Spider guard

[Kurt McCathron]

If you have goo spider guard players at your new school, tap them for ways to pass the guard. They will no doubt know.

[greg ayres]

hello bru

The owner no longer wanted to pay the affiliation ... at the time of renewal the exchange rate was really bad

[Arman Fathi]

I do probably 80 percent gi. The thing with spider guard is you have to first and foremost respect the points of contact of a guy with sleeve grips and feet on the biceps. If you engage him while he has four points of contact, you're walking into a butcher shoppe. Standard jiu jitsu protocol dictates that a guard player is dangerous on his side, but a bit less dangerous if you get him on his back. Let's start there. If you're caught in someone's spider guard, neutralize his grips by first getting two pant grips of your own, somewhere near the shin or knee, depending on what's available in relation to how far your arm is extended. Take what you can get, either one can work. In a perfect world, my grip is right below the knee and right above the shin, on the outside of the knee. It'll depend on how long their legs are versus your arm length, generally...as well as how far extended he has you. As well as how patient you are and how convicted your mind is to getting exactly what you want. Grab two pant grips, palms on the outside of his knee, facing each other (this detail of precise hand placement is extremely important as it not only creates the leverage in your forearms and wrists to disconnect his feet from your biceps, but feeds into a number of passing options once you have disconnected his feet, which I will discuss). The grip is not unlike the placement of your hand on his knee for an M1 pass. He'd like to extend one arm away and retract the other while staying on his side. Once you have your neutralization grips, side step to get him on his back, back away a little bit and do a 'dumping' motion with your hands to disconnect his feet from your biceps (almost like you're dumping out two buckets of water, going from palms facing each other to palms facing the floor, it should feel like you are literally dumping their connections off you), and once he's disconnected thrust your hips into his hips while tucking my elbows to get them inside his legs in order to stack him and prevent him from regaining his points of contact. At this point I'll transition to hands on the back of his calves and can either stack and pass (the classic double-under pass) or force him to go turtle, which almost always opens up a truck entry. You could also use the dump to disconnect him then use your pant grips to engage via a bullfighter pass (a bit gi specific, but bloody effective for how simple it is), M1 pass (tried and true pass, switch one of your grips from his pant to his hip), or the classic knee slice (which in itself contains the rolling kimura path on both sides as well as the honey hole entry). Leg drags are worth investing in too, they generally pop up if you've cleared one foot off your bicep but his other foot is being stubborn. Sometimes I just say screw it and sit for the footlock once I've disconnected both feet, then use his counter to set up my pass. Mind you, if he still has sleeve grips after you disconnect his feet, there are still counters available to him. Be wary. A common counter is the lasso guard. Long story short with the lasso guard, focus on unlassoing your lassoed arm before creating any other movements. Usually side steps and backward steps are more acceptable, but engagement at this point would leave you vulnerable to getting swept or submitted. The better the guy is, the more technical your movements need to become. The lasso in the hands of a Miyao or Mendes can wreck you no matter where you move.

The spider guard system relies on inducing engagement from the attackee, so be wise and do NOT give the guy your weight until you have attained your neutralization grips, brought him from his side to his back, and disconnected his feet from you. Spider guard passing is a whole sub-section of guard passing, but those are more or less the basic principles I abide by and they have not steered me wrong.