What butterfly guard is
Butterfly guard is a seated open guard. You face your partner with both feet hooked inside their thighs. Those hooks let you lift a leg, twist your partner and keep them off balance, while your arms control their upper body. It is played in the gi and in no-gi, and it is one of the open guards in our guide to BJJ guards.
The guard is widely associated with Marcelo Garcia, who in the 2000s made it the center of his game, with arm drags to the back and, when a partner came too close, transitions to X guard and single leg X. Some players, Gordon Ryan among them, also play a version lying on their back, often called supine butterfly. This article covers the seated version.
Posture, hooks and grips
Sit up close to your partner and stay low, with your head down. Lying back takes the power out of your legs, and sitting far away gives your partner room to pass. Place the hooks inside their thighs, angled slightly outward. A hook placed too far in or too far out is easy for your partner to clear.
Your arms do most of the setup, and the grips they use differ between the gi and no-gi. Take a grip, such as a hold on the wrist, and use it to pull yourself in. Reaching forward with open hands lets your partner take the underhooks.
Grips
- Underhook with a belt gripYour hand reaches the belt behind their back on the underhook side.
- Elbow or sleeve gripYour overhooking hand holds the elbow or sleeve on the other arm.
- Collar or lapel gripControls their posture and head.
Main attacks
- Butterfly sweep
- Arm drag to the back
- X guard entry
- Single leg X entry
Grips
- Underhook and overhookOne arm under theirs, the other over theirs.
- Collar tie and tricepsA hand behind the neck pulls them forward while the other holds the arm.
- Two-on-oneBoth hands on one arm, a grip that also sets up the arm drag.
Main attacks
- Butterfly sweep
- Arm drag to the back
- Guillotine
- X guard and single leg X entries
Distance
Open with grips
The butterfly sweep
Butterfly sweeps work by bringing your partner’s weight forward over a hook, then lifting and turning them. In the basic sweep, you hold an underhook on one side and an overhook on the other. You fall onto your side toward the overhook, keeping that arm trapped so they cannot post on it, and the hook on your underhook side lifts their leg. Your partner goes over in the direction you fell, and you follow them to the top.
Land on your side, not flat on your back. Instructors teach versions that take your partner over at about 45 degrees and versions that drive straight to the side.
Arm drags and the guillotine
The arm drag comes from wrestling. From butterfly guard you pull your partner’s arm across your body, which turns their shoulder away and lets you climb to their side and then their back.
A partner who stops the sweep by posting their arms and dropping their hips back leaves their head in front of you. Marcelo Garcia teaches the guillotine for that moment: he snaps the head down and climbs on top to finish it.
How butterfly guard is passed
Passers work to take the hooks out of play. One approach is to push you flat onto your back and float over your legs, keeping their weight on your insteps and shins until the hooks have no lift. Another is a hip shift that traps one of your legs between their legs and their belly, which leads into a body lock pass. A third is the knee cut: the passer sags their weight toward your underhook side to stop the sweep, steps a leg between your legs close to your hips, takes their own underhook and cuts their knee across your body.
Respond while the hooks are still in: fight back for the underhook and sit up into your partner again. Once you are flat and the hooks are cleared, you are defending a pass, and the job becomes recovering a guard or holding half guard before the pass is finished.
What a reviewer looks for in butterfly guard footage
On video, a reviewer looks at whether you had a grip before you sat into the guard, whether you were still seated when each pass started, and which way their weight was moving when you started each sweep. They also note which of the passes above beat you and what you lost first, the underhook, the hooks or your posture. In a roll review, a verified black belt marks each of those moments with timestamps on your own rolls.