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1. Instead of having your opponent between your knees with your ankles crossed (closed guard) you now uncross your ankles and put your feet on your opponent’s hips. Holding on to your opponent’s collar and/or sleeves is important while creating tension to keep him in place and stop him from moving.

2. Open guard can include putting your feet and knees on various places on your opponent’s body. Keeping four points of contact with your legs and hands on your opponent’s body leaves the open guard player with many options and makes it difficult for your opponent to “pass your guard.” The hand grips that you can do are numerous and come in various configurations including “double sleeve grip and “cross sleeve grip.” This particular set up allows you to either collar choke or arm bar. It also makes it more difficult for your partner to stand up. It also leads to other types of guards like spider guard and lasso guard, just to name a few.

3. This position typically leads to many sweeps and attacks that you can do on your opponent. Open Guard gives you no points at a tournament but gives you many options to sweep and mount on top of your opponent for points.