BJJ 101

Jul 12 2021

The Correct Way To Finish Sweeps

One of the most common things you’ll see in competition (particularly in the lower belts), is a BJJ player sweeping their opponent only to get immediately reversed or submitted.

However, this situation is easily avoidable providing you use the correct movement when completing your sweep. In this short video, Tom shares two ways to come up from a sweep and when you might want to use them.

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Apr 15 2021

Guard Retention 101

How To Develop An Impassable Guard

Click the links below to jump straight to a section…

Go to Video 1: 5 Essential Guard Retention Concepts
Go to Video 2: The Squashing Drill
Go to Video 3: The Stepping Drill
Go to Video 4: Real World Retention Example

If you develop an impassible guard, you’ll never have to worry about escaping bad positions. I know that’s a bold statement, but let me explain further and hopefully, you’ll understand what I mean.

Firstly, let’s start by defining what I mean by a bad position. I’m not talking about these fancy leg entanglements that have become common, although the concepts covered later will help defend them too. What I’m talking about are the traditional positions you’d hate to find yourself in if you were fighting a 300-pound gorilla (i.e. side control, mount, and back).

If you think about how you end up in those positions, there are only a few circumstances you will end up in a bad position. You’ll end up with a bad position if your opponent passes, if you get swept or taken down, and from a failed submission.

In any of those situations, an impassable guard will stop your opponent progressing.

It’s pretty obvious why an impassible guard would stop your opponents passing, but in either a takedown, sweep, or failed submission, you can usually to scramble back to your guard.

If you look at you’re training from this standpoint, it makes far more sense to focus your training on guard playing or guard passing. After all, the top or bottom of guard is where you’ll spend 90% of your time.

So now we’ve established why you absolutely, positively want to develop an impassible guard, it’s time to look at how you can develop one.

5 Essential Guard Retention Concepts

During your Jiu Jitsu career, you’ll encounter hundreds of different guard passing situations. You’ll meet speed passers, pressure passers, passers who jump, and everything inbetween.

However, regardless of how your opponent is trying to pass, there are a few essential guard retention concepts that apply to all passes. The video below outlines five of the most important.

Just to recap, here are the five concepts:

Hide the hip to armpit space – become the egg!
Keep your guard wide.
Get your opponent on your feet.
Square your hips.
Create layers of guard.

To help you develop these concepts, I want to share with you two drills we regularly use in our academy. These drills are simple, effective, and can be done very quickly, which makes them ideal to be used as a warm-up anytime you’re working your guard.

The Squashing Drill

The Squashing Drill is a great way to develop your ability to hide the hip/armpit space and keep your feet facing your opponent. The nice thing about this drill is you can also use it as a way to improve guard retention flexibility and core strength.

The Stepping Drill

The second guard retention drill is the Stepping Drill. As with the squashing drill, this drill reinforces hiding the hip/armpit space but also teaches you to square your hips and keep your guard wide.

Try doing 2 – 3 one minute rounds of these drills anytime you plan to work your guard build from there.

Real World Retention Example

Talking about concepts and drills is great, but I wanted to give you an example of how you apply these ideas in the real world.

For our guard retention example, I choose one of the highest percentages passes in Jiu Jitsu; the Knee Slide. Whether you’ve been training 6 months or 6 years, you’ve probably encountered this killer pass.

Check out how you can apply these concepts to counter the knee slide in the video below:

Putting It All Together

Hopefully, this article has given you some idea of why developing killer guard retention is so beneficial, and some of the most essential concepts, but how should you start improving your guard retention?

The answer to that is simple; practice your guard retention every time you train.

Rather than playing your A-game next time you roll, sit to your butt the moment you slap hands and fist bump. Don’t worry about having grips or even being in a specific guard, and try to prevent your opponent from passing by using the ideas we discussed here.

Also, don’t worry about sweeping or submitting your opponent, that can be added later and will be much easier once you have developed your guard retention skills.

The first few times you do this, your training partner will probably pass your guard easily, but over time you’ll have more and more success retaining your guard.

Once you feel confident in your retention abilities against most people (regardless of age or skill level), start connecting your retention to guards, then sweeps and submissions.

This whole process could take several months or even a year, but you have time. Your goal should is to be a world class black belt, not a champion white belt, and guard retention is vital for that.

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Apr 09 2020

Killing Closed Guard

Getting stuck in always closed guard is never fun. However, if your opponent is good in that position, it will be a truly miserable experience.

Go to Video 1: Posture In Guard
Go to Video 2: My Favourite Guard Break
Go to Video 3: My Back Up Plan
Go to Video 4: No Gi, No Problem (No Gi Guard Break)

The first time I experienced this was at the 2007 European championships. My first fight was against good purple belt from Alliance called David Said.

I was a little nervous before the fight, but I’d just received my purple belt and thought I was invincible. How wrong I was.

