r/jiujitsu • u/invisiblehammer • 3d ago
Guard pulling not being penalized as a takedown means that the most important aspect of bjj is optional
In theory takedowns are 1/4 of grappling.
You can grapple standing, on top, on bottom, or in neutral scrambly positions like dogfight or 50/50.
Of these positions, takedowns are the only optional one.
I cannot avoid a strong guard passer getting their passing points by intentionally unlocking my legs and putting myself in bottom mount
I cannot avoid a strong back taker from getting points by just turning my back while I’m in mount.
I cannot avoid a sweep or reversal by simply pulling the bottom player on top of me before they can attempt a sweep
And yet from standing you can avoid takedown points by simply sitting down before the person sits you down.
this is the most important of any of those skills because against a non-compliant opponent the fight won’t go to the ground unless you take it there, and pulling guard won’t be an option in several cases.
I don’t propose that pulling guard is banned, but I do propose that it counts exactly the same as a takedown by redefining what a takedown means to match what takedowns are in wrestling. A takedown isn’t simply performing a technique that causes you to obtain top position, a takedown is the act of establishing top position to begin with
What does this mean? It means you can still pull guard if you think it will offer a strategic advantage in the long run, but people who specifically pull guard to avoid being taken down by a better wrestler still ultimately got taken down, which will force these people to rethink their game and develop better takedowns.
Exceptions:
\* Sacrifice throws where you take bottom position for an immediate sweep, reversal, back taker such as Sumi gaeshi will be counted as YOUR takedown if successful and THEIR takedown if unsuccessful
* Flying submissions or pulling guard into an immediate submission threat like a triangle guard will not count as a takedown for the top player until the submission threat is fully eliminated. If the top player is swept before defending the sub it will score as the takedown of the person who pulled a flying sub
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u/stuka86 3d ago edited 3d ago
Taking down non grapplers is comically easy.
It's an overblown negative criticism of BJJ.
The simple solution is to give the player that was pulled on 1 point, that forces the action to the player that pulled, but allows him to win via sweep
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u/Wrastling97 2d ago
When I first started rolling, I was confused that some people looked down on people who pull guard. I wrestled for years and I was completely confident in my standing abilities. As a white belt, I threw numerous upper belts within my first few weeks.
I thought open guard was so cool. Being able to bring someone down to the ground while you’re sitting and they’re standing? It was a skill all on its own, and I wanted to learn.
And I still am. I pull guard every day. It’s so fun to me because it’s not standing and is just a totally different world for me to learn.
People get way too deep into “real-world application”. It’s a sport. Let people train how they want.
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u/invisiblehammer 3d ago
OK, but let’s say you have the BJJ guy who just won on points for getting a sweep after pulling guard, vs the college college wrestler who just lost by points because the bjj guy pulled guard and swept him
The BJJ guy might be able to win in BJJ rules, but would probably lose in a fight because he’s not going to pull guard. He would eventually give up the takedown, and that sweep will be significantly harder because there’s punches coming from top position.
I don’t think every rule set should be aiming to turn the sport into MMA, but you would still keep the rules 99% similar while more than doubling the MMA viability of BJJ by simply making it so that pulling guard is no different from being taken down
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u/stuka86 3d ago
Anti wrestling is pretty easy, and BJJ has standing submissions.
Not only that but "wrestlers" vary wildly in ability and size. There's a huge difference in "I wrestled in high school" and brock Lesnar.
For 99% of encounters, enough BJJ beats wrestling. I take "wrestlers" down all the time. Why? Because I'm a black belt, a heavyweight, and I train takedowns specific to countering wrestling.
Investing in takedowns at a certain point becomes nothing but diminishing returns. If I were wrong, judoka and wrestlers would win ADCC all the time
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u/CorrectOpinionB42069 2d ago
Those same wrestlers are clearly doing better in mma though
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u/stuka86 2d ago
There are no "wrestlers" in MMA....you either learn BJJ or lose to it in the first round
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u/CorrectOpinionB42069 2d ago
Lol then there are no bjj people because you either learn boxing or get knocked the fuck out 🤣
This isnt even good sophistry
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u/freshblood96 2d ago
That is technically true. There are no "purists" in MMA anymore. You're no longer just a BJJ guy or a wrestler. You're an MMA fighter.
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u/omnomdumplings 16h ago
I think Ben Askren might have actually not been an MMA fighter. He would lose striking only sparring to a 1 or 2 year boxing beginner
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u/Ill-Abalone8610 3d ago
BJJ guy might not win at wrestling rules but being able to pin someone on their shoulders isn’t as useful in a fight as being proficient at choking them out or snapping tendons.
