The guard and it's many uses

Today we went over yep, you guessed it, the guard. This started from conversations on seeing people get someone else into the guard then not knowing what to do with it once they have it. Other than just scissoring someone with it (which seems to almost always be the case if the guard's even being used at all), you have enormous control of your opponent's hips using your legs as hooks. We practiced just keeping the other person off-balance and while a bit tiring, it takes almost no time to effectively learn to use. We also went over kesa gatame and briefly escapes from kesa. One thing I need constant reminding of is that when a hold is done improperly the escapes work, but once it's set and set right, you can't really escape (at least not without GREAT effort). The best defense is always to not get into a bad position in the first place.