Closed Guard Sucks

As soon as we hit the ground, he secured closed guard, and I realised I was in serious trouble. He was firmly in control of my posture, balance, and the fight. Every time I tried to regain my posture he would adjust his position and counter with a sweep or submission attack.

For about 3 minutes, I survived David’s attacks but did little more than that. Then I made a mistake and over committed to a guard break, in the blink of an eye, David capitalised on my mistake and secured a painfully tight armbar.

As I iced my throbbing elbow joint and fought back the tears of frustration, I made a promise I’d never get stuck in closed guard again.

Becoming A Closed Guard Breaking Monster

With the help of my coach, Braulio, I set about becoming a closed guard breaking monster. I wanted to get to the point where I could look at a closed guard, and it would wither in fear of my skills.

Ok, that’s probably not going to happen, but I wanted to develop an efficient way to break the guard against any opponent.

Fast forward a few years and I’ve now reached that point. I can honestly say I have no fear of breaking anyone’s guard, and I have against some of the world’s best Jiu Jitsu players.

Along the way, I learned three important lessons I want to share with you now that will help you kill your opponents closed guard.

Avoiding Closed Guard Is The Best Option

The first lesson I learned was that avoiding closed guard is much easier than having to break it. The simplest way to do this is bring one knee up (think combat base) anytime your opponent looks to close guard.

If you do this, it will make it difficult for your opponent to cross their ankles and it will give you enough time to stand, step over a leg, and avoid closed guard entirely.

Defend First, Then Posture

The second lesson (and where I went wrong in my fight with David) is you have to regain your posture before you try to break closed guard, and if your posture is broken you have to defend before you can regain your posture.

Then, and only then, you will be able to start SAFELY cracking open the closed guard. I do this by controlling the lapels with one hand and the hips with the other.

Check out this video that covers both avoiding closed guard and building your posture.

Key points:

if your posture gets broken, control both lapels, keep your head central and follow your opponents hips.
the moment your head is free, posture up and frame against their chest and hips
create pressure against their feet
whenever the guard opens, go to combat base and start passing
you can avoid closed guard entirely by posting one knee

Standing Is The Easiest Way To Break

The final lesson I learned is that standing to break the guard is far easier than trying to break on the knees.

When you stand up to open the guard you gain your secret weapon in guard passing; Gravity. And gravity is a powerful ally in the battle to open the guard.

Compared to breaking on the knees, standing has a higher risk of being swept but a lower risk of submission. You also have to close the space again once you’ve opened the guard.

In my opinion, the pro’s far outweigh the con’s and providing you’re aware of the potential problems you can neutralise them before they happen.

This video covers my favourite way to open closed guard from standing and how to train it.

Key Points:

look to stand as soon as possible
control one sleeve to avoid being knocked off balance
stand up tall, so you don’t provide a shelf for their legs
hang them from the sleeve grip
use your free arm and shake open the guard
as soon as their guard opens close the space or step back and start passing.

However, sometimes people don’t give you the sleeve grip (damn them). But don’t panic, if that happens you simply stand up using the collar grip.

This video covers how I stand and break the guard using the collar grip.

Key Points:

look to stand as soon as possible
hide your legs when you stand to avoid being knocked off balance
immediately break the angle when you stand to avoid being swept
stand up tall, so you don’t provide a shelf for their legs
hang them from the collar grip
use your free arm and shake open the guard
as soon as their guard opens close the space or step back and start passing.

No Gi, No Problem

You may be wondering how I break closed guard in No Gi when you don’t have the collar or sleeve grips?

The process for breaking closed guard doesn’t change. First, I establish my posture, then I stand. The only difference is I am a lot more explosive when I stand and I’m very aware my opponent will be trying to under hook my legs.

This video covers how I break the closed guard in No Gi.

Key Points:

look to stand as soon as possible
explode to your feet using the throat and hip grips
immediately break the angle when you stand to avoid being swept
stand up tall, so you don’t provide a shelf for their legs
use your free arm and shake open the guard
as soon as their guard opens, kick out and step back to avoid being swept.

By using these simple tips and practicing the techniques, you should be able open almost anyone’s closed guard.

Discover The Simple Way To Pass Any Guard

Passing the guard can be a very frustrating experience if you don’t have an effective system.

The beauty of the Simple Passing System is that it focuses on one position you can get from all most any guard.

Once you establish that position, your opponent only has two options both of which will lead to the guard pass.

Here’s what you’ll get:

– Two 40-minute instructional videos covering everything you need to know to pass the guard from any position.
– Simple Passing System Mind Map so you’ll have a clear guide of what to do and when
– The Performance Drilling eBook so you have clear way train the techniques.

Here’s the bottom line:

If you struggle to pass the guard and are looking for a high percentage, simple way to pass even the most frustrating guards, then this instructional is for you.

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Price: £27.00
Length: 101 min
Includes: Two Instructional Videos, Mind Map, and Performance Drilling