Besides, not being great at takedowns against other grapplers isn’t the same as being not great at takedowns compared to the average dude. Wristlocks from standing against the untrained all day.
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u/invisiblehammer 3d ago
Yes it is because if I can completely limit your movement options I’m gonna elbow you in the face.
There’s also a fact that defending pins makes you hard to hold down and attempting pins makes you good at holding people down. In bjj most people on bottom never work trying to stand back up and most people on top don’t have to hold the guy down who is exactly where he wants to be.
For instance look at 90% of standing passes, they literally only work because the guy is on his back. That will emerge in the majority of bjj competitions but in mma that position will get you kicked and then they’ll stand up. Posture passing too. You took your weight off and now the fight isn’t on the floor
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u/Gumbygrande 2d ago
But BJJ comp isn't a fight. By this logic where do you stop?
The wrestler can get punched in the face by a boxer.
The boxer can get stabbed by someone with a knife.
The stabby guy can get shot by an American (jokes people 😉).
Because that's a "fight" ....... Everything else is a sport.
If it was a BJJ match then yes, the BJJ guy won by doing BJJ.
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u/eg_skywalker 3d ago
UWW penalises guard pulling. I like the ruleset
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u/invisiblehammer 3d ago
It should be the exact same as being taken down. Not penalized, it should be 100% the exact same. Because minus one point is still favorable over -2 points if you get taken down.
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u/eg_skywalker 3d ago
That’s what I mean. UWW gives 2 pts to your opponent if you pull guard and don’t sweep within 3 seconds
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u/appalachianmonkeh 1d ago
It feels like bjj in general is divided between people who are more sport oriented and happy optimizing to win for the specific ibjjf ruleset and people who focus more on translating bjj to how most people imagine a street fight (which I also think would translate more to general skills in an actual street fight).
I'm with you all the way here so I get what you mean.
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u/AlmostFamous502 Black 3d ago
I’m not reading all that
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u/Safe-Abrocoma5538 3d ago edited 3d ago
This is what all your comments on your profile seem like. “Um ackshully☝️🤓” So obnoxious all the time and tryna argue and ask insincere “questions” just to try to have your gotcha moment. “Top 1% commenter” You comment more on Reddit than training irl. Lock in. Incoming npc “I’m not reading allat reply” btw
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u/JicamaExternal4498 1d ago
There is nothing worse in a bjj competition than watching two blue belts try and badly take each other down for 6 minutes. Pulling guard is a technical skill and it not easy to do without practice, and after a pull the bottom player must attack the top player with sweeps or submissions to score. It also forces the top player to pass guard and get to a dominant position. Why is any of this a problem?
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u/ylatrain 1d ago
work on your takedown instead of working on your guard pull
I do believe guard pulling is overpowered in most bjj competitions (and should be nerfed for the good of the sport)
We should spend 0 time on guard pulling, sacrifice throws are ok.
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u/JicamaExternal4498 1d ago edited 1d ago
Why?
Edit- just to clarify, I train mma and do takedowns there all the time. In a bjj tournament, where bjj is the goal, why not let people do something that facilitates sweeps, submissions, and guard passing? Its litteraly part of the sport to do those. Takedowns allow someone to force their opponent to bottom position, pulling forces an opponent into top position. Thats it.
I really think everyone that hates guard pulling just really sucks at passing guard
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u/Used-Statement5802 1d ago
It's not hard to get a grip and sit down lol
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u/JicamaExternal4498 1d ago
You say that, but Ive seen many many people get passed immediately before they can get to a guard. Not only that, but pulling too the guard you want is significantly harder than ending up in any guard
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u/ylatrain 1d ago
It doesn't matter
Try to stand up whenever you can and you will see that guard retention doesn't matter that much
guard pulling is not a necessary skill
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u/JicamaExternal4498 1d ago
Guard passing is an essential skill and playing guard is an essential skill Pulling is a way to get there
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u/ylatrain 1d ago
I didn't say it wasn't
Wrestling is also an essential skill. You can't force your bjj if you can't take someone down or defend wrestling.
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u/SpongeSlobb 1d ago
It is wwaaaaaaaaaay easier to pull guard than to score a takedown.
I spent many years of my life wrestling. I am a better wrestler than most the people I go against. But even then, with my setups, fakes and everything, id say most of my first takedown attempts are unsuccessful. I usually have to chain a couple of moves together before I get the takedown.
Then we have guard pulling. If I do zero setup, I can still successfully pull guard most of the time. If I do even the most basic setup, I’ve got like a 99% success rate.
That is why it should be nerfed. It’s so stupid easy to do.
