Pulling Guard or butt scooting is widely derided as pathetic, unmanly, and ridiculous. However, jumping Closed Guard, particularly with the handles available when competing with a gi, has caused a series of terrible knee injuries.
Dr. AnnMaria De Mars, the first American to win a world championship in Judo, discussed jumping Closed Guard in a 2011 Blog.
One thing that irritates the hell out of me is what they call jumping guard. When I saw this in a grappling tournament, I turned to my friend and said, “What the hell is that? Why doesn’t the other guy just drive his head into the mat?”
And he told me there was a rule against it. This is NOT a “judo is cool, BJJ sucks” post, because believe me I know that judo has its own share of stupid rules, starting with the fact that if you grab a guy’s legs, pick him three feet off the ground and slam him hard on his back you lose because you touched his pants with your hands.
All that aside, doing a move where the only reason you don’t get your ass kicked is that there is a rule against it is irritating. Notice that in mixed martial arts you don’t see people do this move because there isn’t any rule against driving your stupid head into the mat. You don’t see people do it in judo because there is a rule against jumping guard, too. Judo keeps adding rules against everything. One day, we’ll only be allowed to indicate with our eyes the directions we would move to throw the person if we were allowed to touch him. I won’t even be surprised when this happens.
Jumping Guard is a worthless technique in reality, as it is only feasible where there is a prohibition against slamming. In MMA where there is no such prohibition, jumping Closed Guard is vanishingly rare. Jumping Close Guard on the street would be stupider still.
Its main use in BJJ is as a means of preventing takedown points. The real response to not wanting to be taken down is stop the takedown, or take the opponent down. And not only is jumping Closed Guard worthless, it is dangerous, causing a series of horrific knee injuries.
In 2015 IBJJ rules were amended in regards to jumping Close Guard.
New point: 6.4.23 – In the white belt division, it is forbidden for an athlete to jump into closed guard while their opponent is standing. When this movement occurs, the referee will stop the match and restart with both athlete’s standing at the center of the mat.
However, as noted, the prohibition applies only to white belts. Why not prohibit them completely?
