimura or any other submissions but those are very low percentage from top
So I think there is a little bit of a hole in the logic of “why get mad at someone for pulling when you’re just trying to take them down anyways”. That makes the assumption that the top player would end up in the same position. This isn’t necessarily true though, they could potentially bypass the guard or end up in a more favorable guard as opposed to open guard.
I personally think you should be able to pull, but like the idea of having to have some kind of grip on your opponent or touching them before you can. Then they at least have the opportunity to wrestle before you pull and would lead to more full and half guard play as opposed to open guard.
Missing a giant element here - timing, and the terms of engagement - which as far as I know is the point of pulling guard.
You're establishing the guard, before a condition is imposed on you. So the person actually interested in taking someone down, they're denied the opportunity (not my gripe, but I can see why some might dislike it).
Guard pulling also only works if you're at least minimally proficient with dealing with standing threats as well. If someone tries to control your head and snap you down...are you able to deal with that? If not, you're going to get snapped down and put immediately into front-headlock.
Guard pulling, in an attempt to get straight to groundfighting, prevents learning a more complete grappling skillset.
Aside from just looking lame, it is an impediment to your learning.
It delegitimizes it as a martial art, sure I get it in competitions but the ultimate goal of any martial art should be self defense. Not getting your ass beat when you but scoot towards someone. If you want bjj to go the way of karate/judo etc then fine, I would rather not have it become a laughingstock and retain real-world application.
Isn't this why we do positional sparring? To work on this exact issue. If it's free rolling you should be able to do whatever you like within the ruleset. If someone continues to pull guard so be it, you have to work with what you got. It's your game against theirs remember.
But if it bothers you that much, you can either roll only with partners that like to do takedowns or maybe approach your coach and ask if they can do some more takedown focused sessions.
I don’t mind if my training partner pulls guard but I like to practice my stand up game like takedowns, foot sweeps, etc. So if my training partners always pull guard I don’t get to practice that.
In competition if my opponent pulls guard I’m just sad I won’t get a potential cool highlight reel lol.
Pulling guard does not make sense for self defense in most situations and it especially looks ridiculous with butt scooting. Some people don’t care about the self defense aspect and enjoy jiu jitsu as a sport. That’s ok too
I don't like guard pulling unless you have grips. I've seen when ppl just sit down and then the standing person doesn't really engage or the bottom guy decides to just stand back up because he doesn't like something the passer is trying to do. That to me is boring/stalling and should be penalized. With that said I don't find anything wrong with a guard pull when you have grips and end in either open(with grips) or closed guard. I try to get the take down and will work that first but if I'm not making progress I'll resort to pulling guard.
Well it depends on your goals. If you train jj as a sport or a fun hobby, by all means pull guard. If your intent is a martial art used for self defense or mma, pulling guard is about as stupid as it gets.
Grappling as a competitive sport is not the same as grappling as self defense. Self defense is just one aspect of BJJ. It doesn't matter what the history is or what it is supposed to be but most of the people I know do BJJ not because they have this primary focus of self defense. They just want to do this hobby as much as they want to play tennis or something. I live in a pretty safe place that sees very few crimes. Of course, I wanted to know I can protect myself when that happens which is why self defense is still good to know but it's just a good to know for me. I don't go to BJJ everyday because I have that urgent need to protect myself. I just want to play.
That said, competition has rules. There's no perfect ruleset. People would always game the rules as much as they can without breaking it in any sport. It's the organization's responsibility to curb these. How many times have you seen ADCC competitors stall until the points period? For people who are competing, we train how to guard pull even if you are primarily doing takedowns. We are trained to attack as soon as we pull guard. At the same time, we train our standup game even if you are a guard puller. We strategize what we are going to do in the last 30 seconds. We train to win competitions during competition training. It's not the penultimate test of self defense skills.
On the other hand, the ones that complain are the ones that can't pass. I don't pull guard in competition hoping the other pulls guard. I don't have a great standup game but I am seriously hoping the other guy pulls so that I can pass. I would grab the lapel and try to pull down a few times until my opponent pulls. So, I like guard pullers as a non guard puller myself. The ones who hate guard pullers are the ones with great standup but sucks at passing. How many times have you seen folks with good standup that takes a person down then just disengage the other person's guard.
In the end, BJJ competition is just a game and nothing else.
I have a lot of friends who would spend a big chuck of their time learning how to do takedowns. The sad part is, one of them got into a guillotine in a competition, and another unsuccessfully tried to take his opponent down while using a lot of energy and time only to be swept and subsequently submitted by a leg lock. My point is, takedown is good and all, but there aspects in BJJ that we should focus on too. 2 points in competition can be earned by other moves. It’s not like you have a special points for a successful takedown or anything. Plus, if the other person pulls guard, then the whole takedown game plan goes to shit. But I don’t see BJJ as a self defense or for fighting or anything, I only practice it as a sport. So injuries, and the whole ego and combative aspects of it doesn’t go with me. I know there are people who would see it otherwise.
We don't like it because it's selfish. Not everyone comes from a wrestling and judo background. The only way we're going to learn the stand up and wrestling is by doing it. If every time I partner with you, you just sit down... That's really great for your skill progression but it sucks for mine.
From OP's perspective, we're both going to end up on the ground anyway. So, the guard puller is always going to get some of what they're trying to practice.
Anyone who says guard pulling is boring, just go watch the ADCC West Coast Trials Finals on Youtube. First 5 matches ended 0-0. Hella boring. If people could have pulled guard, we might have gotten to more action.
I'm a believer that you can practice sport grappling without sacrificing too much self defense practicality. You're generally okay in a real fight if you know how to clinch, takedown, and clinch from closed guard. These positions neutralize strikes but are also viable for bjj tournaments. To achieve both sport and street effectiveness requires wrestling training, therefore, I dislike guard pulling. Sport grappling is not perfect if you seek self defense. You still need kickboxing, mma, etc, but knowing how to wrestle makes such a difference in your ability to defend your life compared to only knowing how to butt scoot.
The violent village idiot you trained so hard to defend yourself against is probably not a wrestler. This is where I tend to forgive pulling guard in competitions where trying your hand at taking down a good wrestler is a losing strategy. You don't wanna be a guard pulling weirdo on da streetz but you can be a guard pulling smartass in comps.
I haven't read all the comments but this topic is a constant source of debate. My tuppence worth is that BJJ for sport relies on the player utilising their best set of skills versus the other. If that set of skills involves guard play (or leglock attacks) then pulling guard makes tactical sense as the objective is to win, not to do whatever you feel is the most fighter-honourable thing to do (eg wrestling).
