The single greatest advantage of half guard passing methods over regular methods of guard passing – head control: The pattern of events in a guard pass is for the passing athlete get past the feet, knees and most importantly, the line of your opponents hips, and then transition to the head to complete the pass. That transition to the head (the cranial shift) is a constant source of problems, as the defending guard player can exploit the time and pressure release involved in that transition to create strong defensive frames and move back to guard position. Half guard passing methods on the other hand, involve working your way to a situation where your opponent is locked around one of your legs whilst your other leg is free. If you can attain a chest to chest position you can now control your opponents head BEFORE getting past the line of your opponents hips. This means that when you extract your leg from his hold, you already have head control in place and there is no problematic cranial shift. This enables you to impose tremendous control and pressure throughout the pass all the way to completion. Here, Craig Jones shows his ever improving top pressure game, taking a solid cross face grip (the most common form of head control) before beginning the task of extracting his trapped leg. As a result he will be in a fine position to exercise total pin control as soon as the pass is completed.
