When starting out in BJJ, it is important that you get a grasp of the basic concepts as soon as possible. Whilst this isn’t going to happen overnight, if you think and learn about BJJ in the correct way, it should be a matter of months before you start to see progress. There are no shortcuts and your technique will still be bad after a few months. However, if you learn concepts and fundamentals as opposed to gimmicks and shortcuts, you will win the war rather than just the battle.
Table of Contents
The importance of Learning a guard
There is a wide variety of different guards in BJJ such as half, closed, spider and many more sub-variations. When you begin it might be tempting to just instantly start from the top and try and charge through other beginners guards to side control.
The problem with this approach is that if you never play guard, you will never have a good guard. Why start something in 6 months’ time if you could start today? You will probably have more victories early on if you put it off, but then you will find yourself 4 months in and have no guard at all.
Lastly, an important note is that when a bigger and stronger guy decides to join your gym and tries to crush you. You will at least be able to fend him off since you are capable of playing a bottom position.
Keeping the knee connected with the elbow
Possibly the most important fundamental concept in BJJ, especially associated with guard retention and not being passed easily. Whilst you don’t want to keep your elbow on your knee in closed guard, there are other guards were connected the two as a frame are very strong – such as half guard.
Perhaps, more importantly is from an open guard when the opponent has almost passed you. For instance, if your opponent has walked to the side of your body and your legs cannot recover. You must try and keep your elbow to your knee.
As soon as your elbow has been separated from your knee, you have now pretty much been passed as there is a big space for your opponent to fill.
This also applies to turtle, if you are leaving big gaps between your knees and elbows, your opponent will simply slide their legs in the gaps and take your back. If you are very tight and compact, they will not be able to do this and will have to work much harder to crack you.
Don’t rely on gimmicks
I’m sure every gym has a guy who is the master of baseball chokes from bottom side control. Magid Hage did this at the highest level but also had extremely solid fundamentals.
You will ruin your chance of progress and hamper your learning if you are trying to set up a gimmick every time you are in a bad position.
As another example, if you are trying to shoot a buggy choke every time someone has you in side control, you will soon find that they adapt and are now much more easily able to control you on the ground. The move will work a couple of times on the same opponent and after this, they will learn not to make the mistake anymore whilst you’re stuck doing the same thing.
Keeping compact & not exposing limbs
This follows on from connecting the elbow to the knee. In general BJJ competition, you always want to have a curved spine towards your opponent.
If we think of closed guard, you want to try and connect with your opponent’s body as much as possible from the bottom. If they are able to pin you to the floor (straight spine) and stand up, they are able to distance themselves and escape.
When in turtle, you want to be like a ball with a very curved spine, if your spine is straight, you are flat on the mat and very exposed.
When in side control, if you are flat on the mat with a straight back, once again you are extremely exposed to attacks and have little chance of escaping.
Combining submissions and sweeps
All too often beginners are obsessed with getting a tap. This is understood since it feels like a big achievement, however sweeps are almost as equally important.
For example, if you have an overhook on your opponent’s arm in closed guard. This is a good situation to attempt a triangle since you have control over one side of their body.
However, if the opponent is overly defending the triangle since they know it is coming, you will likely not be able to enter it.
The important point here is that you still have control of their arm, thus making them not able to base on one side. If you’re able to break their posture, they are now vulnerable to a pendulum sweep.
By switching between the submission and sweep attempts, your opponent will now have 2 threats to deal with instead of 1. If we add in a few more, this becomes increasingly difficult to defend until they have no defenses left.
Don’t go too hard and too fast
Going hard and fast is a fine thing to do if you’re training for a competition or in a hard spar. However, when beginning BJJ there is really no point going hard or fast.
If you have poor technique going harder will not make the technique better. In fact, if the opponent is considerably weaker and the technique now works, this has reinforced a bad movement in your brain. When you now try this on a stronger opponent it will be completely useless, no matter how hard you try.
The same can be said for going fast. If you speed past another beginner’s guard, you will now be in side control but have no idea how you got there. When facing people with more advanced guards, you will be stuck for ideas since speed no longer works and will get you in more trouble than going slowly.
Always face your opponent
This last point is kind of obvious. There is one exception to this rule which is turtling. When your guard is almost passed, it is sometimes acceptable to turtle so side control is avoided.
Overall though, you always want to face your opponent. The moment your elbow crosses over the centre line of your body, you are now facing off-centre to your opponent. This will be exploited with various arm drags and ties, resulting in your back being taken.
Another example is from bottom side control, you almost always want to try and turn in to your opponent and recover your guard. The moment you face away, you have once again exposed your back and got into further trouble that could have been avoided.
In contrast, if you have your opponent in side control it is good practice to cross face them and make their head turn away. This reverses the concept and causes your opponent not to face you, which is extremely useful.
Try to control your opponents hips
When trying to pin your opponent in side control, it is important to try and control their hips. If their hips are still then they cannot snake and recover guard.
The same can be said when on the opponents back. If you are in full control of their hips, then they cannot escape and it will be a matter of time before you choke them. If they are stuck facing away from you, they will eventually lose the battle.
One final example is when passing someone’s guard, if you are able to keep their hips stuck to the floor, their legs will only have a certain mobility range. As soon as you are out of this range, the guard will be passed. If the hips are moving then this range becomes a lot more dynamic and bigger, allowing them to recover and regain their guard.
