I started watching some butterfly guard (seated guard) videos a while back. After absorbing some of the moves I decided to try them out on the mat....and had them fail miserably against common sense guard passes/reactions. A lot of the time my opponent would just stand up and try to move around my seated position. Even when I managed to scramble to avoid the pass and avoid being side mounted I had to abandon the butterfly guard. After this happened again and again I eventually realized that I also needed to develop my butterfly guard set-up. At this point I consider the setting up of the butterfly guard as a technique of its own! And I am going to devote some time to developing my set-ups.

There are also two low-tech take-downs that can be applied from this seated waiting position against standing or kneeling opponents. One involves pulling your opponent forward after grabbing his lapel (arm-drag). You can then take his back, go into half or side. The other take-down involves pushing your opponent backward with your stiff arm after grabbing his forward foot. A third slightly more technical take-down option can be applied against people when they stand up after initially entering your butterfly guard. You block his far foot's forward motion (using an 'x' with your own feet). At the same time you use your arm to loop behind his leg and trap his arm on the same side together. Lastly, you tug/pull down on the far arm and uke will tumble forward. I will try to find videos showing these three takedowns and paste them here later. Also coming soon...some butterfly guard techniques.

This video starts in a position similar to the Third sweep technique (against standing uke) that I mentioned in the first post. In this case the sweep is different from the one I mentioned as this sweep is performed by taking uke backwards. I am still looking for an example of the forward sweep (against uke standing). I'll opst it here when I find it. But for now, enjoy: