Of all the articles and tips I’ve shared this year, today’s might be the most important one…
This concept and strategy has the potential to completely revolutionise your guard game.
Ready? Good! Here it is…
Table of Contents
Use ‘Kuzushi’ (which is Japanese for ‘offbalancing’) before every single guard attack you launch!
Here’s a video on the topic of using Kuzushi from guard that you really should watch, especially if you do no gi!
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Every sweep, submission, or back climb attempt should be preceded by off balancing your opponent.
Once he’s off balance with his alignment broken, he’ll be much easier to deal with…
He won’t be trying to pass your guard. He’ll be so off balance that all he’ll be thinking is recovering his position.
And his frantic reactions to get back into position give YOU a ton of opportunities to launch your real attack.
There’s no such thing as magic in BJJ, but properly applied Kuzushi comes pretty close.
Kuzushi applies to every form of guard: closed, open or half.
And it’s necessary regardless of whether you’re attacking with a sweep, armlock, leglock, choke or backtake attempt.
It’s really easy to explain this concept using the de la Riva Guard without the gi, so you’re only using hooks and frames to control your opponent rather than a series of clamps and gi grips.
My advice…
In the No Gi de la Riva Guard there are a couple of Kuzushi movements you’ll use again and again.
Ignore them and nothing will work except against the most novice of grapplers. Use them and you’ll be MUCH more successful with your basic, intermediate and advanced techniques right away.
True story…
I recently took these basic kuzushi movements (shown in the video) and drilled them for only about 30 minutes with a friend.
Then when I sparred another, much more experienced, training partner and absolutely destroyed him with the de la Riva guard.
Honestly, it was a massacre.
Did I use any techniques that my sparring partner didn’t know? Nope! I didn’t need to use a single fancy technique.
Instead I just kuzushi’d him all over the mat and he pretty much fell down of his own accord.
Happy sweeping!
Stephan
P.S. The video above was a sneak peek from my new ‘No Gi de la Riva Formula‘ instructional.
If you don’t have an effective, reliable way to control someone in no gi – especially when they’re standing – then you might want to consider checking this instructional out.
I have a funny feeling it’s going to be a gamechanger in the BJJ world.
