| One of the more complex skill sets to learn in BJJ is | | | | will buy you time to move your hips before its too late. |
| the open guard. The key to the open guard is good hip | | | | Another important tip from the open guard is to keep |
| movement and spacing. When learning the open guard | | | | your opponent from achieving dominant grips especially |
| novice grapplers often look as if there hips are glued | | | | on your pants. Learning grip releases from the open |
| to the mat. The result of this is one tends to push too | | | | guard is an important skill to devote some time to. It will |
| much with the upper body which causes quick fatigue. | | | | amaze you how frustrated a passing opponent will |
| The first idea to think about in the open guard is not | | | | become when you break all of his controlling grips. If |
| allowing your opponent to set your hips. What I mean | | | | your opponent cannot make strong grips, he will have |
| by this is don't allow your training partner to pin your | | | | a hell of a time controlling your hips. |
| hips using gi grips or body weight. There is a critical | | | | As we discussed earlier if a training partner can't |
| space were you don't want your opponent to enter. | | | | dominate your hips he will never pass your guard. |
| What I usually see is students allowing their training | | | | There are many types of open guards you can play |
| partners to easily control their hips and then control | | | | with. I recommend learning the "spider guard" first and |
| their head. The guard is a position where you must | | | | then the "seated" and "butterfly" guard. The |
| constantly move and attack. Just like a shark must | | | | fundamentals of all these guards are based on spacing |
| always swim to survive so must you in the guard. The | | | | and hip movement so pay attention when drilling warm |
| point of all the hip escapes we do in the warm ups are | | | | up moves. In closing have patience when learning the |
| to develop these skills for the guard. | | | | open guard, it requires hundreds of hours of practice |
| If you take only two things from this article remember | | | | and mat time to master. Let me know if you have any |
| to move your hips and stiff-arm your opponent from | | | | questions. |
| the open guard. The function of the stiff-arm is when | | | | Train hard and make a game plan!! |
| your training partner is bulldogging into you. This move | | | | |