Are you flailing around in your guard, trying to react to your opponent, without a clear plan of what to do? If so then this video and podcast episode is for you! When you're using the open guard there's a definite series of steps and strategies you should be using. Here Rob Biernacki of No Gi de la Riva Formula fame, taking you through the 3 stages of open guard and shows you specific … [Read more...]
Gripfighting
Arm Drag from Reverse de la Riva Guard (Simple and Effective)
The Reverse de la Riva Guard is a variation of the regular de la Riva Guard, but with your inside leg entangling your opponent's lead leg instead of your outside leg. This picture should make it a little clearer what the difference is... Why Use the Reverse de la Riva? Most of the time players use both the regular and the reverse de la Riva positions, because they complement each … [Read more...]
Dealing with the Gi in Grappling
Are you coming from a background in submission grappling or training mostly without the gi and trying to get into BJJ? Are you frustrated by the cloth prison (the gi) that's stifling your movements and allowing your opponent to wrap you up? I'm a big fan of being competent in both gi and no gi grappling, if for no other reason than self defense. Yes, you might get attacked on the beach … [Read more...]
The ‘Soft One, Hard Two’ BJJ Gripfighting Strategy
Have you ever heard the story about the old bull and the young bull, standing at the top of a hill, watching some cows? The young bull turns to the older bull and says, "Hey, let's run down there and each make sweet, sweet love to one of those cows!" The older bull retorts, "Why don't we just walk down there, nice and slow, and make sweet, sweet love to ALL the cows?" The original … [Read more...]
The Butterfly Sweep from Half Guard
The half butterfly guard is a variation of half guard where you entangle one of your opponent's legs with your inside leg and then insert a single butterfly hook under his thigh with your outside leg. As such this position combines aspects of both the traditional half guard AND the butterfly guard. Two of the most popular attacks in the half butterfly position are Sweeping your opponent … [Read more...]
Setting Up and Finishing the Single Leg Takedown in BJJ with the Gi
The single leg takedown is one of the main moves in freestyle wrestling, but it becomes considerably harder to pull off when you put the gi on. That's because with the gi your opponent usually just grabs your lapel and sleeve, stiff-arms away, and makes it hard to get at his legs. This can be very frustrating for people looking for single and double leg wrestling takedowns in BJJ. Now judo … [Read more...]
Getting the Underhook in BJJ
Getting the underhook in the guard, especially in positions like the Butterfly guard and the Half guard, is incredibly important. Entire matches have changed momentum just because the guy on the bottom got this one grip! The underhook gives you a huge amount of control over your opponent's body and also gives you a route to his back. But your opponent won't just give you this grip - he'll … [Read more...]
Countergripping – What to Do if You Can’t Break Your Opponent’s Grips.
We all know how important it is to break grips when you're in someones guard, right? For example, if someone has a deep grip on your lapel from the closed guard he can use it to break your posture, prevent your pass, and set up sweeps and submissions. So your first priority is to break or at least nullify that lapel grip (here are some ways to do that). But it's not just the lapel grip that … [Read more...]
Christmas Office Party Jiu-Jitsu
Tis the season, and there's a very good chance that you'll be going to one or more Christmas parties in the next few weeks. I hope those parties stay friendly, but you can never be too careful. Let's just say that things can go sideways QUICKLY! A little bit too much rum in the eggnog... The wrong person under the mistletoe... Accidentally giving your girlfriend an oversized piece of … [Read more...]
Lapel Drag from Butterfly Guard and from Standing
The lapel drag (aka collar drag) is an incredibly important move from the butterfly guard. It's a legitimate sweep, but it's also an amazing setup for many other attacks. It's also low risk and doesn't require an elaborate grip to set it up. In this Youtube video Rob Biernacki shows some of the black belt details that'll make this sweep MUCH more effective, even against skilled, larger … [Read more...]
New podcast with Travis Stevens, 3 x Judo Olympian, Olympic Silver Medalist, and BJJ Black Belt
In this episode of the Strenuous Life Podcast I go deep with 3 x Judo Olympian and BJJ black belt Travis Stevens. We go DEEP into his training regimen, including Why he does 5 or 6 workouts a day What the strength benchmarks are for effective judo Why mental fatigue is often just as much a limiting factor as physical fatigue How he uses his groundwork skills to force his opponents … [Read more...]
de la Riva guard Basic Grips
The de la Riva guard is a super-powerful position in modern jiu-jitsu, and many competitors use it as their primary open guard option, especially when they need to control a standing opponent. But this position is very grip dependent. Different grips open up different attacks. Want to dump him on his face with the ball and chain sweep? Better get your hands on that far sleeve! Want to … [Read more...]
Four de la Riva Guard Grips You Need to Know
The de la Riva guard is very powerful and effective form of guard, often used in modern BJJ. It can be an intimidatingly complex position though, with a large number of grips, variations, sweeps, attacks and other techniques available for you to use. The point of today's article is to simplify the de la Riva guard for you. The way we're going to do that is by breaking it down on the … [Read more...]
How to Break a Tight Sleeve Grip on Your Gi
The single best thing you can do to stop your opponent from dominating you in grappling is to get rid of his grips on you. But against someone with strong hands and a powerful grip this can be tough to do. That's why I want to share a super-powerful way to break a sleeve grip with you. It's illegal in Judo but still totally allowed in BJJ. I've seen small women use … [Read more...]
A Simple Drill to Shut Down Your Opponent’s Guard Pass
I don't usually have to spend a lot of time sitting around and dreaming up new crazy techniques to put onto my Youtube channel... Typically all I have to do is look back at the last couple of training sessions I've done and something obvious to talk about pops right out at me. In the case of today's video, I was working with a friend who was having trouble with his guard getting … [Read more...]
Weak and Strong Sides of Rearmount
At the bottom of this article is a new video talking about the correct and incorrect side of rearmount. But first a little background... Nowadays most grapplers are realising that their default grip in the rearmount should be the over-under grip (also known as the 'seatbelt' or the 'harness'). This arm position offers a ton of control over your opponent but also many different attacking … [Read more...]
How To Do the Bow and Arrow Choke
The Bow and Arrow Choke is one of the top ten most successful submissions in BJJ. And when you get to the upper ranks - purple, brown and black - where people really know how to prevent and counter many of the 'easy' submissions - the Bow and Arrow is one of the top three submissions in BJJ competition. My point is that if you do BJJ you've gotta know how to do the Bow and Arrow Choke! In … [Read more...]
Finger Pain in BJJ and What to Do About It
"My Fingers Hurt..." I get a lot of emails, tweets and messages from BJJ practitioners about fingers hurting all the time. For example, I asked a question about BJJ hand pain on Twitter got a ton of responses (click here to see them on Twitter), including a disconcerting number of white belts who had this problem. So it's a real problem, and not only for people who've been doing the sport a … [Read more...]
A Trick to Set Up the Grips You Need to Pass Your Opponent’s Guard
One of the keys to passing the guard effectively and efficiently is controlling the grip battle. But a quality opponent always be trying to block your grips. Not only that: he wants to attack you with sweeps and submissions so at the same time he'll be trying to ensnare you with his own set of grips. As a result, when you're passing the guard you'll often end up in a pseudo-symmetrical … [Read more...]
Blocking Headbutts in the Guard
As I've said many times before, BJJ is a fantastic sport and fitness activity but at it's core IT'S A MARTIAL ART. And that means you have to keep an eye on how this stuff would work in a real fight. Someone recently asked me what you can do to prevent getting knocked out if someone on top of you is trying to headbutt you into oblivion. Good question. It's an important topic: before they … [Read more...]