Getting flattened out, crossfaced, and smashed when you're in the half guard sucks, and in this article we're going to learn how to prevent that from happening. The key is to use your upper body frames to stop your opponent from getting chest to chest and flattening you out. Doing this also allows you to get back to offense from the bottom again. First, here's a breakdown of how not to get … [Read more...]
Key Tips and Strategies for Older Grapplers
Rob Biernacki and I have just released BJJ for Old F***s, and from that instructional here are some of the most important tips for the older grappler. Specifically in this episode Rob Biernacki (age 46) and I (age 52) discuss... The two things that change most about your training as you get older How to improve as fast as possible by limiting your training Why base, posture and … [Read more...]
A Heavy Knee Cut Pass vs Butterfly Guard
The butterfly guard is a very dangerous position. It offers your opponent the ability to come after you with powerful sweeps, guillotine chokes, triangle chokes, leglocks, and many other attacks. If you're doing jiu-jitsu then you absolutely need to know how to shut down the butterfly guard and make your opponent regret even thinking about using it on you! The way to do that is with pressure … [Read more...]
How to Defend the Back Take in Jiu-Jitsu
There's a terrible feeling of inevitability when you're in someone's guard, he takes your arm across his centerline, and starts to climb to your back. But it doesn't need to be this way. Having your elbow across his centerline doesn't automatically lead to him taking your back and making your life miserable. Here's a technique to get out of this position that has saved my butt many … [Read more...]
Hip Bump Sweep from Closed Guard
In this video excerpted from The Closed Guard System renowned BJJ black belt Jon Thomas covers the advanced details of the hip bump sweep. The hip bump sweep is one of those classic attacks from the closed guard that still works incredibly well in the modern jiu-jitsu game. 00:10 - How to break your opponent's posture in closed guard 00:40 - How to exploit him defending the posture … [Read more...]
3 Open Guard Options vs. Standing Opponents
If you don't have a gameplan from the open guard then this position can quickly become a confusing and ineffective tangle of arms and legs . And open guard chaos gets much, much worse when you don't have a good grip on your opponent. Even a single solid grip on your opponent's arm, neck, foot, heel or gi allows you to control his posture, limit his movement, and set up your own attacks. … [Read more...]
Lasso Spider Guard to Omoplata
The spinning omoplata setup using the lasso hook is one of the very coolest spider guard attacks. In this attack you go from controlling one of his arms to a match-ending submission in the blink of an eye. No only does this move make you feel like superman, but it's actually a very high technique if you understand all the details and the correct timing for applying it. Here's a … [Read more...]
BJJ Defense with Steve Kwan
Steve Kwan from BJJ Mental Models joined me today to share some guidelines that'll immediately improve your jiu-jitsu defensive skills. Check out the BJJ Mental Models Podcast wherever fine podcasts are distributed Here's the video version of our conversation... And here's the audio-only version... Links to Subscribe to My Podcast The best way to stay up to date with new … [Read more...]
Please Call Me Stephan, not ‘Professor’ or ‘Sifu’ or ‘Sensei’ or ‘Guru’ or ‘Master’ or ‘Shihan’ or ‘Kru’ or ‘Sabom’ Or ‘Kwisatz Haderach’
People mean well when they address me with an honorific but please call me Stephan, and not 'Professor' or 'Sifu' or 'Sensei' or 'Guru' or 'Master' or 'Shihan' or 'Kru' or 'Sabom' Or 'Kwisatz Haderach'... I don't like these honorifics because there's an inherent danger when lofty titles are used to amplify an already reflexive obedience towards a person. And this is especially true in a … [Read more...]
The Best Omoplata Defense
Let's look at the low angle cartwheel, one of my very favorite counters to the omoplata armlock submission, which is a very powerful upper body attack used extensively in gi and no gi jiu-jitsu these days. First we'll go through the counter step-by-step including the training methods and drills to make the move smooth and instinctive. Then we'll go further and examine 4 very specific ways to … [Read more...]
