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...]
Grapplearts DVDs
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...]
How to Set Up the X Guard
I love the X Guard. It's such a high-percentage position. First of all, it can be applied from a huge number of open guard and half guard situations. If you've ever watched an X Guard specialist you'll know that he needs just a tiny bit of room to insert those hooks and - BOOM - he's slithered into the X Guard. And once an opponent is caught in the X Guard he's going down! In fact, by the … [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 Pass Deep Half Guard
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, … [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...]
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...]
Defending Stupid Big Guy Attacks (and the Honor of Jiu-Jitsu)
It's amazing what some big guys will do when they get frustrated. In fact, sometimes they'll try stuff so stupid that it'll take you completely by surprise! Now, many BJJ instructors never bother to teach you what to do against these 'stupid attacks.' … [Read more...]
How to Attack Super-Defensive Opponents
It's a fact: big guys don't like losing to smaller guys. That's why sometimes, when a bigger guy realizes he's not going to be able to actually win a match, he changes gears and uses all his strength and size for only one thing... ... to stall, stall, stall and hope for a draw! It can be super-frustrating when an opponent absolutely refuses to engage with you. Especially when the damn guy … [Read more...]
Advanced Omoplata Armlock Finish
Jiu-jitsu is so cool! As you might know, the omoplata armlock is one of my very favorite techniques. But even after 10 years of studying this position, I'm still learning new stuff about it... Today I want to share a variation of the omoplata that I learned this summer workingwith Brandon Mullins. Of course this finish works great on larger people, but even though I'm 6'2' and 215 lbs I'm gonna … [Read more...]
Podcast EP12: BJJ Competition and Training Strategies with Brandon ‘Wolverine’ Mullins
In this interview 2 x World No Gi Champion Brandon 'Wolverine' Mullins shares his best competition and training advice. The questions come from my newsletter readership, who I polled to see if they had any questions for Brandon, especially about training, competing or holding their own against bigger opponents. Boy, did they ever! We then sifted and sorted hundreds of emails to pick out the … [Read more...]
The Seated Guard and the ‘Idiot Sweep’
Here's a video in which Emily Kwok uses me as a dummy to teach the fundamentals of the Seated Guard and also one of my very favorite sweeps: the 'Idiot Sweep.' (I call it that because it's so simple and so effective that when you catch your opponent with it, he feels like - well - an idiot.) … [Read more...]
Butterfly Guard / X Guard Q & A
The questions in this article arose, in part, from a discussion of my Butterfly Guard and X Guard video, which is part of the Guard Sweeps DVD Package. Of course everyone is welcome to read on, but for maximum benefit it'd probably be a good idea to pick up a copy of this 2 DVD package … [Read more...]
Unorthodox Positions and Attacks
There are six major positions in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Mixed Martial Arts and Submission Grappling. If you learn these positions you'll be off to a great start, but you'll also be a bit predictable... … [Read more...]