Hello! Before I get into the questions, I would just like to give you all a small bit of background for context purposes. I don't know if I'd be considered a beginner or intermediate or what, but my friends and I have been very interested in grappling for about 4-5 years. However, aside from 6 months of jiu-jistu and an additional 6 months of doing grappling training at an MMA gym, I have never truly committed to a strict training regimine and usually just do casual training under the "school of youtube" with a couple of friends. None of us have ever entered any tournaments, except for one friend (who actually trains regularly) but we don't see that friend too often.
Anyways, a common practice amongst my friends and myself is to jump into full guard. I know of various other ways to pull guard, but jumping into it has never seemed like an option that was completely off the table for me. After looking into some videos about jumping full guard, I came across a couple of videos of some nasty injuries resulting from the technique being used. Which got me looking into some discussions. The discussions kind of seemed "hap-hazard" going off on tangents. So sorry if this seems like a "copied post" but I wanted to purpose some SPECIFIC points of the topic that I'd like people's opinions on. Those points are IS IT DANGEROUS, EFFECTIVENESS IN GRAPPLING, and EFFECTIVENESS AS A GENERAL MARTIAL ARTS TECHNIQUE. My opinions on each are as follows.
IS IT DANGEROUS? So obviously it is dangerous, otherwise I would not have found those injury videos. But I noticed that all of the injuries I found resulted from the person trying to defend against the "full guard jump" by trying to support their opponent's weight by placing their straightened out leg underneath them. Which to me, sounds absolutely asinine. I know whenever I roll/grapple with my friends we always at least have some bend in our legs at all times, and I don't recall ever having an instinctive impulse to use my leg to break an opponents descent. I've heard that this technique was banned in white-belt jiu-jitsu tournaments, which makes sense to me. However, I've heard some people say that it should be banned at all belt levels. I don't know if that's really necessary. Out of all the times my friends and I have done it, no one really ever got hurt. Now, I understand that "my friends and I" probably don't roll/grapple nearly as much as someone who was super competitive in grappling/Jiu-jitsu, so we may just not have had enough "opportunities" to fuck ourselves up yet. I still feel safe doing it, but does anyone think (for safety purposes) that I should maybe consider talk about banning it in my friend group?
EFFECTIVENESS IN GRAPPLING I must admit the more I've broadened and trained my other options of pulling guard, the less time I've felt necessary to jump full guard. And I know some people claim that it takes as much skill as using the noob toob from CoD MW2, but I would argue that the skill comes in on knowing WHEN to use it. I mean, in the end, IT IS a really easy way of pulling guard and the no-slam rule really does help a lot. I find it really easy to defend against, however if my opponent does leave an opening for it AND if I predict that the momentum will be in my favor at the time of the jump AND if for whatever reason I want them to be in my guard asap THEEEN I may very well go for jumping full guard. And it's worked out well for me before, although I understand that my current "meta" may not be very high skilled. That all being said, I am a firm believer that there is a time and place for everything. And unless you exhaust every potential scenario and STILL find a technique to always be suboptimal, I don't think you should fully discount it.
EFFECTIVENESS AS A GENERAL MARTIAL ARTS TECHNIQUE I've heard a lot of people say that if slamming was allowed, then no one would ever try to jump full guard. I, however, would argue against that. To be honest, I have never done MMA or any striking sport, and I have never been in a fist fight or anything of the manner, so most of my opinion comes from the magical fairy land of my imagination. So I apologize for my ignorance in advance, but I still think I should be entitled to my opinion at least somewhat. 1! Depending on current momentum, I feel like jumping guard can be safe from slamming by becoming more of like pulling guard. Instead of full out jumping and "koala hugging" your opponent, you can use a well-timed jump into full guard to use solely your weight to turn your opponent's forward momentum into downward momentum. 2! I would imagine that it sometimes may just be worth the exchange to "take the slam". Like if you jump into full guard, post up real high on your opponent so that your chest is perhaps face-level with them, I'd imagine that it'd be easy to keep your head off the ground should they slam your body. Wishful thinking, maybe you can even go for something like a guillotine while your up there, making slamming you possibly more harmful for them. Of course, it's probably risky, but the payoff seems worth it to me if you can make it work.