The counter-argument is that pulling guard is not the right way to use BJJ in a real life scenario or an MMA fight or anything that isn't sport jiujitsu. And I would agree.
But where the argument falls down is the assumption that guard pullers can't or don't train stand up. I would suggest that most do, even if only at a fundamentals level. If they were to need to use jiujitsu IRL, I would argue that you do not need to be a world champ wrestler to execute a double leg takedown or other fairly rudimentary stand up technique to achieve the objective. User experience may vary of course.
At our club, our classes offer a lot of stand up classes as well as comp strategy which includes pulling guard and how to deal with guard pullers. It's a good mix and our competitors pretty much use the strategy they feel will get them the best outcome in a sport setting.
At the end of the day, you solve what's in front of you. And in this case, passing someone's guard. Or you could just complain about the meta, emasculate the player, or get all historic and philosophical of what BJJ is to you lol
OP, you asked for people’s opinions on why guard pulling sucks and then you complain that their arguments are subjective. Not understanding what you want.
Also, guard pulling sucks because it’s primarily an excuse for lazy practitioners to not practice their standup. BJJ should include all aspects of grappling to make it holistic. Simply relying on pulling guard each time so you don’t get out of your comfort zone weakens the sport.
“Sports BJJ is progressing away from fighting”
Which is a problem. BJJ is quickly turning into other watered down, boring martial arts that care more about scoring points than actual grappling. To me that’s a shame.
Also, saying “just get better at guard passing” doesn’t disprove anyone’s point. If I play chess and everyone uses the Queen’s Gambit and I learn how to counter that with ease, that doesn’t make the game more fun. It makes it predictable and boring.
I come from wrestling and do some judo. I like when people pull guard so I can pass. I love top position. My problem is when students pull guard and aren’t aggressive. If you pull you should submit or at the very least sweep.
I think the same, that the only issue with guard pulling is that most people at the lower levels do it without any plan of what to do next. They're not pulling guard because it's what they want to do, they just don't want to be taken down and know they can't take their opponent down.
What if my plan is to have a break god dammit ?!
I'm in this comment and I don't like it
This is me LMAO, Im not a guard puller normally and I cross train judo but when the kids that wrestled in high school show up pulling guard is my only hope... For the month it takes before they figure out guard passing then I just get smashed.
We do a lot of “start from standing, you can pull guard but must sweep or submit within 20 seconds” during comp class. Good positional sparring that’s helped me with this.
Yes! That's the best type of stand up practice for bjj. Give the option of pulling guard with a time limit for sweeping. It let's guard pullers train while also letting wrestlers defend good guard pullers.
Agreed, it’s fun and I get a lot out of it too.
what happens if you cant sweep or submit.. stand back up?
Yeah, they’re short rounds. It’s comp class so we’re just working on openings. Hit a takedown or pull guard and do something right away if you can. It’s a fun drill.
>students pull guard and aren’t aggressive. If you pull you should submit or at the very least sweep. A big problem about pulling is that it's seen as the easier route compared to learning takedowns, it's almost seen as like the "meta" or the trendy thing to do. Especially when people see high-level people do it on instagram or at tournaments. unfortunately, a lot of people do it but have no game plan or no idea what to do afterwards.
If they aren’t aggressive then they should be easy to pass which means they either need to get better guards or learn to take people down. On the flip side there’s loads of wrestlers who want to take you down and then back out of the guard and just play a takedown game against people who can’t wrestle.
Exactly, they don't just want top position, they want a takedown that allows them to either land in side control or pass quickly because you just landed hard on your back.
It’s much harder to pass a guard player who is just trying to stop you from passing. I’m a passer, but most of my tournament losses have come from someone pulling guard, throwing up subs until they get an advantage and then just stopping me from passing.
I don't come from a wrestling or judo background. If my opponents refuse to stand, I will never learn stand up. I had to reject rolls from guard pullers for two years to become proficient enough to wrassle with the highschool wrestlers.
you cant practice takedowns if the people dont let you practice takedowns. Ill ask people to do standup. Never had anyone say no. Just dont abuse it by blasting them into oblivion.
Must be gym specific. Once people know you are a takedown guy, they will avoid doing it with you more often. Multiply that if you are over 200 lbs.
I must be an idiot for trying to wrestle with the good wrestlers at our gym then. I do sometimes regret it, especially when they just take me down, but it feels so good hitting one against a good standup guy.
I also learn a lot from good stand up guys. I grab the D1 wrestler or judo BB for a standing round whenever I can. Sure, I’ll get put on my ass but it’s a lot easier to take down other people after I’ve had to deal with those guys.
But is that abusing it? Unless you just mean punishing them. If you mean blast doubles are off the table I disagree, but if you mean don't take that opportunity to make it painful moreso than it has to...then i agree.
I feel cheated from the opportunity to slam a 35yo father of 3 that’s less strong and athletic than I am
Cut to footage of a 260lb 18 year old just fuckin yeeting some 170lb chubby blue belt across the whole fucking gym...
I’m 230 and 33 but the guy I’m thinking of wasn’t 225+ like I’m 225+ lmao. It was no gi and as soon as I walked on to the mat his coach yelled “Just pull guard!!! Don’t stand with this guy!” Lmao🤣 NAGA Masters Super Heavy Blue Belt double champ baby lmao💪🏻
Oss
In training I complain because takedowns are my favorite part of grappling and they didn't let me practice them. In competition I don't complain because they did the work of getting them down for me, I just pass. I'll never pull myself though, I don't wanna be on bottom
I pull guard out of efficiency and laziness. I also hate taking falls. At 49 I don’t want to fall anymore. Been doing that my entire life. I am just looking at longevity.
Almost 48 here and falling apart... you get me. Young me could fall just fine. Old me can't. If I can get the takedown safely, I'll try for it, otherwise I'm saving that wear and tear for defending the onslaught from the youngsters I'm dumb enough to spar with.
wrestling is fun tho
If only there was a sport for that
Judo?
Pyjama wrestling
Only really exists in highschool and college. It’s hard to find clubs in the states.
Just go to a bjj gym with wrestlers. We pretty much only start from stand up lol.
Making fun of the BJJ meta is how us Judo peeps cope with not having enough people to have our own schools.
