Gustavo Machado Half-guard and quarter guard DVD

THE HALF GUARD AND THE QUARTER GUARD
BY GUSTAVO MACHADO

Part 1 – The Half Guard

Part 2 – The Quarter Guard

(From www.fightlife.com) In his first instructional DVD, renowned black belt Gustavo Machado demonstrates Half Guard & Quarter Guard techniques he has been teaching for years. In the HALF GUARD section, Gustavo teaches sweeps, passes, and submissions sure to improve your game. In the QUARTER GUARD section, Gustavo will show you how to counteract your opponent stalling on the Top Half Guard with sweeps and submissions. This exciting DVD contains 30 techniques in over 80 minutes of footage! Gustavo is a black belt under Roberto Correa and owns the Gustavo Machado Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Academy in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

Here are the techniques shown in the half-guard section of the DVD:

- Half-guard to full guard using a butterfly hook

- Half-guard to back mount using a butterfly hook

- Half-guard sweep by grabbing your opponent’s ankle (Bravo’s old skool)

- Half-guard sweep by grabbing the lapel to trap his leg. Variation of the last sweep

- Half-guard sweep with the lapel to opposite side. Other variation of the last sweep.

- Half-guard sweep using the lapel to trap the arm

- Getting the back from the half-guard and finish with a loop choke

- Armbar from half-guard

- Controlling the lapel to pass the half-guard

- Passing the half-guard with head on mat

- Getting the back from top position

- Pressuring the head pass

- Choke from top position

- Inverted Ezekiel choke from top position

He shows each technique twice slowly with great detail and then he shows it at full speed. I find this way of demonstrating a technique to be very helpful. He gives you two different angles of the technique then he demonstrates what the technique should look like during a live roll.

The half-guard techniques are progressive and are also for beginners to advance levels. While it doesn’t look like much there are a lot of techniques here, 40 minutes worth to be exact. The DVD is very GI oriented but someone who trains NoGI should be able to adapt most (not all) of the techniques above.

Here are the techniques shown in the quarter-guard section of the DVD:

- Half-guard to quarter guard

- Close guard to quarter guard

- Kimura from quarter guard

- Wrist lock from quarter guard

- Bicep lock from quarter guard

- Omoplata from quarter guard (really nice move)

- Triangle from quarter guard (other really nice move)

- Calf lock from quarter guard

- Sweep from guard finish on top of half guard

- Inverted armbar from quarter guard

- Lapel choke from quarter guard

o Another variation of this choke

- Sweep from quarter guard finish on top of half guard

- Taking the back from quarter guard

- Somersault sweep going to the back

- Arm drag going to the back (my favorite move)

This section is 43 minutes long. He demonstrates each technique in the same manner as the half guard section. I’ll be honest I wasn’t too familiar with the quarter guard until this DVD. While he shows a lot of option from this position I still feel like it’s for intermediate to advance BJJers. Again this section is very GI oriented and people who train NoGI might not be able to obtain the quarter guard position, but with a strong wrist control you might be able to control and use this position effectively.

I wasn’t too aware of Gustavo Machado until this DVD and I must say he seems like a very good instructor. He is very detail oriented and describes each technique clearly and effectively. The production of this DVD is very high like most of the fightlife DVDs. I would recommend this DVD for anyone interested in learning the quarter guard, but I do believe there are better half-guard DVDs on the market today. Both section work nicely together and I fully understand why they put half-guard and quarter guard techniques on one DVD. If you do decide to purchase this DVD I don’t think you will be disappointed at all.