Thanks Matt. That's what I thought, but I couldn't find the official ruling anywhere. I'm glad they've decided to take that out though because it's a real cheap shot.

No problem Splinter. Even though pressure points etc. are considered cheap by many people, I support them. There are great techniques that make use of pressure points to help a smaller person disable someone much larger and stronger - easily.

Breaking guard - depends on where you are be it MMA strickly BJJ etc. there are so many guard passes. you can use strikes to open a guys legs up which is my preferred method being an MMA guy. one of my favorite passes though is this: While in the somebodies guard, stay low and attempt to trap one of their wrists to the ground and close to their hips. Take one of your knees and jam it inbetween his legs, but slide it under his tailbone kinda thing. this will cause his butt to lift up. when this happens slip the arm that you have trapped underneath his back and then grab that arm as it goes underneath with the opposite hand. remove your knee and it will force him back down. now your opponent only has one hand to attack and defend with and it becomes eceptionally easy to pass. thats just one. bjj.org has some good stuff on it if you are better with visual aids and such. if i had a video for this pass i would put it on here of course!

In a real life situation, I would agree with you. However, we are talking organized matches in which, many are matched by their weight class.

There is no excuse for a person to use pressure points on someone the same size as him. Its wrong in my opinion because there is no way around it, and there is no real way to defend against it. It's a cheap shot.

This is a very old thread but i have a simple solution to this 'closed guard' problem. Easy, slide one knee right up into their ass/tailbone area, now posture up and force you hips backwards while pushing hard forwards with your knee in their butt. This pressure will eventually break the guard allowing you to attemp a pass and takes very little energy from you but lots from your opponent if he is silly enough to try to maintain the closed position. Peace from Aus.

i tend to use my elbows to push down into the quads to release the gaurds. Its a good idea to not leave one arm out or lose arms cos the person on the bottom can set u up for a triangle. So keepings ur elbows in nice a tight and push down on their lower abdomen to keep ur arms out of danger. Once the gaurd is broken u can slip ur knee through one side and pass.

A good one is once the legs have broken drop back and underhook the guy on the bottoms legs interlocking ur hands, Ull be in a sprawled position so its a good idea to try and move their legs under ur body to prevent from from gaurding u again. If the guy on the bottom is good it will be a struggle, but keep ur head in tight and keep theyre legs locked together. Keeping their legs locked will stop them from opening their legs again and move around them to control the side mount.

also try shuvving one of ur knees up they're ass. I know it sounds silly but doin this and applying pressure with ur elbows to their quads will release theyre legs and ull be further back so they cant pull u in for a triangle or armbar or w/e. Again once the gaurd is open keep forcing the elbow down and slip ur knee in to pass.. If u wanna be horrible try keeping in tight and sliding ur shin across the inside of their leg... it hurts like f*ck.

this was probably posted a while ago, but heres my opinion,
usually i find the best bjj and grappling practitionists prefere to use the butterfly gaurd, but when im in my opositions closed gaurd, i tend to try and stand up and go for leg locks,
then again onother technique that always work for me is to stick a knee up their ass, turn the hips and put pressure on one leg to break the gaud, you have to slide over their leg pressing your shin into their thigh so you dont get caught in half gaurd. alternativly use your elbows and put pressure into your oponents thighs, very uncomftable for them and they usually open the guard and try for another possition.

Applying a "can opener" to your opponent is a fairly effective way of opening the guard, It's a pressure hold that puts a significant amount of strain on the muscles at the back of the neck.

the stand up (grab the hand- stand with that leg and shuck helps me-- its a great pass
(but be careful- lots of sweeps from there)