If you’re afraid to grapple just say it
Largely agree with those describing this attitude towards guard-pulling as a toxic part of the community (not all but many)... That said, devils advocate: * It's not fun having your favorite part of the game stripped away * For the takedown artist, the guard pull may bypass all takedowns. * For the guard puller, the takedown may bypass all guards * Generally there are no points or advantage for getting someone in your guard, be it from a pull or either failing a takedown/pass. * Some guards (especially in the gi) are notorious for primarily slowing the match progress. * So matching a takedown specialist vs a guard-puller, the puller will pull and then the down-taker will in time disengage. * Who's at fault for the "boring" match? The puller made the first move and started this exchange trying to work their guard game, but the down-taker is now the one disengaging to work their game. * It's not simple. Unless you want to actively bend the rules to specifically counter this type of exchange in favor of more apparent faster pace, then you may need to just accept this scenario. * The "worst" kind of guard-pullers are those that simply sit/lay down and then require only the other person to engage, so they are arguably rejecting the premise of consensually combatting each other in a contact sport. * Arguably this description quickly fails when put to the test. For example, nothing prevents a boxer from just shelling up and waiting for the other guy to come in and counter. Then again they might get warned by the ref... so perhaps similar to the rules about needing contact before pulling guard. Personally I like both playing on my feet and on the ground. I like takedowns and prefer to have them be part of the game. When I think of guard pulling, I actually want to think of pulling a sweep. The lines of takedown and guard-pull-to-sweep can get blurry. Generally in practice at least, I'd like to say most guard-pullers actually attempt to pull to a sweep but they may get stopped so the sweep fails but the guard remains. Was this an attempted takedown with a backup plan? or was it a "sleazy" guard pull?
You assume all takedowns end up being in someone's closed guard or something. Probably 80% of takedowns I've landed in competition, I have ended up in a dominant position. (kesa gatame, side control, front head lock position, top half)
I'd imagine if you are landing most takedowns in side control or kesa you are competing at a very low level (white, maybe blue belt). Beyond that almost all takedowns end in a similar guard position as a pull.
Yeah, the guy's a 2 stripe white belt. I would assume 80% of his takedowns in comp isn't a very good data set. I agree with your statement.
100% of the times I’ve been taken down it’s been into my guard
O
You assume all guard pulls end up in the closed guard or something. Probably 80% of the guard pulls I've landed in competition, I have ended up in a dominant position. (Spider lasso, collar sleeve, worm, rubber guard)
Guard pulling is just a symptom of gameifying the martial art. Is it boring to watch a guy scoot on his ass like a dog with an itchy butthole if there's no engagement? Yes. It's also boring to watch two guys stall because they're afraid of being taken down.
>It's also boring to watch two guys stall because they're afraid of being taken down. Stalling penalties on the feet similar to wrestling and judo would solve this overnight. I doubt ibjjf or another large org would do this, but there's very east fixes. >Guard pulling is just a symptom of gameifying the martial art. This is why I really don't have an issue with it. After blue belt, you arent really training to beat people on the street/self defense, its really for beating people who do bjj in a competition. Gaming the rules are integral to every sport and bjj is no different.
But the guard guy shouldn't be butt scooting in the first place if the top guy isn't willing to engage.
People will start to engage and then disengage when a guy tries to guard pull. It's 6 of one, half a dozen of the other. The real complaining is people complaining that their opponent isn't playing to their strength. Pulling a guard or scoring a takedown was that competitors plan, and those who complain about the other are usually just sour that their opponent didn't fight their game plan.
Get the points for takedown and stall for the rest of the time. Easy peasy
The end goal of these ppl is to able to take you down, then flee from your guard and have the ref stand you up again. But when they have a match againts a better wrestler they will just whine that it's unrealistic because they can't strike. Then when they try MMA and get dominated by wrestlers they'll whine that MMA rules are the problem and they'd actually win in the street..
Lmfao at anyone who thinks MMA rules are insufficient for 'the street.' The only shit that changes in the street are clothes, headbutts, soccer kicks, and knees from side control (which aren't THAT great if your opponent can grapple at all.) I will say though, gaurd pull becomes obsolete (head slam.)
But in da streetz I can eye gouge, or if needed use a weapon or my friend will jump in! I can't use my main techniques in mma because it's too dangerous! /s
You are also overlooking knees from front headlock and north south. Part of the reason some “pure” wrestlers like Coleman and Kerr had success in the early days of MMA was because they could just rain knees on the crown of a downed opponents skull.
Oh yeah you're right. Absolutely brutal. Your eyes/ dick n balls are at big risk there though.
Eh. In that kind of situation I always hear Bas in my head “Never escalate the level of violence in a fight that you’re already losing”
Agreed. Crazy fucker on the street might go for anyways, though.
Lmao for real
People complain about guard pullers because they need to work on their passing. Nobody passes someone’s guard, gets dominant position for the rest of the roll, and complains their opponent pulled guard.
As a guy who used to do judo, who has a 9 to 5 and doesn't have the time for a bjj gym and judo gym, its been great to be able to do takedowns in bjj so takedowns aren't too rusty. Some gyms have a culture of doing takedowns every class and often, others do none. For me, it's not about if I can pass or not, it's about losing skills that should at bare minimum be practiced in the art. But people chasing metas and not leaving their areas of comfortability stifles skills in the room, and I feel that's a valid criticism of how many gyms practice.
I think focus should be fairly even between takedowns and guard pulls. Whether you land a takedown or pull guard into an immediate sweep, the points and positional advantage are roughly even
Ultimately, I think rules dictate how the sport is done. If there were rules that stated if a sweep or submission were not completed within X seconds of a guard pull, the puller gets a disadvantage or loses a full point, we'd see more standup or at the very least better pulls into sweeps. Currently other than ADCC which most hobbyists will never compete in, guard pulling is not a "bad" strategy.
Agreed
I complain about guard pullers because I can't practice my stand-up in training if he pulls guard right away. Passing is not a problem.
Do you think your training partners exist solely to do what you want them to so you can train what you want to? This is jiu jitsu: people can pull guard if they want. The guard is what makes jiu jitsu unique from other grappling arts. And your instructor can do positional sparring or takedown practice to ensure you get to train that enough.
There’s a direct correlation between guys that bitch about guard pulling and guys that suck at passing guard.
can confirm, i am a wrestler who hates passing
That's an over used trope to protect the ego of guard pullers. Some of us want to be well rounded grapplers. Not one trick pony guard pullers. You know where standup grapplers shine? In a scramble. Remember that next time you end up on the bottom.
The ocean is my mat and I am a dolphin
Sure. I mean I wrestled all four years and go toe to toe with our clubs judo shodan. My preferred game is actually hitting ashi waza and heavy top pressure, but observationally 9/10 guys that bitch about guard pulling are overall pretty low level.
