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There are a lot of suggestions out there telling you how to defend your guard. Some of these are: do not allow the other fighter to get a hold of your knees, find an angle, or drive your legs to the ground. However, there is one suggestion that I often see novices failing to do. Head control is critical in retaining guard.

You see, as an opponent passes their head will generally go to one side and they will move their hips to the same side to reach side control. If they are smart they will control your legs and/or hips to prevent you from hip escaping away. However, if you are able to take control of his advance, you won’t even let him pass at all.

As your opponent starts passing to the right, push his head in that same direction. That will both create a large amount of space between you but also not allow him to progress into side control. You don’t have to be rough and go MMA on him, but you can be firm with a palm to the cheek or a forearm to the neck.

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Everyone wants to know a good secret. This is especially true when it comes to a back ache relief secret. But the question is can you keep a secret? I hope not, because the secret I’m about to reveal should be shouted from the mountaintops. Here’s why. Have you ever heard of ultimate fighter?” With its sudden rise in popularity, you probably have. And I bet many still think it’s some ultraviolent bar-room brawl with sadistic, blood-thirsty fans.

That opinion may have been justified many years ago when the legendary Gracie family first started The Ultimate Fighting Championship in the United States. At that time, the Gracie family believed their brand of martial arts dubbed Gracie Jiu-jitsu to be unbeatable. They were well known in Brazil for The Gracie Challenge. As the legend has it, one of Gracie Jiu-Jitsu’s originators, Hellio Gracie, often ran newspaper ads in Rio De Janeiro requesting anyone who wanted broken arms, legs and ribs to simply show up at his marital arts academy! They were obviously trying to prove a point.

Shortly after coming to America, one of Hellio’s many sons’, Rorion, sent shock waves through the martial arts world by announcing he would fight any person to the death for $100,000 in an early 90’s magazine dialogue. Rorion was also the mastermind behind the original Ultimate Fighting Championship that rutted fighters from many different fighting styles against each other with basically no rules in a fenced-in cage called the octagon. The Graicies wanted to prove to the world their fighting style was the best. And after Rorion’s skinny little brother, Royce, quickly dismantled all his opponents. Some of them outweighed him by over 100 pounds. They had proven their point.

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LEARNING FAST is important for every jiu jitsu student. If you’ve been taking classes for any length of time, you’ll quickly find a deep need to get better faster. You know some moves – a submission, a sweep – and it’s frustrating when you aren’t able to use them on your classmates. You can grapple for hours on end, but it’s not making you progress quickly enough.

Here is the solution, and don’t worry, it is not about mastering a new awesome submission or unbeatable guard that the other jiu jitsu students won’t already know about. In order to progress, you are going to have to train with intention.

As you’ve undoubtedly heard before, if you do not make a plan you will not succeed. So to get better, make a plan, WRITE THE PLAN DOWN, and every day take a step towards reaching that plan. You should not deviate from your plan until your reach your goal. Remember: PUT YOUR PLAN IN WRITING! You must believe me about this!

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