Tag Archives: Grapplearts DVDs

My Favorite One-Two-Three Sweep Combo from the Half Guard

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The half guard is one of my favorite guard positions. And here are three of my favorite half guard sweeps and attacks!

Not only is each of these moves a high percentage technique in its own right, but when you put them together they create a powerful one-two-three combination that will serve you well in the half guard for the rest of your grappling career. (more…)

Roadmap for BJJ Package Now Available Again!

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A few years ago I released the Roadmap for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructional package.

This is a multi-component product that focuses on the strategies, tactics, techniques and training methods of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. It’s basically a quick start guide for how to get good on the ground as fast as possible. (more…)

How to Improve Your Hip and Leg Flexibility

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Hip and leg flexibility is a huge asset in grappling, especially when it comes to not letting your opponent pass your guard, for launching sneaky sweeps and submissions from the guard position, and for weaseling your way out of tight pins.

Plus if you’re training in MMA, Muay Thai, Karate, Kickboxing, or any other martial art that involves kicking then flexibility will obviously help you out there as well. (more…)

How to Salvage a Failed Butterfly Guard Sweep

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The ‘basic’ butterfly guard sweep is one of the most strongest sweeps in grappling. That’s why it shows up again and again at the highest levels of competition.  It’s powerful, reliable, and works for a wide range of body types.  It works with and without the gi, on bigger people, smaller people, wrestlers, and judoka.

This combination of power and versatility makes the butterfly guard sweep one of my favorite go-to moves of all time! (more…)

Hidden Techniques for Maintaining Rear Mount

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When people teach the rear mount they often show you how to get your hooks in to achieve the rear mount, and then they teach you a couple of submissions from the back.

Their idealized flowchart has two steps:

  1. Get your hooks in,
  2. Submit your opponent.

Oh, if only life were so simple!

(more…)

No Gi Guard Passing Strategies vs. Bigger People

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Passing the guard in a technical manner during no gi training can often be very frustrating, especially for people coming from a gi-based background.  To the uninitiated it just seems that things move too fast… That there aren’t any good handles to control your opponent… (more…)

Ambush Armbar from Modified Scarf Hold

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I might not be 100% correct with the actual wording, but I’ll always remember this fantastic quote from Karate legend Bill ‘Superfoot’ Wallace which I read in Black Belt magazine many years ago.  It went something like this:

“There’s always going to be someone bigger, stronger or faster than you, but there never has to be anyone sneakier than you!”
(more…)

How to Counter the Backstep Guard Pass

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BJJ and submission grappling are in a continual state of evolution.  New techniques, tactics and strategies emerge, or are rediscovered, or are brought into the art all the time.

The backstep guard pass is one such modern technique.  You won’t see this guard pass in old-school BJJ (more…)

How to Pass Deep Half Guard

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In the last 5 years the Deep Half Guard position has taken the BJJ and submission grappling world by storm.  And every serious grappler now needs to know how to neutralize and pass the Deep Half Guard.

This position is a variation of the half guard.  If someone manages to get settled into this position underneath you then they’re right under your center of gravity, can compromise your balance, and very likely be able sweep you or take your back with a wide variety of techniques. (more…)

How to set up and apply the head and arm choke

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Here’s a clip of Emily Kwok teaching something really cool – how to set up the head and arm choke (also known as ‘kata gatame’) from mount, and then how to ratchet it on so tightly that your opponent has no choice but to tap out, no matter how big he is. (more…)

A Surprising Way to Pull Guard...

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Should you pull guard in competition?  And if you decide to pull guard, then how do you do it correctly?

In a certain sense, I am uniquely unqualified to answer these questions…

You see, much of my BJJ comes from 8th degree black belt Marcus Soares, and Marcus is very much from the old-school Carlson Gracie way of doing things. (more…)

A Fancy-Pants Z Guard Pass that Never Worked Until...

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There’s this one impressive, fancy-pants guard pass that I’ve seen in competition many times. It makes everybody go ‘oooh’ and ‘aaaah’, but despite its dramatic nature it’s undeniably effective and has won a LOT of matches at the highest levels of competition.

I tried to imitate this technique, of course, but it was always a complete disaster. I never managed to figure out exactly what these high-level guys were doing. (more…)

Best Takedown vs. Larger Opponents?

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Every grappler needs to have a basic understanding of takedowns.  You don’t want to be so uni-dimensional that you have no idea how to take somebody down.

But the problem is that not every takedown you learn from Judo or wrestling will work on someone a lot bigger and stronger than you. (more…)

Two Drills on Video to Improve your Guard Sweeps

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Many of the most powerful guard sweeps rely on your hips being underneath your opponent’s center of gravity.

This makes him very unstable – think of the difference between
1.    standing on the floor beside one of those stability balls, and
2.    trying to stand on top of that same stability ball. (more…)

How to Defeat the Bigger Stronger Opponent NOW AVAILABLE

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It’s here! The How to Defeat the Bigger, Stronger Opponent DVD set is in stock, and ready to ship right now.

Emily Kwok and I have been crafting this 5 DVD set for a long time, and it’s one of the best instructional sets I have ever seen. (more…)

How to Defeat the Bigger, Stronger Opponent

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Today is a very exciting day! For the past few months I’ve been working like crazy to get my new DVD series finished.  In these videos I’m collaborating with my friend, and former teammate, Emily Kwok.

She’s one of the best known competitive grapplers out there! For a lot of different reasons. (more…)

The Most Important Thing For Improving Your Grappling

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I used to think that if I just learned enough ways to pass the guard, mastered enough submissions, memorized enough pin escapes, pick up enough guard sweeps, received enough tactics and just had enough techniques at my fingertips, then… someday… I would master the art of grappling.

(more…)

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