Buchecha's Back Take From Deep Half Guard in BJJ

Words: Jiu Jitsu Style

When we first posted this clip back in December 2015, the write-up was a single line: a nice back take option for when you're stuck in someone's deep half guard, courtesy of Marcus "Buchecha" Almeida. That was the whole post. In those days a short technique clip from one of the best heavyweights in BJJ history didn't need a thousand words of preamble — you trusted Buchecha and you watched. Eleven years on, the man has gone from a mountain of IBJJF gold to a serious MMA career, but the little problem he was solving in that clip is one every passer in Jiu Jitsu still runs into, and his answer to it has not aged a day.

Watch it: Buchecha's back take from deep half guard.

Deep half guard is the position nobody enjoys being caught in. Your opponent dives underneath you, hugs a leg, buries himself so deep between your hips that your base disappears and your weight is suddenly floating over nothing. Most people panic here. They post a hand, sprawl their weight forward, and start grinding for a pass that isn't there — which is exactly the reaction the deep half player is fishing for. What Buchecha shows is the calmer, smarter option: instead of fighting the sweep head-on, you go with the underhook and the angle, and you ride the scramble straight onto his back.

Why the Back Take Beats the Pass From Deep Half

The genius of the answer is that it works with the deep half player's own plan instead of against it. When someone commits to deep half in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, they're loading up to roll you and come up on top. All of that momentum is pointed in one direction. Try to stop it flat and you're in a strength contest you'll usually lose; follow it, keep your underhook and your hips heavy, and the same roll that was going to sweep you feeds you the angle to circle behind and get your hooks in.

That suited Buchecha perfectly. A multiple-time World and absolute champion who spent years being the biggest, strongest man in the bracket, he never needed to muscle deep half — he just needed to be in the right place a half-second early. The back take is the right place. It turns the worst moment of a passing exchange, the instant you feel your base evaporate, into the best one.

Drilling Buchecha's Deep Half Back Take at Your Gym

Strip the name off and the lesson survives intact. The back take works because the control comes first and the finish arrives last. You win the underhook before your opponent finishes burrowing under you, you keep your weight settled instead of posting up in a panic, and you let his roll rotate you toward his back rather than away from it. The hooks are the final thing in the sequence, not the first — most people miss the back take because they lunge for it before they've actually stolen the angle.

So drill it the way he'd want you to. Have a patient partner attack deep half over and over, and stop trying to smash the pass. Learn what each phase of his entry gives you — the underhook when he dives, the angle when he rolls, the back when he tries to come up. Play it slow until you can feel the exact moment his momentum commits, then ride that momentum instead of bracing against it. Deep half guard has only grown sharper over the last decade — Bernardo Faria built a whole world-title game on it, and the position still shows up under leg-lock entries across modern no-gi BJJ — which is precisely why a clean answer to it is worth owning.

Then go back to the old clip, eleven years late, and notice that one of the greatest to ever do it had already figured all of it out in a single quiet minute of footage.

See you on the mats.

Originally published on Jiu Jitsu Style, 20 December 2015. Refreshed for 2026.