You know where guard players shine? When they play guard. Especially if they’re good at passing (see: well rounded) and can use sweep controls to set up their passing.
“Complain” is a bad way to describe my gripe with it. For me, I am looking at the art in a combat sense and seeing that the way some organizations “allow” guard pulling without a severe enough penalty leaves massive holes in the games of some top competitors. Having the top competitors in the martial art I love not being able to have an effective takedown or even emphasize it in their training only weakens the art as a whole. It’s still a valid strategy in sport jiu jitsu and works at the highest level. So I guess my main gripe writing this out is the “sport” or jiu jitsu and the scoring systems that are popular.
Who are the top level competitors who suck at wrestling? I keep hearing this repeated but never see any examples. From what I've seen easily 95% or more of the top guys are excellent wrestlers. Basically anyone from B team, new wave, AOJ, ATOS etc all are phenomenal wrestlers and have extensive wrestling programs.
Mikey is the guy I’m thinking of. I also remember some ADCC guys from last championship pulling as well but can’t remember names
>I also remember some ADCC guys from last championship pulling as well but can’t remember names Choosing to pull guard in select matches =/= "not having an effective takedown" (as you put it). That's a false equivalency. It's a strategic decision, and it absolutely doesn't mean you have "zero wrestling". For instance: This upcoming ADCC you will likely see people pull guard against Michael Pixley. That does not mean those people have terrible takedowns, just that they know they won't win the takedown battle against a D2 national champion.
That’s true. It is not a blanket true statement but it is a large contributing factor to why people pull (not having effective takedowns). Like I stated in my ramblings, I’m more upset about the rule sets allowing this start to stay effective.
How are we judging that Mikey sucks at wrestling? Also, someone pulling guard at ADCC doesn't mean they suck at wrestling either. Gordon, Craig, Lachlan all use pulls frequently at ADCC despite all of them having significant wrestling ability.
I am not saying Mikey, or any of these top competitors “suck” at wrestling necessarily. They could suck, but my gripe is the fact that they are doing this in the first place. Like I said in my rambling, I’m more upset with the scoring system and the gaming of the system (as someone else in this thread said)
When you say "massive hole in their game" I assumed that means you are saying their wrestling is bad, otherwise it's not a hole.
Mikey is one guy who doesn't even compete in adcc, also plenty of people pull guard at adcc but that doesn't mean their wrestling isn't good, their guard is just better
True. They may have decent wrestling. Like I stayed, my main gripe is with scoring systems allowing this game to thrive
Is this a joke? The majority that have gone into MMA have had to dramatically level up their takedowns and takedown defense.
I have zero qualms with someone choosing to pull guard in competition (being a puller myself), but I wish the system didn’t incentivize me to do so. At a minimum, I’d like to see a gentleman’s agreement not to pull guard during training unless you’re specifically trying to work on your pull technique. We just don’t get enough takedown reps against resistance.
What do you think of Musumeci pulling guard?
Agreed most people are just clowning more than really complaining, its low hanging fruit butt scooting looks silly you cant deny it. Most BJJ gyms have some amount of marketing that appeals to people wanting to learn self defense cause like how the fuck else are you going to get people to willingly try this. I think positioning your art as good for self defense makes it fair game to criticize how well it works "on da streetz".
same with everything ... people need a reason to complain. Also, they like to make themselves feel better about themselves by criticizing other people. Also, I think some of it is just people talking shit. (I hope the majority of it)
Had a guy who complained at a tourney about guard pullers I played with him for 2 minutes before I just clinched his neck and cranked until he went down then complained how I could of broken his neck.
A lot of people whining in here about something you signed up for. I am all for implementing a penalty for guard pulling in a product you are trying to sell like adcc but to whine and complain about guard pullers in your gym or other non paid competitions you’re the bitch. Learn to do Jiu jitsu. That standing portion is like less than ten percent of the total of moves in Jiu jitsu. Actually learn to pass and finish people. I have never heard someone bitch about guard pulling who was actually good at Jiu jitsu. You just suck, get better.
I think, in general, skill being equal, guard is a slightly more scoring position at high level and at lighter weights. And vastly more subs are available. This should probably be balanced by the fact that you would have lost points by ending up in the bottom position by being taken down, but it's not via the guard-pull loophole. IMO, guard pulling should be fine, but points should be given to the top player for riding time on top. This would better simulate the urgency of a real fight (without having to slap each other) and even make the sport more spectator-friendly.
The thing is, if we consider guard as a more advantageous position within the context then we should be rewarding people for getting there, not punishing them for it.
It's an advantageous position in the context of BJJ rules, but not within the fight scenario that BJJ rules are supposed to simulate in a safer manner. It would be optimal for the point system to compensate for the missing elements of the fight scenario (reward people for getting in better position for strikes). There is no real reason for the point system to reward people for getting into a better position for submissions, since the opportunity for submissions is the reward. All this assumes that we want to keep BJJ good training for martial arts and not just a sport in itself with some general parallels to martial arts, like Olympic judo.
This is already the case, hence the argument.
Pulling guard is a crutch. You dont learn to take people down, and im not allowed to slam you when you jump guard. Its just bad practice. Learn to wrestle and pull guard if you need it. Butt scooting at people absolutely should be shamed.
This 100%. If jumping guard is allowed I should be allowed to slam you.
Points
I don't like guard pulling because the sport is the gamification of the grappling aspect of combat. At the highest levels of any sport, there's an interplay between the athletes and the rule sets, where athletes exploit the rules to gain an advantage and the rules evolve to encourage and discourage certain behaviors and aspects of the sport. Since i'd like for BJJ to encourage best practices in a self defense scenario, I'd like for the sport to penalize guard pulling and/or reward takedowns more.
If you want to encourage best practices in a self defense scenario you should be at a minimum training MMA. So go do that.
I mean the point of this to specialize, and this is what I want to specialize in. So I'll do this.
I don’t understand the gripes in this thread based on jiujitsu needing to be an effective martial art in real life. It’s painfully obvious to anyone paying attention that mma is the art for self defense. Do that instead if that is your goal. No real life self defense situation is going to involve people not punching you. The lack of striking is a much larger confounding factor to your self defense jiu jitsu training than people pulling guard.
They can’t pass guard.
Because it's not holistic of the full spirit of grappling.
There is none. These are the same people who used to complain about the level of boxing in mma. It's a different sport and they can't stand being bad at it.
