Don’t Stop in the Middle — Momentum Is Everything

One of the most common mistakes in guard work is the instinct to pause at the wrong time. You defend the pass, you rebuild your guard, you achieve grips you like—and then you stop, as though the battle is already won. In truth, this is where the battle begins.

Guard is not a defensive end-state but an offensive launching pad. The act of rebuilding and gripping is only a transitional phase. If you allow yourself to linger, your opponent’s posture returns, their balance resets, and their pressure resumes. The advantage you worked for disappears. Success in guard depends on rhythm: you defend, you establish grips, you immediately off-balance. You must flow from one step to the next, never letting the sequence freeze.

You could frame this problem in terms of positional hierarchy and momentum. When you have rebuilt guard, you are in what he might call a provisional position: you have control for now, but it is tenuous. If you pause, your opponent has every opportunity to dismantle what you’ve constructed. Momentum in jiu-jitsu is precious. It is easier to continue building than to stop and restart. The discipline, therefore, is to treat guard not as a destination, but as the ignition point of your attack.

Imagine you’re playing open guard. Your opponent initiates a pass attempt; you defend, create distance, and connect with your grips. Many stop here. They sit in open guard, satisfied that they have “done their job.” But this is exactly where forward pressure is needed. You should already be initiating kuzushi—off-balancing—forcing your opponent to post, to step, to concede some alignment. From there, you progress: off-balance becomes entry, entry becomes sweep, sweep becomes top control. Now, only when you’ve secured points and positional dominance—a pin, mount, or back control—do you have the right to pause.

This requires a change in mindset. Too often, guard is viewed in fragments: “First defend, then rest. Then grip, then rest. Then attack.” But high-level jiu-jitsu is continuous, and so you must erase those artificial pauses, to train your body and mind to move seamlessly from phase to phase. And remember that rest must be earned at the peak of the hierarchy, not midway. Until you reach dominance, you owe the situation your full effort.

So the rule becomes clear: never pause at the halfway mark. Guard grips without kuzushi, control without advancement, are illusions of safety. The only time you are entitled to take a breath is when you have achieved unambiguous dominance—when your opponent’s options are gone and your position is structurally secure. Until then, movement and momentum must be your constant companions.