Spiral Guard help

This question is to all the spiral guard masters out there. This past Saturday at the Allentown Eddie Bravo seminar, Eddie covered spiral guard and spoke about its importance. After only drilling it at the seminar I had my first chance to try it in rolling this Sunday. During the roll I went to establish the spiral guard setup position (hooking my right leg around my opponents right leg and putting my left foot on the opponent's right hip) and super quick my partner jumped onto a toe hold, attacking my left foot. The few times I was able to get into the full spiral guard my partner still was able to attack my left foot with a toe hold. I'm just wondering if anyone has any tips out there regarding this or are running into the same problems when they are working on their spiral guard.

Hi Mike.. Yes watch or the toe hold. You gotta keep it tight to his thigh and keep the space stingy. If he manages to grab hold, kick the hell out with that leg or it's donezo!

Thanks Rick. I'm not good at all in that position yet so I'm hoping once I can better manipulate his balance from there he won't feel as comfortable going for the toe hold.

Mike how is he applying the Toe hold? It would be very difficult to hit a standard toe hold from there due to the angle, in order to do so he would have to really rotate his core, leaving him vulnerable to being swept. If he is doing that, comprimise his base, lift your hips up and into his post leg (the one you have hooked) to break his balance an make him reset his base and you can continue into your attacks from there. If the are doing a reverse grip on the toe hold, which is the weaker of the two, blasting straight out of it is a solid option, but will leave you exposed to the knee bar.

If you are going to make Spiral Guard your 'go to' guard, you have to be prepared to be foot and leg locked for bit until you learn to hide your feet well enough to avoid getting pounded by a leg attack artist. Its nothing new, it just needs the same attention you have ever given to anything you have mastered defensively. Happy Spiralling:)

When I hit the spiral I explode into it, I usually dont like to sit there as a control position. Watch Davi Ramos, its rare he sits there, its a fast entry to either take the back or a leg attack. Spiral is a badass guard once you got it down, dont shy away from it if you keep getting tapped. Only way your going to learn it :)

Also note, when I mash on people's feet when they go spiral on me, I know I'm about to get swept, so I latch on, and either perform a rolling toehold, or let them sweep me into the rolling toehold.

yeah i know when we had one of Nabil's guys (Tuna) over he showed me that you can actually cross your feet instead of putting the left foot on the hip.....but you really have to work on your "gramby roll" (if thats how it is written) to be able to get under...but like Nabil said it has to be fast.....i usually cross my feet and if he does go for the toe hold...dive under and you should be good...

Hey guys - thanks for all the feedback. Herzog - He's basically jumping onto my left foot, pushing it off his right hip with his right hand as he's turning and sits down while locking it up with his left hand.

I definitely am waiting too long in the setup position and not exploding into the spiral, basically giving the guys a huge window for the sub. I'm sure its going to come down to just more and more reps. And to be honest, leg locks are a huge hole in my game...just something I need to plug up.

Thanks for all the feedback....glad many of you had the same challenges :).

There's a video somewhere from Eddies seminar in Charlotte last year, I don't know if it's the same sweep you worked but I'll post it when I find it.