What is the Spider Guard? The Spider Guard is a form of Open Guard where you grip your opponent's wrists or sleeves and have at least one foot controlling at least one of his arms. Typically the sole of your foot will be placed against his biceps, or your leg will spiral around his elbow with your toes hiding underneath his upper arm. Your other leg can go on his hip, hook behind his knee, … [Read more...]
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What is the X Guard?
Depending on how you look at it, the X Guard can be be classified as either a form of Open Guard or a form of Half Guard. Maybe that's why the BOTH those positions transition so well into the X Guard. But how about an alternative perspective... … [Read more...]
What is the Butterfly Guard?
The Butterfly Guard is one of my very favorite positions these days. Regardless of whether you're rolling with or without the gi, the Butterfly Guard keeps your opponent's weight off of you, it gives you unparalleled mobility on the bottom, and it allows you to unleash blistering combinations of some of the most powerful sweeps and reversals in all of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. But I wasn't always … [Read more...]
What is the Half Guard?
The Half Guard is a funny position. Once upon a time it was a position of last resort. Something that you would try to achieve if your opponent was passing your guard. A last-ditch attempt to stop him from getting to a truly dominant position. My, how things have changed in the last 20 years... … [Read more...]
What is the Open Guard?
Are you confused about the definition of the Open Guard? You are NOT alone. In fact, when I started BJJ someone tried to explain the different variations of the Open Guard to me and I think his explanation left me more confused than I had been originally. So, what is the Open Guard? … [Read more...]
What is the Closed Guard?
Here's a short 1:30 minute video breakdown of me explaining the basics of the closed guard. And just to keep things interesting I also throw in my single best tip about how to maintain the closed guard, shut down your opponent's guard pass attempts and put you in a position to successfully launch your own attacks. … [Read more...]
My 2 Best Triangle Choke Escapes
Today I want to share my two best triangle choke escapes with you. I've experimented with lots of different triangle escapes. Unfortunately I've found that many commonly-taught techniques rely on either your opponent being totally incompetent, or you having an 18" neck, gigantic traps and high levels of pain tolerance.... By contrast the counters and escapes in this video work fairly well … [Read more...]
How to Salvage a Failed Butterfly Guard Sweep
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 … [Read more...]
Hidden Techniques for Maintaining Rear Mount
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: Get your hooks in, Submit your opponent. Oh, if only life were so simple! … [Read more...]
No Gi Guard Passing Strategies vs. Bigger People
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... And things seem even worse when you're going up against a bigger person who's not afraid to use his athleticism to fight … [Read more...]
Ambush Armbar from Modified Scarf Hold
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!" Ain't that the truth! Sneakiness … [Read more...]
How to Counter the Backstep Guard Pass
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 … [Read more...]
How to set up and apply the head and arm choke
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. I've played around with the adjustments she shows, and it allowed me to REALLY tighten up this position WITHOUT using a ton of upper body … [Read more...]
The Jab-Cross of Open Guard Sweeps
Let's talk about two of my favorite sweeps from the open guard. These are high percentage techniques that are used again and again at every level, by novice whitebelts and world-class blackbelts. When learning a new position I think it's important to learn the high percentage stuff right away. In general you should first pick the low-hanging fruit, and then move on to the stuff that you're … [Read more...]
How to do the Butterfly Guard Sweep
Today I want to teach you how to do the most important sweep from the butterfly guard correctly. This is because sometimes in life, you just HAVE to learn certain things. … [Read more...]
An Advanced Guard Sweep
What is an 'advanced' guard sweep? Well, sometimes it's a technique that requires such ridiculous levels of strength, flexibility, or explosiveness that it's completely out of reach of 99% of recreational BJJ players. … [Read more...]
A Fancy-Pants Z Guard Pass that Never Worked Until…
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 … [Read more...]
Best Takedown vs. Larger Opponents?
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. … [Read more...]
Stabilizing and Attacking Larger Opponents from Sidemount
Many battles are lost by not sufficiently stabilizing sidemount, and/or choosing the wrong attacks to use from that otherwise dominant position. Let's say that you've done everything right and cut through the guard of a bigger stronger opponent. You've just arrived in sidemount. The first few seconds in sidemount are actually a rather dangerous time, especially if you're giving up a lot … [Read more...]
Advanced Triangle Choke Details
Today's tip is about the details of the Triangle Choke, one of the very highest percentage submissions at every level of competition. Have you ever noticed how some people can catch EVERYBODY in their signature submission, again and again? Once they've got their setup position it's pretty much a done deal (this applies whether that signature submission is an armbar, a triangle choke, a kneebar, … [Read more...]