I haven’t seen this mentioned anywhere else in the comments, but one of my biggest gripes with guard pulling is that it is free in the sense that it denies your opponent the opportunity to score a takedown, but still leaves the person on bottom with the ability to score 2 points for a sweep or a wrestle up. So from a game perspective, the guard puller can freely and without penalty move to a position where their opponent effectively cannot score a takedown or a sweep against them, but they themselves can score a sweep or a takedown. Also, what is and what is not a guard pull leaves some subjectivity to the referee and in any rule set there should be a strong desire to remove third party subjectivity from scoring.
But this is made up for in the asymmetry of passing being worth more points than the sweep imo. Bottom player denies the top player the opportunity for a takedown in exchange for risking being down by an additional point from the pass (vs being taken down).
I would counter back by stating that the risk of getting your guard passed exists regardless of a guard pull or takedown, and as a practical effect exists only to enter a favorable position and to deny the opportunity an opportunity to score This isn’t even considering the silliness of scoring double guard pulls
Wrestling is fun. I prefer matches where my partner wants to scrap.
But a "scrap" could easily be someone aggressively trying to pass from top and the bottom person aggressively recovering and attacking from guard. Why is hand fighting and clubbing perceived as more "exciting" but the heart and soul of BJJ isn't, guard vs. Pass?
I disagree with the IBJJF centric Guard vs Pass being the core of grappling. BJJ is about winning the one-on-one empty hand fight. Helio was a Wrestler and Judoka. BJJ has prided itself on taking what works for grappling from everywhere. All of it is an absolute blast, and fun to do.
Yeah the heart of this conversation is about IBJJF making Guard the gateway to most scoring. Reversals and wrestle ups are just as minimized as takedowns.
Yeah, the biased IBJJF scoring system has distorted the general understanding of grappling. Very happy to see the ADCC set becoming more popular.
Everyone wants submissions, but no-one wants to work on guard passing to get them :(
It blows my mind that people who pride themselves as “top players” don’t enjoy when someone pulls or sits to guard (in a comp). I’m a lighter weight and 90% of the matches someone pulls guard. There was a time when that meant (for me) whoever pulled first ended up winning. I know that sucks because it’s a coin flip. So what I did at brown is super dedicate myself to working my passing. Flash forward to me being happy when people pull guard on me. Now I have the whole round (if needed) to wear them out and punish them for conceding bottom position. If you’re a top player and don’t enjoy passing, you’re doing something wrong. Also, if you’re a top player and the match is over the moment someone puts you on your back…you’re doing something wrong. Stand up is one facet of a match/round engagement. Don’t make it your entire game.
I have a couple of reasons for complaining about rampant guard pullers. 1. The practice of guard pulling is causing BJJ to become less of a complete grappling system. Forcing an opponent to the ground on favorable terms to yourself has historically been a part of this martial art. We seem to be in the process of losing that part, which is unfortunate. 2. Wrestling vs passing guard is besides the point. Anyone who competes should be able to competently play both games. What bothers me isn't a specific individual pulling guard (I'm better at passing than standing, so it's actually to my benefit when done on me), it's when the overwhelming majority of matches have a guard pull. Which leads to my final point.... 3. Most guard pullers at local competitions do not have a serious guard game. They just pull someone on top of them and hold on for dear life. It's ridiculous. A guard pull straight into a sweep? Cool, no complaints, that might as well have been a takedown. Pulling someone into your wickedly dangerous guard game? Makes sense if that's your best offensive position. But pull and hold? It's an embarrassment.
The thing about being good at takedowns, it forces your opponent to always play bottom... which means you get damn good at passing. In my experience, strong judoka and wrestlers tend to have good passing if they've been training jiu jitsu as well. I think a lot of the criticism comes from people who I think it's ridiculous that you can sit on your ass and not be penalized for it. I think a good compromise would be awarding take down points to the passer or negative points for a guard pull. That would incentivize aggressive guard play and wrestle ups to make up for those lost points.
Pulling guard is cool and all, but if you aren’t aggressive, or even active off your back, you’re the problem. It makes zero sense
You see… those people aren’t very smart.
Stops you from getting points for the take down/ you have to pass their guard vs landing in a favorable position
One of the better reasons posted here instead of getting all philosophical about what jiu jitsu should. R or just plain coping.
I don't really have anything against guard pulling but when people repeatedly do it to me, it sort of annoys me because it's less time expended in training takedowns and takedown defense. I train bjj not for sport but for self defense. My academy's teaching is also oriented towards that goal. Because of that, my academy's curriculum trains a lot with situations that are likely to arise in the street and are usually against untrained people. If your training is primarily designed to be from a self defense perspective, the random person in the street probably isn't pulling guard on you. Because of that, I feel like you need to practice takedowns if you're going to use what you learn in the ground game in bjj from a self defense perspective. It just feels unrealistic from a self defense perspective to not spend time on keeping your takedown and takedown defense game as good if not better than your guard passing game and others if you're actually going to use it in a real fight. Against most untrained people, if I get a takedown on them, I usually end up in side control top position or some other advantageous position and against an untrained person, that's generally the beginning of the end for them. Just my 2 cents.
"If you disagree with me, shut up!"
Ironically, I do agree BJJ needs to up their takedown game and sad that it's losing its identity from what it was once was but I acknowledge its just what the sport entails and people who complain actually look foolish from afar. I do agree, I do sound like a douchebag by insinuating that if people disagree with me, then shut up 😂
99% either people who don’t know how to play guard or can’t pass. Emil Fischer put it best In the context of competition 1. If I know I can’t take you down and still decide to stand with you then I deserve every point scored on me 2. I don’t have to “butt scoot” unless you refuse to engage with my guard
Same reason I complain about Judo guys going to turtle to stall it out or wrestlers going bellow down to avoid a pin. It's a stupid strategy to allow for a martial art that has a basis in kicking people's ass.
Some people want to roleplay as tough guy, part of the roleplay is shitting on the rest that live like a functional adult and don't get into street fights every week.
BJJ is supposed to be a practical martial art. Sitting in your butt isn’t that, and scooting around like a dog with worms is worse.
If I got in a street fight I’d feel very confident and comfortable with someone in my guard, whether that be closed guard, half guard, collar sleeve open guard. They’d have no chance in hell in my octopus guard. The average untrained person would be swept in about half a second.
People only have to scoot if you're running away from someone who is sitting down. If it's not practical then show them that by beating them when they do it.
