Top Half Guard
Top half guard — underhook battle and flattening mechanics; passing options: back step, knee cut, and toreando.
Adapted from the original page. Grappling.Games did not write this. Sources.
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The top player in half guard has one leg captured between the bottom player’s legs. This is the fundamental difference from butterfly guard — the leg is trapped, not just hooked. The bottom player’s two legs are locked around one of the top player’s legs, typically with one foot hooked behind the knee and the other blocking or framing from the front. The top player’s other leg is free to post, drive, or step.
Win the underhook. The underhook controls the bottom player’s shoulder on the trapped-leg side. Without the underhook, the top player cannot flatten the bottom player, cannot drive the pass forward, and is exposed to the back take. The underhook battle begins immediately — before the top player thinks about the pass at all.
Flatten the bottom player. A hip-escaped bottom player — one who has made space, inserted a knee shield, or established a frame — can attack from half guard. A flat bottom player, with their shoulder pinned to the mat and their elbow-knee connection collapsed, cannot generate meaningful attacks. The top player drives the trapped hip into the mat and collapses the near-side frame with chest pressure.
Pass the free leg through. Once the bottom player is flat and the underhook is won, the top player extracts the trapped leg and advances to side control. The extraction method depends on which pass is used — leg drag, knee cut, or back step all extract the leg differently — but the sequence is the same: underhook first, flat second, extract third.
Ruleset context This technique is legal in all major competitive formats.
INV-P01Invariant "The top player must clear the line of the feet before advancing. Attempting to pass while the feet are active is attempting to pass through the guard rather than around it."
Why it works hereIn half guard the bottom player's two legs are wrapped around one of the top player's legs, functioning collectively as a single active foot connection. The top player has to break that connection — peel the legs apart, drag the near leg offline, or cut through it — before the trapped leg can be extracted. Attempting to rip the leg free without first clearing the connection produces a scramble that frequently ends in back exposure or guard recovery, because the bottom player's feet are still active.