There's just something about jiu-jitsu that leads to a proliferation of styles of guard. From Z Guard to X Guard and from Spider Guard to Half Butterfly there are many, many different forms of closed, open and half guard, and new variations pop up all the time. How do you know which type of guard to use when? The Concept of Range in the Guard There's an organising principle that brings order … [Read more...]
The 4 Directions for X Guard Sweeps
Every guard position relies on action-reaction. You fake a sweep in one direction, your opponent reacts, and then you take advantage of that reaction and take them the other way. This is true of every type of guard, but it's very easy to illustrate this with the X guard. In the video below I break down the 4 directional options for X guard sweeps... The sweeps are covered in a bit … [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...]
Pressing Armbar from Guard
The pressing armbar, also known as the 'cutting armbar' or the 'reverse armbar', is one of the big attacks from guard. It's a legitimate submission that can finish people from different styles of guard, including closed guard, butterfly guard, and the spider guard... The pressing armbar isn't dependent on the presence of a gi, and thus it works in both gi and no gi grappling... And even … [Read more...]
An Easy and Effective Guard Retention Drill
There are many guard retention techniques you can use to stop someone from passing your guard, but just like any other technique they require drilling and repetition to become automatic. So that's what we're going to start with; an easy line drill where you can warm your body at the beginning of class and also get in lots of repetition for the 'frame and hip escape' guard retention … [Read more...]
Getting to Guard Against a Standing Opponent
It's a bad situation when you're on the bottom, your opponent is standing up in front of you, and you don't have any grips or hooks established on him... When he's on his feet like that he's super-mobile, and if he's fast then he can sprint past your guard in the blink of an eye. What you really need to do is some sort of grip and establish some sort of control over him. Something to slow … [Read more...]
The Two Most Important Guard Retention Techniques
Retaining your guard and preventing guard passes can seem like a daunting task. There are so many techniques that your opponent might use to try and pass your guard. Do you need to learn a different technique to counter each combination and permutation of grips, movement and body positioning you might run into? Not at all. There may be many different guard passing techniques, but there are … [Read more...]
Podcast EP30: BJJ Q&A – Popular Reader Questions Answered
I recently did the second-ever Grapplearts Radio Q&A format podcast. In it I answered questions from my newsletter readers. In this particular podcast we cover many topics, including How to come back to BJJ training after an injury... and not lose your mind while you're rehabbing... Options for transitioning out of Z guard (and half guard in general) to open guard How to improve … [Read more...]
9 Rules for BJJ Self Defense
I recently worked with a female friend to teach her a little bit about jiu-jitsu for self defense. Obviously I believe that jiu-jitsu is super important for self defense in general, but when it comes to women who want to defend themselves, well, it's completely indispensable. We can argue all day about what percentage of real fights end up on the ground (like the Gracies I believe it's very … [Read more...]
Five Great Followups to a Failed Triangle Choke
The Triangle Choke is definitely another one of those Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu signature moves. It's a super-powerful submission and it is responsible for ending a LOT of BJJ, MMA and submission grappling matches. But the sad fact is that no submission works for everyone, or on every opponent all the time... For example, sometimes your legs can be too short to apply an effective triangle … [Read more...]
What Should A Blue Belt Concentrate On In Training?
by Mark Mullen A few weeks back I penned an article called "What Do Whitebelts Need To Learn In Their 1st Year of BJJ?". That prompted a few people to request a discussion of the next step in the BJJ journey: Bluebelt. If we think of the whitebelt as a time of fleshing out the skeleton of the positional hierarchy and learning the mechanics of basic techniques, I would sum up the Bluebelt as a … [Read more...]
How to Train BJJ, even with an Injured Arm (Drill)
This article and video are about how to train and continue to make progress in BJJ when you're dealing with an arm injury. Now I hope that you go through your entire BJJ career without ever suffering a single injury. But this is a contact sport, and therefore you're probably going to get a little banged up from time to time. … [Read more...]