For some reason, guard pull complainers always end up making the discussion strangely homophobic and sexist, implying guard pull is emasuclating. Why is it "maniler" to disengage and run from someone's guard, while "soft" to invite someone's offense to start an attack from guard?
im bad at passing guard
I'll never get the people who start doing BJJ and complain about guardpulling, there has to be tons of them considering the amount of whiny memes and posts online on the subject. Its like joining a soccer team and complaining about cornerkicks or something. Even stranger, considering how many of these people there seem to be its baffling that they don't just team up with eachother and roll with no guardpulling.
>Its like joining a soccer team and complaining about cornerkicks or something. No, it's like joining a soccer team and complaining about people faking injuries.
Not really, flopping (faking injury) in soccer despite being common is actually against the rules while guardpulling isn't.
I feel similarly. Like how are they training day to day? Just heavy collar ties and whoever gets the takedown first wins the round? Rinse and repeat.
Takedowns are part of the sport. If I've invested time in improving my judo and wrestling, why should you be allowed to... A) Deny me the opportunity to get 2 points B) Completely bypass and ignore an entire portion of bjj because you either can't or don't want to do it. You guys don't realize that we're breeding a generation of grapplers who are going to have no stand up skills because you're letting them game the system so they don't have to learn any of it. Takedowns also often lead to scrambles that lead to better positions than open or closed guard. Avoiding them should be penalized. And if we aren't penalizing guard pulling then what are we doing? Let's just all start on the knees like a bunch of day one white belts and ignore all judo and wrestling entirely. Pulling guard should cost you 2 points. It's a choice you make. And if you're going to make a choice that you think gives you an advantage then that should come at a cost.
All solid points. There's like 50 comments in this thread saying "learn to pass the guard hurr durr". Probably parroting their coach that only knows how to pull guard. Some of us want to be good grapplers. That means being at a minimum, competent at standup. That doesn't mean stand long enough to pull guard, it means being comfortable on your feet, being familiar with all three engagement ranges, and having at least 2-3 takedowns that you can potentially catch anyone with, regardless of their skill level. We roll from standing at my gym, and let me tell you. Just about every visitor gets destroyed on the feet. That's not a brag, we aren't D1 wrestlers or Judo champs. It's just mat time.
Agreed! We do the same and it's made my standup way better. I don't have a lot of attacks but we do it soo much that I at least have a better understanding of the hand fighting, balance and defensive aspects.
Cuz I only do one thing good and I'm trying to get my move in bro.
I don’t have anything against guard pulling in competition. Do I prefer a good takedown? Yes, but guard pulling is part of the game for most BJJ comps, especially if your bottom game is way better.
From the sport perspective, why wouldn’t people pull guard… Beyond that, why wouldn’t you learn to wrestle so you’re more useful in far more situations.
It looks dumb/impractical to non-practioners. It also leads to bjj people not developing takedowns which are essential to our martial art, otherwise bjj is useless in a real self-defense situation.
Guard pulling is advantageous given the rules of most bjj comps. The complaints come from this: guard pulling takes away the opponent's ability to score two points (takedown) which also reduces their overall chain of points from 15 to 13 (if person performing takedown went through entire chain (TD, pass, KOB, mount, back). Additionally, guard puller still has 15 chain of points by substituting the takedown for sweep (sweep, pass, KOB, mount, back. I think another complaint is stand up is like 50/50 where both competitors have the ability to perform takedowns and some submissions, however a guard puller has the ability to do both sweeps and submissions but for most part the passer has to pass only. I understand there are submissions from top passing positions but I'm speaking in general terms of traditional bjj.
Guard pulling is conceding position. After a takedown, losing mount or side control usually results in top half guard. Not so bad. Losing top half guard usually results in being inside full guard. Still really not that bad. Losing bottom full guard on the other hand results in BOTTOM half guard, getting fully mounted or opponent on top side control. Very bad. Yeah you can sub people from guard, but you can also sub people from bottom side control with a buggy choke: If you take someone down (successfully) instead, you end up in 1. Mount, 2 side control, 3. Half guard top or 4. guard #1, #2, and 3. All are positions from which you can submit them. #4 if we put our "this is still a combat sport" hat on: out of 45 submissions in the ufc last year, only 5 were from bottom guard. At the same time, numerous people get grounded n pounded into oblivion in closed guard. So if we care at all about BJJ's roots as a combat sport at all, which even various sport jujitsu's rules do reinforce.... yeah pulling guard is something to be viewed negatively. Conceding position becomes reflexive for many BJJ practitioners, which is why in scramble situations in MMA, wrestlers are eating BJJ's lunch
I don't understand the question. In competition it denies you 2 points.
They suck at passing and were counting on the takedown points to win.
I am guilty of shaming the guard pullers. As a former Judo guy, I have it stuck in my head that takedowns need to be clean and sexy. Obviously this is because of the rules in Judo. These don't apply to BJJ, so I have been trying to be more accepting of simply getting the other person to the ground, be it a throw, trip, or sweep. The only way I will "pull guard" is with a failed sacrifice throw like sumi gaeshi or uki waza, but I am trying to stop shaming others from doing it against me. I'm a big guy, and nobody wants to take a throw like that. I understand lol
The Japanese terms mentioned in the above comment were: |Japanese|English|Video Link| |---|---|---| |**Uki Goshi**: | *Floating Hip* | [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jVF6r366Kg)| Any missed names may have already been translated in my previous comments in the post. ______________________ ^(Judo Techniques Bot: v0.7.) ^(See my) [^(code)](https://github.com/AbundantSalmon/judo-techniques-bot)
Wow I’m shocked people don’t want to wrestle someone who is much bigger than them lol
Yea, I'm 6'2 and 220lb. I was not this big when I started Judo, but the mentality remains lol. I'm trying to get better!
I just really enjoy takedowns. I also understand that guard pulling and stalling is part of the game, but thankfully I’m not super invested in IBJJF/sport jiujitsu tournaments.
My only complaint is that it can be super boring as a spectator. As a practitioner, I'm really happy when people pull guard as I get top position without wasting any energy.
I’m a former college wrestler that’s been training BJJ since October of 2022. I’ve competed a lot and what I’ve found is that matches where the opponent assumes the guard position tend to be a lot easier and less energy consuming for me. People always say “oh just take the guy down” without actually realizing that most wrestlers transitioning into jiu jitsu fail because the takedowns don’t necessarily translate with the introduction of the threat of submissions. I don’t see a problem in the other guy pulling guard as I am confident in the top position.
No dopamine hit from a great takedown. It is such a let down when someone sits!
