How To Do a Guard Escape (Push) Properly

Getting yourself caught in your opponent’s guard is not a favorable situation for you. While you’re technically on top of them, they hold the advantage of being able to inflict massive amounts of damage onto you.

Fortunately, there are a wide variety of escapes for you to employ should you find yourself in such a situation. And, being a White Belt, it’s best that you try to learn each one so you have a lot to choose from in such cases.

One technique that I’d like to point out in particular is the Guard Escape (Push). It’s a rather basic escape from the guard and it’s not exactly perfect, especially against opponents who have strong legs. But, still, it’s effective against many beginners and even seasoned fighters.

To do a Guard Escape (Push), you’ll have to follow the following steps:

1. Of course, you have to be inside your opponent’s guard. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a need to escape from guard.

2. While inside the guard, grab hold of your opponent’s belt. Make sure that your fingers have a tight grip on it and are over the top.

3. Placing one of your knees out to the side and one at the base of your opponent’s spine is a good way to add a bit more leverage for you to use. But, this may end up being a bad thing as this makes it easier for your opponent to reverse the technique and sweep you.

4. Push forward and/or down as hard as you can until your opponent crosses their feet. This, hopefully, will break their guard.

Now, what makes this technique rather ineffective against advanced fighters is how easy it is for them to just keep their legs gripped onto you. If you’re not as powerful, you’ll only end up wasting a lot of energy trying to push your opponent away.

Even worse is that pushing means you have to extend and straighten your arms out. This makes it easy for advanced fighters to grab hold of your arm and do an arm-bar.

That said, do take note that this is an escape that wouldn’t always work. There are, however, certain situations where it will work in your favor, such as if you’re confident enough that you can push off your opponent without them being able to put your arm in an arm bar.

Despite the risks of this technique and how easy it is to counter, it’s still worth learning.

As a white belt, it’s best that you know the basic escapes and mounts first, as well as how to transition to them from guard or while in the guard.

If you have a firm grasp on the basics, you’ll have a much better feel for the ground and how your body’s supposed to work or move while in it. Thus, this should make transitioning from one belt rank to another a whole lot easier.

For a more detailed explanation on how to do this technique, be sure to look up how-to videos online.