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How to Defeat a Smaller Opponent

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Smaller opponents can become big nuisances, especially if they have legitimate skills. You would think that the very fact that you're bigger than your opponent means you should be able to go full-Conan on them every time... Mongol General: "Conan! What is best in life?" Conan: "To crush your enemies, see them driffen before you, and to hear the lamentation of their vimmen." … [Read more...]

What a Spider Guard Fail Teaches You About How to Train Any Technique!

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Today's tip comes was inspired from some training I did with a smaller grappler, let's call him 'Stu.' Stu wanted to learn some sweeps from the Spider Guard (an open guard position where you control both of your opponent's sleeves and have one or both feet on his biceps). Anyway we worked on what I call the Baiting Sweep.' (Those of you who have purchased the Spider Guard Masterclass … [Read more...]

4 Mistakes That’ll KILL Your Half Guard…

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Whether you want to or not, you ARE going to end up in the half guard! Some people simply use the half guard as a last resort when their guard is being passed. Their opponent is blasting around their guard, so without even thinking about it they lash out with their legs and trap one of his legs between their own. … [Read more...]

A Glossary of Guards Part 2: The Open Guard

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By Stephan Kesting and Elliott Bayev Principal Photography by Keith Haist Originally Published in Ultimate Grappling Magazine This is the second of three articles discussing variations of the Brazilian Jiu-jitsu guard position. In this article we are going to focus on the Open Guard, where your legs are NOT locked around your opponent’s torso (the other articles cover the Closed Guard and the … [Read more...]

Double Threat Attacks from the Bottom Position

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In grappling, sometimes a submission can be more than just a submission.  Let me explain… There is no shortage of different submission attacks from the bottom position. Most typically you'd attack from the closed guard, open guard or half guard position, but you can also use submissions if you're turtled under your opponent, or even pinned in side mount. Of course if you finish a … [Read more...]

The Deep Half Guard (video)

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Nowadays you often see the Deep Half Guard at the highest levels of BJJ and submission grappling competition. But there are a lot of important details to the Deep Half Guard that you need to know before it becomes a powerful sweeping weapon. Because I saw this position working again and again, several years ago I decided to add it to my repertoire.  It's a bit like regular half guard except you … [Read more...]

BJJ Wrist Injuries and My Guilty Conscience

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Today's tip comes from my heart, because I learned this lesson first hand when I injured my first BJJ teacher (and friend) Pshemek Drabchinsky. Once upon a time we were grappling. I was on top and things seemed to be going well (this was unusual at the time because he was way more skilled than I). However on this day I almost had him pinned! Pshemek is one of those Daddy Long Legs kind of … [Read more...]

Free Book About the Guard for Grapplearts Readers

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Heres's a really cool resource for you, something that I've received a TON of positive feedback on.  It's a free, downloadable book that breaks down the many different variations of the Guard position with detailed descriptions and lots of pretty pictures!  And you can grab it super easily, for free... … [Read more...]

Offside Kesa Gatame has an Judo Name

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OK, it's official. The collective intelligence of the Grapplearts readership is awesome. Thousands of people people receive  my newsletters, and many more read my articles on the website, via RSS feeds, etc. If we all got together and combined our knowledge we'd make Rickson Gracie look like a three-stripe white belt. … [Read more...]