WELP, those are my opinions on the topic. conclusion: I'm pretty much pro-jumping full guard, but I do have my reserves about it. I understand that I'm ignorant on the subject, so please feel free to shoot down all my points in humiliating fashion!
Anyways, a common practice amongst my friends and myself is to jump into full guard. I know of various other ways to pull guard, but jumping into it has never seemed like an option that was completely off the table for me. After looking into some videos about jumping full guard, I came across a couple of videos of some nasty injuries resulting from the technique being used. Which got me looking into some discussions. The discussions kind of seemed "hap-hazard" going off on tangents. So sorry if this seems like a "copied post" but I wanted to purpose some SPECIFIC points of the topic that I'd like people's opinions on. Those points are IS IT DANGEROUS, EFFECTIVENESS IN GRAPPLING, and EFFECTIVENESS AS A GENERAL MARTIAL ARTS TECHNIQUE. My opinions on each are as follows.
IS IT DANGEROUS? So obviously it is dangerous, otherwise I would not have found those injury videos. But I noticed that all of the injuries I found resulted from the person trying to defend against the "full guard jump" by trying to support their opponent's weight by placing their straightened out leg underneath them. Which to me, sounds absolutely asinine. I know whenever I roll/grapple with my friends we always at least have some bend in our legs at all times, and I don't recall ever having an instinctive impulse to use my leg to break an opponents descent. I've heard that this technique was banned in white-belt jiu-jitsu tournaments, which makes sense to me. However, I've heard some people say that it should be banned at all belt levels. I don't know if that's really necessary. Out of all the times my friends and I have done it, no one really ever got hurt. Now, I understand that "my friends and I" probably don't roll/grapple nearly as much as someone who was super competitive in grappling/Jiu-jitsu, so we may just not have had enough "opportunities" to fuck ourselves up yet. I still feel safe doing it, but does anyone think (for safety purposes) that I should maybe consider talk about banning it in my friend group?
EFFECTIVENESS IN GRAPPLING I must admit the more I've broadened and trained my other options of pulling guard, the less time I've felt necessary to jump full guard. And I know some people claim that it takes as much skill as using the noob toob from CoD MW2, but I would argue that the skill comes in on knowing WHEN to use it. I mean, in the end, IT IS a really easy way of pulling guard and the no-slam rule really does help a lot. I find it really easy to defend against, however if my opponent does leave an opening for it AND if I predict that the momentum will be in my favor at the time of the jump AND if for whatever reason I want them to be in my guard asap THEEEN I may very well go for jumping full guard. And it's worked out well for me before, although I understand that my current "meta" may not be very high skilled. That all being said, I am a firm believer that there is a time and place for everything. And unless you exhaust every potential scenario and STILL find a technique to always be suboptimal, I don't think you should fully discount it.
EFFECTIVENESS AS A GENERAL MARTIAL ARTS TECHNIQUE I've heard a lot of people say that if slamming was allowed, then no one would ever try to jump full guard. I, however, would argue against that. To be honest, I have never done MMA or any striking sport, and I have never been in a fist fight or anything of the manner, so most of my opinion comes from the magical fairy land of my imagination. So I apologize for my ignorance in advance, but I still think I should be entitled to my opinion at least somewhat. 1! Depending on current momentum, I feel like jumping guard can be safe from slamming by becoming more of like pulling guard. Instead of full out jumping and "koala hugging" your opponent, you can use a well-timed jump into full guard to use solely your weight to turn your opponent's forward momentum into downward momentum. 2! I would imagine that it sometimes may just be worth the exchange to "take the slam". Like if you jump into full guard, post up real high on your opponent so that your chest is perhaps face-level with them, I'd imagine that it'd be easy to keep your head off the ground should they slam your body. Wishful thinking, maybe you can even go for something like a guillotine while your up there, making slamming you possibly more harmful for them. Of course, it's probably risky, but the payoff seems worth it to me if you can make it work.
WELP, those are my opinions on the topic. conclusion: I'm pretty much pro-jumping full guard, but I do have my reserves about it. I understand that I'm ignorant on the subject, so please feel free to shoot down all my points in humiliating fashion!
