Video Of My Rubber Guard Problems

[Jeremy "The Gerbil" Arel]

Ok tonight I made a little video showing my progress with the Rubber Guard. I'm having some mixed success with it and I had asked in an earlier post if I could get some feedback. The feedback was very helpful although I have yet to implement much of it.

I grabbed a couple of white belts tonight and tried to force some Rubber Guard. I know that I need to work on my flexibility (and I have been like crazy) but I'm thinking maybe there are some technical errors that I'm making.

I edited it together so all it is is my Rubber Guard (that way you dont have to watch anything boring or unnecessary) and it is 3:55 long. The first half of the video I only ask one or two questions, but the last half I write in a lot of questions. If you want to critique my technique that would be great.

thanks guys

Jeremy

[AlexBranom]

Jeremy nice work man, always cool to see a blackbelt start adding RG to his game.

A few small things I noticed. When your in Mission control your grabbing over the top of your ankle when you should be wrist to ankle underneath. It seems like you correct yourself towards the end tho.

When you zombie his hand to the mat make sure to sit up and hug your knee. That arms job is to hug your knee keep it there. Use your other hand to clear the neck and start attacking for omoplata's

Overall great work can't wait to see your guard a year from now

[Sam Sales]

Agreed. Awesome to see a grappler of your standing starting to play with RG now. :-)

I am no expert, furthest thing from it in fact. But definitely looks like the friction from the Gi makes certain moves a little tougher to do. Zombie being one of them. Always good to hit that 'free new york' whenever possible.

Mastering the system would help your progress sooooooo much. Only $5 per month, and there is like 40 hour long episodes there. A couple go deep into the basic path etc etc. :-)

[Max P.]

Hey Jeremy, in your video you ask "Is it ok to bring the second leg even if I can't Zombie?".

Generally it's risky since he can pull out but there is an option where you double bag -> Invisible Crackhead -> Zombie -> Invisible Collar which lowers the risk of him pulling out. It's in Mastering the System Episode 32.

You really should subscribe to MTS, there is tons of rubber guard instructions in there.

Also if you are stuck half-way through the zombie, you can always go to the biceps-crusher.

[Josh Mahoney]

One big thing I noticed was you brought the arm that was hugging the knee off the knee to clear the neck, but you're supposed to use the other arm that clears the neck. With your other arm moving to the other side of the head and pushing it out of the way you set up omaplatas, gogoplatas and locoplatas because it becomes easier to pull your foot over their shoulder. The way you're doing it, you'd have to pull the leg all the way over the head which is a huge battle and would require INSANE flexibility.

[Josh Mahoney]

God damn it, to say I'm an English student, I'm not very eloquent when it comes to explaining jiu-jitsu

[Trey Rushing]

I see where you would be in mission control and can't get the zombie cause he is tight and would throw up crack head you could use the pump then deep hook and dump him for spider web that's one of my favorites lol

[Mark Holloway]

Hey man, big props to you for posting a video of yourself asking for a critique. As mentioned, when you are in Mission Control and have your right arm hugging the knee, leave it hugging the knee and use the other arm to clear the neck.

Here is a clear and concise step-by-step video of Ari demonstrating Mission Control > Zombie > New York > Chill Dog > Omaplata.

[Josh Link]

you asked if you "could zombie before mission control".. Sure, anytime you can trap the arm and hug the knee go for it. sometimes if your quick enough and your opponent allows it you can go straight from trapping the arm into "chill dog". Its actually a good way to trap the arm if your having trouble with the zombie, pretty much everyone in the system knows you are going to try and zombie and will not let you get the hand to the mat. but sometimes they will forget about the opposite arm and you can quickly switch sides straight to "new york" or "chill dog"

[Brandon Mccaghren]

Jeremy, I'm super excited to have you exploring the rubber guard. The more high level players we have working with it, the more innovation and (ultimately) efficiency we will discover. Thanks for being open-minded enough to give it a go.

I'm far from the ultimate knowledge source, but I think I can help steer you towards some things that will make it easier for you to implement the rubber guard:

@ 1:33 - The way you're gripping with your left hand here is (I feel) superior to your previous grips in the video. The idea is to build a hook with your left hand so that you don't have to rely on the strength of your grip and your fingers to hold your shin in place. While you're wearing the gi, you can sorta grip loosely. But when it gets slippery in no gi, that hooking grip will feel a lot more important. When I was first learning, I would force myself to make a fist in order to drive my hook deeper and prevent grabbing with my fingers.

@ 1:36 - To help keep the left elbow low, think about setting it in place first and then throwing the leg up to your hand. Think of it like a middle block in karate, if that makes any sense. It takes a bit more flexibility and dexterity to do it, but it's way easier to keep good angle and posture.

@ 2:57 - I will do anything I can to trick my opponent into giving me the hand on the mat first. The Zombie is the toughest part of the Rubber Guard. After you have the hand on the mat, everything else is down hill from there. So, if you can skip straight to Chill Dog or even the Kung Fu move, that's excellent. Fake sweeps are a great way to get your opponent's hand on the mat.

That having been said, clearing the arm to the mat without Mission Control is the moment when a powerful opponent who is bent on getting his posture back will slip out, so be on the lookout for that.

@ 3:38 - 1. You could bail back to guard. 2. You could transition to your sweep game from there. 3. You could look for what Eddie calls the Duda. It's a submission/sweep from a half-Zombie position. You can find the Duda in MTS 2 at the 11:26 mark or in Mastering The Rubber Guard page 146 (Jon Helton should have access to both of those resources if you don't).

@ 3:53 - During your last omoplata attempt your opponent stacks pressure into you. I have a lot of success against this defense by controlling the trapped elbow (in this case with your right hand) and rolling belly down. He's already begging to go that way with his pressure, why not give him what he wants and sweep straight to Twister Side Control? It's an idea I picked up watching Marcelo Garcia on his website.

I noticed, also, that you sometimes like to play your Rubber guard similar to the way Ben Saunders used his high guard in one of his previous fights: with your right leg on the neck and your right arm working inside. I'll be interested to see what you're able to do with that. I've never been able to make it work well, but Saunders used it with incredible success. If anybody can figure it out, you can.