One question that I am consistently asked throughout my years of teaching Jiu Jitsu is “Which guard is the best guard?” The modern Jiu Jitsu player has so many options thanks to the creativity of its practitioners and the proliferation of techniques through the internet from Berimbolo, De La Riva, Closed Guard, Inverted Guard, Half-Guard, Deep-Half Guard, Spider Guard, Universe Guard, ect…how can we make sense of all of this?!?! The advice that I give to students is that there is no “best guard” but rather that each guard has its strengths and weaknesses. In this Blog series I will break down each of the most prolific guards and discuss them by using the following metric:
1. What range is the guard effective?
2. What range is the guard weak?
3. How effective is the guard against high level players?
4. How effective is the guard against new players?
5. What physical attributes does the guard benefit from?
6. How effective is the guard at sweeping?
7. How effective is the guard at submitting your opponent?
8. How effective is the guard at maintaining your guard?
9. How effective is the guard at preventing strikes?
10. Which Jiu Jitsu athletes should I look at for ideas on this guard?
To start off, we will be discussing closed guard on Thursday. Stay tuned for the blog update!
