Is Half Guard Actually the Best Guard for MMA?

A couple friends of mine sent me this article by the BJEE and wanted me to give my opinion on it.

I generally avoid BJEE but I figured it was a good topic for discussion.

The usefulness of Half Guard in MMA is one that has been debated for years. Many MMA coaches tend to tell their fighters to avoid it while, in many BJJ schools, it and its variations are the predominant guards being practiced.

And, this leads to a contrast which BJEE tries to cover over.
(Of course at the end of the article they’re trying to sell a half guard dvd so their objectivity is not to be trusted. And, of course it’s by an anonymous writer).

In my view, there are now 4 Major branches of Jiu-Jitsu. These are not cut and dried and disconnected but they are certainly distinct and becoming more so all the time.
These are:

Sport BJJ. This is Jiu-Jitsu with a heavy focus on tournament competition mindset and techniques. Sport BJJ focuses predominantly on groundwork and exclusively on grappling with very specified rulesets (“Legal” and “Illegal” moves, time limits, etc.).
This is the style that is heavily focused on at the vast majority of BJJ schools around the world now.

MMA BJJ. This is a BJJ style that is obviously based around the realities of MMA competition. It obviously focuses much more heavily on defending strikes, positional control, very active grappling and being exclusively No Gi. It also generally focuses on a different range mindset than sport bjj. It incorporates a good deal of wrestling and disengaging is not penalized.

Self Defense BJJ. Unlike the last two, the focus of Self Defense BJJ is not about winning but rather its primary concern is not losing. It is based on the idea that you cannot rely on any guarantees (i.e., number of opponents, time limits, size, strength, age, gender of opponent, illegal techniques). It is absolutely “anything goes” and the one criterion is to survive the conflict.

As a coach, I teach and have always taught all three. I was brought up with a more heavy focus on the last two and still feel that that should be the focus. And, my reason is this: I feel it’s easier to learn to prepare for everything and then narrow down rather than vice-versa. Self Defense BJJ teaches students to deal with the widest variety of threats with the fewest restrictions.
But, to be a well-rounded coach and student of the Art I enjoy and study all three.

There is a 4th style which is BJJ for Military Combatives/Law Enforcement. This style, again, has its own realities and restrictions. It has a heavy focus on weapon retention/control as well as takedowns and pinning.

A major problem for many BJJ coaches or students is thinking that because they are skilled and knowledgable in the techniques and tactics of one of these that it can just be transferred to one of the others.
The reactions and techniques and strategies you develop in one is not nearly the same as another. There is overlap and training can allow you to cross the gaps but you actually have to do the training.
It is a truism that I repeat all the time: you can only deal with what you train to prepare for.

You see this most clearly when Sport BJJ coaches try to teach Police. I’ve seen recently BJJ Black Belts teaching Guard Pulls, De La Riva, inverting to submission attempts at seminars for police officers. They clearly can’t conceive that their reality and needs from the Art are very different than a Police Officer’s.

But, I think that many BJJ instructors know these differences and are actually cynical. They want to convince people who never train takedowns, how to deal with strikes, or other fight realities that what they have learned will handle those things with no adaptation.

Here I discuss with Erkan my thoughts on this topic.