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u/JicamaExternal4498 1d ago
No one has answered why its a problem to have a way to expedite the ground grappling. Bjj as an art is centered on the the guard. Guard pulling is a way to encourage someone to pass and someone to attack with sweeps and submissions quickly. I wrestled for 7 year between middle school and high-school, but I like playing guard in bjj tournaments. BJJ tournaments are not wrestling tournaments.
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u/SpongeSlobb 1d ago
I don’t have a problem expediting ground grappling. You can pull guard if you want. I just think you should be penalized for giving your opponent a dominant position.
The entire point system is based on dominant positions. A takedown is 2 points because you go from a neutral position to a dominant position. It seems silly that you can just give up that position with no points scored.
It doesn’t happen for any other dominant position. I can’t pull bottom mount and not give up points. I think most people would agree that shouldn’t happen.
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u/JicamaExternal4498 1d ago
The penalty IS giving up a dominant position. Thats the penalty. Against someone with a good top game it is already fundamentally a penalty
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u/AutisticAspirations 20h ago
Top guard isn’t dominant in bjj though. It is far easier to score or submit from bottom guard than top. Especially when someone pulls guard, they often go straight into dlr or slx. Even in no gi where seated guard pulls are the most common, guard is a dominant position to wrestle from due to the 3 seconds you get of still being classified as on bottom when coming up on a takedown. Due to this, you can have your takedown reversed in the first 3 seconds of the attempt or get sprawled on and be put in turtle without giving up points.
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u/KindheartednessIll48 2d ago
Just give 4 points for takedowns, just 2 points for the hardest part is a rip off.
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u/Accomplished_Waltz14 1d ago
If you think its harder to take a high level person down vs actually securing mount or the back you’re actually insane😭
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u/Everydayblues351 2d ago
Several things come to mind.
this is largely conjecture. IBJJF has been the standard for sport BJJ for decades, and most smaller gi organizations follow similar rules. You can create a ruleset designed to discourage guard pulling, but unless you convince top competitors to adopt it, little will change. Why would they abandon rules they’ve spent their careers mastering?
More broadly, BJJ has been a standalone sport for decades, even if the OG Gracie marketing machine helped tie it to the UFC and “self-defense.” Every combat sport has rules: judo restricts leg grabs, boxing prohibits takedowns, and wrestling does not allow submissions. Are these sports also supposed to become not MMA but also kinda MMA and also have practical self defense but also be a sport?
Self defense - the average person has little takedown defense. Someone with solid guard offense can start standing up, secure a single leg, and finish against an untrained opponent. Many sweeps are essentially single-leg takedowns with extra steps. Do you really think Tainan Dalpra or Erich Munis would struggle in a street fight simply because they pull guard?
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u/grobolom Brown 3d ago
That's a lot of words to explain that you're bad at guard passing ;)
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u/CorrectOpinionB42069 2d ago
Top 1% commenter moment. Cope however you want, but your time has passed
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u/invisiblehammer 3d ago
I’m really good at passing. I got good at the sau paulo pass and have basically been mothers milking them, spine cranking them, and passing their guard all in one move. If they’re not flexible and I don’t like them I just tap them with pressure from there
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u/Icy_Distance8205 Purple 3d ago
“I’m really good at guard passing” and “I got good at the sau paulo pass” do not exist in the same universe.
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u/invisiblehammer 3d ago
Explain? I learned it from a Roger Gracie instructional! OSS!
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u/Icy_Distance8205 Purple 3d ago
And when did you ever once see him use it in competition?
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u/invisiblehammer 3d ago
All the time it’s part of his system
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u/Icy_Distance8205 Purple 3d ago
I’ve never once seen him use it in competition so I’d appreciate it if you could post a link to a match where he uses it.
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u/Wooden-Glove-2384 3d ago
> I don’t propose that pulling guard is banned
I think they only time it should be allowed is when the only other choice is to get taken down
I also think everyone should start from standing
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u/invisiblehammer 3d ago
Getting taken down is part of what makes you better
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u/Wooden-Glove-2384 3d ago
I think stopping a takedown attempt is the more useful skill
guard pulling should be an absolute last resort
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u/invisiblehammer 3d ago
Yes, but what I’m saying is that if pulling guard is no different in the scoring criteria then getting taken down, people would naturally choose to work on their Wrestling, which means improving your takedown defense. They would still have that last resort if they believed that pulling guard while they’re already down on points could improve their chances of submission.
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u/Silent_Appeal_8858 3d ago
In AGF you sacrifice a point to your opponent for pulling guard. I’m anti guard pull anyway so I like the rule. 😂
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u/grobolom Brown 3d ago
why?
