One of the most common questions and challenges that has come up everywhere I’ve taught the First Principles Open Guard curriculum is what to do when someone has your legs stapled to the mat.
This is not just a common issue among lower belts, either…
In situations like the one in the video below or similar, even very good black belts tend to do the same thing I used to do: frame and move their shoulders away.
But when your opponent is giving you really good passing pressure, this only delays the inevitable – because mechanically, it does little to remobilize your legs and hips.
And even when someone does have a viable answer to recover guard, it inevitably requires too many steps and too much energy to be optimal. The first principle “answer” is simpler than you think, and it goes back to one of the most fundamental movements we learn on day one when we’re taught how to shrimp: move your hips, then your shoulders:
And suddenly you go from being completely dominated to actually using your opponent’s passing pressure to escape your hips. Just a couple inches is needed to then move your shoulders way away, which in turn gives you the ability to easily bring your knee up and completely change the angle of your opponent’s grip.
In one move, they go from having everything to having nothing, where they need to start the pass all over again. Meanwhile, your hands are free to attack whenever you want because you didn’t need to rely on grips or aggressive framing to retain guard.
I love the “Ah Ha!” moments like this in Jiu-Jitsu (I’ve had many) and I guarantee there will be many in the new First Principles Open Guard course, which you can get right now during our 50% off launch sale for Black Friday using code: SHALLNOTPASS
P.S. About the course:
My mission was to create a comprehensive and easy-to-learn curriculum around a connection based open guard that:
- Anyone can play, regardless of body type, flexibility, athleticism, or experience level
- Dramatically decreases the amount of energy required to have an extremely hard to pass and dangerous guard
- Radically simplifies the number of variables required to control and attack bigger, stronger, and faster opponents vs. other approaches
- Is equally effective for sport (gi or submission grappling), self-defense, or MMA, so you only ever need to focus on ONE core skill set – allowing you to get compounding results with your training time
- Serves as the sturdy foundation for entering into any other guard “games” that you personally like to use
And after years of training, refining, and coaching this material with hundreds (if not thousands) of Jiu-Jitsu students, I can say with absolute confidence that this curriculum delivers on all of these.
What’s different about First Principles Open Guard?
First and foremost, it’s the fact that my emphasis in this course is much more on developing skills from the perspective of the “roots” (irreducible first principles) rather than the “routes” (specific techniques or styles of guard). So although you’ll learn many techniques in the course, everything stems from a brand new understanding of base, posture, connection, and pressure…
It’s the secret sauce, where even some skills you thought you knew well become exponentially more effective; where situations that previously would have required 3 or 4 movements to counter or attack an opponent suddenly require only 1; where you’ll find that your training partners (the guard passer) will quickly become fatigued trying to pass and survive while you’re doing less work on bottom than ever before.
Here are a few counter-intutive “Ah Ha!” breakthrough moments students who go through this training experience, whether they’re white belts or seasoned multi-stripe black belts…
- Your guard will quickly begin to feel sticker than ever before, allowing you to slow down even the fastest, most explosive opponents while doing much less work on bottom to control distance.
- You’ll learn how to be sticky like this and control even highly skilled opponents without the usual reliance on your grips, leaving your hands free to attack at will as they try to solve the riddle of your guard.
<< Click Here For All The Details >>
(And remember to use code SHALLNOTPASS at checkout.)
