For a while now I was thinking that teaching kids advanced half guard would be impossible or at the very least a tough tough task. Only because it’s hard to teach kids to do the half guard techniques and at the same time why they’re doing it. Oh yeah and getting a kid who can be a good drill partner all at the same time. Again, not easy. So anyway, I never really tried teaching it to little kids.
The I met the Dvorak kids, Emily and Andrew. I have a different opinion now..
I started using them as sort of a project for teaching kids half guard and seeing if this was going to be something that can be used in the future. In the video below, this is the first lesson I did with them regarding half guard btw, you’ll get an inside look as to how I went about teaching it to them. The skill shown below is more basic but at the same time works at all levels, white belt to green belt for kids and white belt to black belt for the adults.
After this private lesson I saw Emily hitting this move “live” in class. Live meaning against another child trying to stop the move while grappling (sparring). I was amazed that a 7 year old could pull off such difficult techniques like that, it just goes to show you what kids are capable of.
I’m going to start teaching half guard to all my BBC kids (advanced). I think in time we’ll have some kids tearing it up on the circuit and in class with these super slick half guard techniques. They’ll be little Master Danny Ives’, haha, awesome!