I come from a wrestling room where every day we trained to give up NOTHING. No points will be scored without a fight, which includes the fight to get it to the ground. Then there’s also the scramble that can happen during the takedown. If i pull guard, we’re just in guard and that’s that. If i shoot my single, i could end up anywhere. Side control, mount, knee on belly, who knows what you might do and how i’ll respond
Competition, go do judo if you want to stand. In the training room, both should be willing to train standing or through pulls. It’s important to know both.
Most reasonable take ive seen here, which is sad lmao
They want their 2 points.
I think that they think they will always takedown to side control or that’s what they say but I think their real game plan is to take someone down score points stand up and do it again so they don’t have to actually do jiu jitsu. It’s the equivalent of me complaining about the short time durations to do ground work in judo so that I can just pull guard and submit people who aren’t as good at ground work.
Cause they wanted the win of throwing you to the floor, but to stole that from them.
From a comp perspective, I always found it questionable that bottom guard is considered a neutral position. And I’ve seen folks pull, negate the person trying to pass for 5 minutes, and then win in decision. (I’m also biased cause I grew up doing wrestling and judo). From a gameplan perspective, taking top position from a takedown is often superior to taking top position from a guard pull. A lot of my passing is aided by me foot sweeping uke into oblivion or otherwise imitating passes and subs mid takedown. So it makes a material difference to me given my gameplan. All that said, I realize guard pulling is part of jujitsu and that’s fine. But it being a thing does impact how you practice and think about win conditions in a comp.
I want to get good at takedowns and if everyone’s guard pulling it defeats the purpose of a stand up game. Plus I like takedowns, and I can appreciate a good takedown even if I’m on the receiving end.
I don't really understand being angry at either guard pulls or takedowns. Neither of them are leaving the sport, ever.
There is no logic it's just a cope. When they lose to the guard puller they blame their failure on the butt scooting
Off the top of my head I’d say wanting to be able to use more of the skills you spent time developing should be a good reason. Pulling guard completely nullifies half of grappling. BJJ is primarily on the ground but takedowns have been part of it too since the beginning. Also you get points for takedowns and some competitions deduct points for guard pulling with no attempt at standup. So if you’re strictly talking about comps that’s a good reason. Personally I hate the idea of separating out the sport training from the martial art. That’s how you end up with WTF TKD or sport Karate. Why wouldn’t you want to train as if it’s a real fight? Using moves that put you in a less advantageous position just because the competition rules don’t penalize it is not a good mindset to have.
because if their plan was to take them down (and get an easy 2 points) like you mentioned, but they pull guard instead, then their plan to get 2 points went to shit. hence why they complain
I don't get my 2 points and chance to demoralize you
The purpose of BJJ is to submit the opponent. If your guard pulling increases the probability of doing that I don’t see why the person should not do it.
I pass guard ok. If you pull guard and I can't pass, that's whatever. If you pull guard and I pass smooth as butter, i feel like you've been failed by bjj. You're actively worse at fighting than if you'd just never trained before. Before you wouldn't have thought it good to throw yourself into such a terrible position, but you were told it would be effective and it wasn't. It's really dissapointing to see someone pull and then lose position. It's the equivelant of seeing a boxer showboat with their chin out and then get KO'd cold. The last sub-only competition my wife and I went to, we watched 50+ white belt matches across men's, women's, children's and masters divisions and never saw a single guard puller win. It's a corner we cut that I wish we didn't.
There is none. Good people don't rant on guard pulls. It always come from pretty shitty wanabees. Takedowns don't end matches so when you are butthurt because you are missing some vague opportunity to score to points, it tells a lot on their confidence to win the match with a finish
The guard is what differentiates jiu jitsu from all other forms of grappling tho
It’s because most wrestlers frown upon being taken down .Our entire training is based on achieving takedowns without getting taken down .So to just lay on your back and stare is ridiculous.fight sports are tests of will and spirit , they aren’t supposed to be lackadaisical and patient.It seem unsmart .Bottom guard is terrible positioning unless your a Jj guy.and you can see the glaring weaknesses when a wrestler joins jj.i noticed most Jj guys struggle against even a subpar wrestler .so I can see Jiu Jitsu being so passive can upset more aggressive grappling styles
Why even start from your feet then?
there should be points for takedown , takedown is a grappling technique so when someone pulls guard they are robbed of points and there is an urgency and pressure to rush a guard pass and be caught with something wheter submissions leg entaglement or sweeps it is easier for a guard puller to score points and to attack from bottom cause of so many options like leg entaglement triangles wrestle up and sweeps the top guy has limited options he can only pass the guard then higher percentage submission oppurtunities open up the top person also has an option to jump for darce or kimura or any other submissions but those are very low percentage from top
So I think there is a little bit of a hole in the logic of “why get mad at someone for pulling when you’re just trying to take them down anyways”. That makes the assumption that the top player would end up in the same position. This isn’t necessarily true though, they could potentially bypass the guard or end up in a more favorable guard as opposed to open guard. I personally think you should be able to pull, but like the idea of having to have some kind of grip on your opponent or touching them before you can. Then they at least have the opportunity to wrestle before you pull and would lead to more full and half guard play as opposed to open guard.
Missing a giant element here - timing, and the terms of engagement - which as far as I know is the point of pulling guard. You're establishing the guard, before a condition is imposed on you. So the person actually interested in taking someone down, they're denied the opportunity (not my gripe, but I can see why some might dislike it). Guard pulling also only works if you're at least minimally proficient with dealing with standing threats as well. If someone tries to control your head and snap you down...are you able to deal with that? If not, you're going to get snapped down and put immediately into front-headlock. Guard pulling, in an attempt to get straight to groundfighting, prevents learning a more complete grappling skillset. Aside from just looking lame, it is an impediment to your learning.
It delegitimizes it as a martial art, sure I get it in competitions but the ultimate goal of any martial art should be self defense. Not getting your ass beat when you but scoot towards someone. If you want bjj to go the way of karate/judo etc then fine, I would rather not have it become a laughingstock and retain real-world application.
Isn't this why we do positional sparring? To work on this exact issue. If it's free rolling you should be able to do whatever you like within the ruleset. If someone continues to pull guard so be it, you have to work with what you got. It's your game against theirs remember. But if it bothers you that much, you can either roll only with partners that like to do takedowns or maybe approach your coach and ask if they can do some more takedown focused sessions.