The 5 Main Omoplata Entries from Guard
I just put a video onto Youtube breaking down the 5 main ways to get into an omoplata attack to either sweep or submit your opponent. Just to be clear, these are not the only entry mechanisms for the omoplata; there are definitely others including rolling entries, spinning entries, entries from the top, etc. That being said, at least 70% of all omoplatas come from one of these 5 styles of … [Read more...]
The 20 Year History of the Omoplata 2.0 Instructional
I was first exposed to something resembling the omoplata when learning a martial art known as Indonesian Silat from Dan Inosanto. A move where you use your leg to bend your opponent's arm behind his back is often used in Silat as a finishing move after taking someone to the ground. It turned out that this move (with slight modifications) also worked in the jiu-jitsu and judo training that I … [Read more...]
A Deep Dive into the Technical Details of the Omoplata
In this episode Steve Kwan from the BJJ Mental Models podcast grills me about the omoplata, the most versatile submission in all of jiu-jitsu. Here's the conversation. We go pretty deep and get quite technical! And while I've got your attention, check out my latest instructional, Omoplata 2.0, at https://www.grapplearts.com/omoplata. This represents 20 years of research on my part … [Read more...]
How to Build a Closed Guard System
Too many people end up in closed guard and try singular attacks. Armbar attack! Damn, that didn't work. Sweep attack!! Damn, that didn't work either. Take the back!!!! My opponent shut that down too... what am I doing wrong? The thing is that singular attacks (or, even worse, waiting for your opponent to make a mistake) might work at white belt level, but this sort of strategy just … [Read more...]
Closed Guard Back Take, with Jon Thomas
Being on someone's back is the most dominant position in jiu-jitsu. If you can go climb from your guard to someone's back then you've established a HUGE match-winning advantage and now have a very good chance of choking your opponent out. This approach works at the highest level. I mean Roger Gracie used it again and again in competition against the best people in the world. Here's … [Read more...]
Sweeping an Opponent Who Has One Knee Up In Your Guard
Having problems attacking an opponent who's basing with one knee up in your guard? Even if he's adopted this defensive posture you can definitely still attack him with the double shin sweep from butterfly guard. This is a very powerful sweep that has been proven in many high level jiu-jitsu competitions! In this attack you insert yourself deep under his center of gravity, lift one of his … [Read more...]
3 Great Defenses to the Over-Under Guard Pass
The over-under guard pass is one of the heaviest, highest percentage, and most miserable guard passes in the BJJ arsenal. It is a real soul-stealer! If you go up against someone with a good over-under pass and you don't have good answers to it, then first you're going to suffer, then you'll get your guard passed, and then you'll be crushed on the bottom of side control. Fortunately today … [Read more...]
The First Sweep You Should Learn from Spider Guard
Modern BJJ is unimaginable without the Spider Guard. In this form of Open Guard you grip your opponent’s wrists or sleeves and have at least one foot controlling at least one of his arms. Usually your feet will be placed against his biceps, and/or one leg will spiral around his elbow with your toes hiding underneath his upper arm (this is called a 'lasso'). Controlling both of his arms … [Read more...]
Every Triangle Choke Setup is ALSO an Omoplata Setup!
Every entry into the triangle choke is ALSO a way to get into the omoplata armlock. Now it's true that the two techniques look very different when they're finished: in the triangle choke you wrap your legs around your opponent's neck and one of his arms, and in the omoplata you're essentially performing a Kimura armlock on his arm using your legs. But for both submissions you have to … [Read more...]
The Engagement Phase Game, A Drill to Take Your Gripfighting to the Next Level!
I've written a LOT about gripfighting on my blog, and that's because I really do believe it's one of the highest leverage skills in BJJ. That means a little bit of gripfighting knowledge can have a huge influence on your actual mat skills. For example, if you're going against a bigger, stronger opponent then one of the most important things you can do is control the grips. Now controlling … [Read more...]