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u/Wooden-Glove-2384 3d ago
because if you get disoriented from a throw it makes everything else easier
that's kind of the whole idea
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u/grobolom Brown 3d ago
I mean, why should everyone start from standing? Why is that good?
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u/Wooden-Glove-2384 3d ago
Ever get into a fight sitting?
What did ya do?
Keep sitting?
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u/grobolom Brown 3d ago
No, but BJJ isn't a fight. If I want to care about standing, I've got wrestling or MMA that I can do. So again, why would it be good to force BJJ people to start standing?
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u/Wooden-Glove-2384 3d ago
No, but BJJ isn't a fight.
Ok. We're done.
We come from opposite sides of the planet of this and we're never going to agree.
Start sitting. Start in guard. Start however makes you happy.
I'm not going to waste your time
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u/grobolom Brown 3d ago
I mean, I'm asking you for your reasons, it's not really a waste of my time. Or you can run, cool, you're free to do whatever.
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u/Wooden-Glove-2384 3d ago
BJJ is definitely for fighting and the training and competition rules should allow as close as you can get to the real thing without landing the other guy in the hospital
You saying "No its not a fight" excuses guard pulling and other foolishness
Sorry. There's no common ground in our 2 views
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u/brsalazar 2d ago
Just admit you can’t pass guard.
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u/Used-Statement5802 1d ago
People do takedowns so they can pass guard. The overlap between people with good takedowns and people with good passing is actually fairly high.
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u/brsalazar 1d ago
I don’t know many good guard passers that complain about guard pulling. But maybe it’s just me.
Honestly though, it’s more about what I feel is a misunderstanding about the intent of BJJ tournaments. There is this perception that they need to be “fair” to grapplers, and specifically wrestlers when in reality they were never intended to be a sport first. The goal was to compete against other Jiu Jitsu practitioners and to promote Jiu Jitsu. Not for meat heads to win plastic metals. BJJ was and has always been designed with the purpose of teaching smaller, weaker people to defend themselves against larger, stronger and more athletic opponents. Hence - Guard pulling and playing off your back. It is, because of skill, a viable option to put yourself in a situation where you can do so effectively. So the idea that tournament rules should be adjusted to promote the opposite is asinine. BJJ is not intended to be wrestling or other grappling arts where muscle and athleticism puts you at a great advantage. It’s designed to be the opposite of that so why the fuck would bjj tournaments enforce rules that are counterproductive to the ethos of the art form?
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u/Mad_Kronos 1d ago
I learn BJJ because it will help me survive if somebody takes me down. I am not going to the ground willingly. If I have to fight my first option is Muay Thai.
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u/StJimmy75 2d ago
Everybody says that wrestling is the best base for MMA. They don't score things based on what would be better in a fight. At the beginning of a folkstyle round, a wrestler is given a choice to start neutral on top in the referee position, or on the bottom. They do not penalize the wrestler for choosing to start on the bottom.
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u/PM_UR_DRAGON 2d ago
Yeah but you also score for escaping. If there were points given for escaping someone’s guard a lot of people would think twice about immediately pulling the other to the ground.
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u/StJimmy75 2d ago
There is no escaping the guard, you pass the guard which gives you points. You can say that getting a sweep from guard is easier than passing, but you can also say the bottom player escaping is easier than getting a pin from the referee position.
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u/PM_UR_DRAGON 2d ago
Yes, they are completely different sports with different end goals and scoring systems.
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u/StJimmy75 2d ago
Did you forget that you mentioned how wrestling gives points for escaping and then talked about what you think would happen if they're were points for "escaping" the guard?
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u/Wrastling97 2d ago
Coincidentally, if the wrestler chooses neutral then the other wrestler is given a point for an escape.
Unless the rules have changed since I wrestled, and some point rules definitely have.
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u/WebNew6981 2d ago
I used to cut guys and let them get the escape and then immediatelt take them down again as they were getting up lol.
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u/krivera248 2d ago
Takedowns are arguably the most important part of grappling. People pulling guard is a sport-specific tactic that should be frowned upon because it reinforces a bad fighting tactic. I agree it should be penalized heavily.
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u/stuka86 2d ago
They're also the easiest part of grappling in the sense of trained vs random attacker. It's overvalued and overtrained in my opinion. Most average people can barely walk in a straight line without falling over
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u/Jackob-404 2d ago
Agreed. I fell down in training yesterday while trying not to stumble over a gym bag
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u/rollinoutdoors 3d ago
Your guard pass, back take, and sweep examples are different in that giving up those positions freely puts you at a tremendous disadvantage, which is why points are awarded. Open guard is a neutral position, hence no points for anybody.