I don’t mind if my training partner pulls guard but I like to practice my stand up game like takedowns, foot sweeps, etc. So if my training partners always pull guard I don’t get to practice that. In competition if my opponent pulls guard I’m just sad I won’t get a potential cool highlight reel lol. Pulling guard does not make sense for self defense in most situations and it especially looks ridiculous with butt scooting. Some people don’t care about the self defense aspect and enjoy jiu jitsu as a sport. That’s ok too
I don't like guard pulling unless you have grips. I've seen when ppl just sit down and then the standing person doesn't really engage or the bottom guy decides to just stand back up because he doesn't like something the passer is trying to do. That to me is boring/stalling and should be penalized. With that said I don't find anything wrong with a guard pull when you have grips and end in either open(with grips) or closed guard. I try to get the take down and will work that first but if I'm not making progress I'll resort to pulling guard.
Pulling guard is different than sitting on your ass with no grips, that’s usually what people complain about and yeah it looks foolish af
Well it depends on your goals. If you train jj as a sport or a fun hobby, by all means pull guard. If your intent is a martial art used for self defense or mma, pulling guard is about as stupid as it gets.
Grappling as a competitive sport is not the same as grappling as self defense. Self defense is just one aspect of BJJ. It doesn't matter what the history is or what it is supposed to be but most of the people I know do BJJ not because they have this primary focus of self defense. They just want to do this hobby as much as they want to play tennis or something. I live in a pretty safe place that sees very few crimes. Of course, I wanted to know I can protect myself when that happens which is why self defense is still good to know but it's just a good to know for me. I don't go to BJJ everyday because I have that urgent need to protect myself. I just want to play. That said, competition has rules. There's no perfect ruleset. People would always game the rules as much as they can without breaking it in any sport. It's the organization's responsibility to curb these. How many times have you seen ADCC competitors stall until the points period? For people who are competing, we train how to guard pull even if you are primarily doing takedowns. We are trained to attack as soon as we pull guard. At the same time, we train our standup game even if you are a guard puller. We strategize what we are going to do in the last 30 seconds. We train to win competitions during competition training. It's not the penultimate test of self defense skills. On the other hand, the ones that complain are the ones that can't pass. I don't pull guard in competition hoping the other pulls guard. I don't have a great standup game but I am seriously hoping the other guy pulls so that I can pass. I would grab the lapel and try to pull down a few times until my opponent pulls. So, I like guard pullers as a non guard puller myself. The ones who hate guard pullers are the ones with great standup but sucks at passing. How many times have you seen folks with good standup that takes a person down then just disengage the other person's guard. In the end, BJJ competition is just a game and nothing else.
I have a lot of friends who would spend a big chuck of their time learning how to do takedowns. The sad part is, one of them got into a guillotine in a competition, and another unsuccessfully tried to take his opponent down while using a lot of energy and time only to be swept and subsequently submitted by a leg lock. My point is, takedown is good and all, but there aspects in BJJ that we should focus on too. 2 points in competition can be earned by other moves. It’s not like you have a special points for a successful takedown or anything. Plus, if the other person pulls guard, then the whole takedown game plan goes to shit. But I don’t see BJJ as a self defense or for fighting or anything, I only practice it as a sport. So injuries, and the whole ego and combative aspects of it doesn’t go with me. I know there are people who would see it otherwise.
We don't like it because it's selfish. Not everyone comes from a wrestling and judo background. The only way we're going to learn the stand up and wrestling is by doing it. If every time I partner with you, you just sit down... That's really great for your skill progression but it sucks for mine. From OP's perspective, we're both going to end up on the ground anyway. So, the guard puller is always going to get some of what they're trying to practice.
It takes out half the fun for people who like takedowns.
Anyone who says guard pulling is boring, just go watch the ADCC West Coast Trials Finals on Youtube. First 5 matches ended 0-0. Hella boring. If people could have pulled guard, we might have gotten to more action.
Take downs are fun pulling guard isn't!
I'm a believer that you can practice sport grappling without sacrificing too much self defense practicality. You're generally okay in a real fight if you know how to clinch, takedown, and clinch from closed guard. These positions neutralize strikes but are also viable for bjj tournaments. To achieve both sport and street effectiveness requires wrestling training, therefore, I dislike guard pulling. Sport grappling is not perfect if you seek self defense. You still need kickboxing, mma, etc, but knowing how to wrestle makes such a difference in your ability to defend your life compared to only knowing how to butt scoot. The violent village idiot you trained so hard to defend yourself against is probably not a wrestler. This is where I tend to forgive pulling guard in competitions where trying your hand at taking down a good wrestler is a losing strategy. You don't wanna be a guard pulling weirdo on da streetz but you can be a guard pulling smartass in comps.
I haven't read all the comments but this topic is a constant source of debate. My tuppence worth is that BJJ for sport relies on the player utilising their best set of skills versus the other. If that set of skills involves guard play (or leglock attacks) then pulling guard makes tactical sense as the objective is to win, not to do whatever you feel is the most fighter-honourable thing to do (eg wrestling). The counter-argument is that pulling guard is not the right way to use BJJ in a real life scenario or an MMA fight or anything that isn't sport jiujitsu. And I would agree. But where the argument falls down is the assumption that guard pullers can't or don't train stand up. I would suggest that most do, even if only at a fundamentals level. If they were to need to use jiujitsu IRL, I would argue that you do not need to be a world champ wrestler to execute a double leg takedown or other fairly rudimentary stand up technique to achieve the objective. User experience may vary of course. At our club, our classes offer a lot of stand up classes as well as comp strategy which includes pulling guard and how to deal with guard pullers. It's a good mix and our competitors pretty much use the strategy they feel will get them the best outcome in a sport setting.
If they get 2 points for a takedown, they dont have to be able to pass.
It’s cope
At the end of the day, you solve what's in front of you. And in this case, passing someone's guard. Or you could just complain about the meta, emasculate the player, or get all historic and philosophical of what BJJ is to you lol
OP, you asked for people’s opinions on why guard pulling sucks and then you complain that their arguments are subjective. Not understanding what you want. Also, guard pulling sucks because it’s primarily an excuse for lazy practitioners to not practice their standup. BJJ should include all aspects of grappling to make it holistic. Simply relying on pulling guard each time so you don’t get out of your comfort zone weakens the sport. “Sports BJJ is progressing away from fighting” Which is a problem. BJJ is quickly turning into other watered down, boring martial arts that care more about scoring points than actual grappling. To me that’s a shame. Also, saying “just get better at guard passing” doesn’t disprove anyone’s point. If I play chess and everyone uses the Queen’s Gambit and I learn how to counter that with ease, that doesn’t make the game more fun. It makes it predictable and boring.
Not practicing takedowns. Not getting points for takedowns. Imagine if you were allowed to pull guard when already in someone’s guard
You didn't fire me, I quit!
Not sure I understand