Wrestling-Up Playbook

Mat Manual companion guide to "Wrestle Up: The Guard Player's Third Option." Print it. The article explains why coming up is a guard skill, not a wrestling extra. This book builds it: head-position standards graded pass or fail on every card, come-up cards by guard, chain cards that run the rise into the takedown finish and top control, partner-feeding progressions, and positional gates that decide when live come-up rounds begin.

Name: ______________________________ Dojo: ______________________________ Current belt / grade: ______________ Neck or shoulder history reported to coach: ☐ Yes ☐ None

BEFORE ANYTHING: SCOPE AND SAFETY — HEAD POSITION IS PASS/FAIL ☐ THE HEAD RULE. On every come-up in this book, your head is high and tight against your partner's body, on the side of your main grip, before the rise begins. A rise started with the head low, forward, or loose is a failed rep, stopped on the spot, however the rest of the rep goes. This rule is the guillotine defence, and it is graded pass/fail on every card, not coached as a preference. ☐ Tap early and tap clearly, on the mat, on your partner, or verbally. A tap ends the rep at once. If a partner's arm wraps your neck during any drill, the rep stops: the wrapper releases on the tap or the stop word, and the pair re-runs Part 2 before any further rise work that session. ☐ No card in this book trains finishing a takedown through a set guillotine, choking back, or muscling out of a wrapped neck. If your neck is caught in a live round, your answers are hand-fighting, posture, and the tap, in the order your coach teaches. This book prevents the catch; it does not train escapes from inside it. ☐ Takedown finishes are controlled finishes. The rising player drives the partner down; they do not lift and drop them, and the falling partner keeps a hand free to post or slap until the cards in Part 12 say the finish is live. Breakfall honesty is a feeding standard (Part 20) and a pass standard on the chain cards. ☐ Neck, shoulder, back, or knee pain that is sharp, or still present the next day, ends rise and takedown work for the day and is reported to your coach.

Part 1: The Skill Card

Read the card before the block. The come-up fails in a small number of ways, and the card lists them: head, order, read, finish. The parts that follow train them in that order, and the fault library in Part 19 is just the card read backward.