BJJ / Grappling Tips: Guard recovery / Escape Game - Folds of the Body

Recently we drilled Guard Recovery. This is an incredibly important, and fun, aspect of playing guard. After all, what good are your submissions and sweeps if your guard keeps getting passed?

The focus was to get in there as early as possible and stop the passer from dictating where the grapple goes with their grips, following that up with the usage of a number of frames to stop the progress of a guard pass. The frames were against the collar bone / lapel, the hip, shoulder or the wrist, with emphasis on starting early and engaging the whole body in the escape / guard recovery rather than just pushing with the arm.

Check my review of Saulo v Comprido where Saulo uses
the collar bone / lapel recovery tactic he so well teaches in
Jiujitsu Revolution II

You'd quickly noticed how similar this move is to the Kettlebell exercise called Turkish getups! I highly recommend this for everybody who is working on his or her escape game. Getups are very technical and I advise that you learn the form properly from a KB instructor.

Another point that came to mind is that the frames were often made against Folds of the Body (FoB). It is possible to place a frame against a surface such as the ribcage or the thigh but you will gain the highest leverage and control by framing against a FoB.

Please note that I didn’t say push against a FoB. You should always try to avoid pushing. Not just for the well known "avoid using strength" reason. Valid as that is, the reason you shouldn’t push is simply that every time you push, you commit your body and limit your movement (this is all explained very clearly in Saulo's magnificent Jiu-jitsu University!). The last thing you want to be doing when your opponent is trying to dominate your body is committing your body to your opponents!

You should be creating space, not unifying the two masses! When you are trying to get someone "off you", you shouldn't be attaching to them in any way.

In the video below, my man James Clingerman shows some brilliant guard recovery drills:



You can also check more of James' work and DVDs I've reviewed here and here.

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