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Fixing Common Rubber Guard Problems

29 November 2006 149 views 6 Comments

I was going to save this for after I’d covered everything about my tournament, but I couldn’t resist the
urge to share it after receiving my copy of Mastering the Rubber Guard by Eddie Bravo yesterday.

From what I’ve seen, the most common problems with (and arguments against) rubber guard are getting
stacked, getting passed too easily, the demands on one’s flexibility and the risk of injury. I’ve experienced
all of these problems myself and had mostly given up on rubber guard because of them.

It wasn’t until I attended Eddie Bravo’s seminar that I gained renewed interest and faith in the rubber
guard. He taught details that handily fix most these problems. Seeing him teach it in person and hearing
him repeatedly stress certain points made me realize how I’d be doing it wrong all along. I was missing all
the little details on the grips and positions that are hard to pick up from photographs.

I now think most complaints about the rubber guard come from people who are studying it out of pictures
in books and websites, like I was. It’s hard to learn the right pressure to maintain while doing rubber guard
and you’ll miss little but important details without seeing and learning it in person.

I’ve only just gotten into the book, but already I see that Eddie has devoted a lot of the book to breaking
down these details and the strategies that are missing from his previous book and online tutorials.

Let’s see if I can’t offer something he didn’t with a couple little details I’ve worked out.

A Common Problem

I want to open with a common problem I used to have with rubber guard, and one I suspect many others
are still having. If you’ve played with rubber guard, you’ve probably had this happen more times than you
care to count.

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You’ve broken their posture and gotten mission control.

Your opponent reaches back. Oh boy, you can feel your triangle coming!

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But before you get anywhere, he’s blocked your leg with his elbow and is crushing it to the mat. He’s not
out yet though, so maybe there’s still hope for you.

Oh no, now you’re screwed. He’s gotten his knee in and really killed your rubber guard.

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Maybe you’ll catch them in a “half rubber guard” of sorts and try to work from there (as I’ve seen done,
and as Eddie shows in his book with moves like the Carni), but I’ll bet they’ll just keep driving through
and try to explode your groin.

You’ll likely let go of your rubber guard because of the pain and pressure, and if you’re lucky and they
don’t pass outright, you’ll end up in half guard.

The Fixes
In his book, Eddie devotes an entire chapter to troubleshooting common problems from rubber guard,
including what to do when you they’ve stepped over your free leg. But I’d rather just avoid the situation
entirely.

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I worked out these details by experimenting with what he showed at his seminar, but I now see he
describes them in the introduction to the rubber guard chapter of his book, in the section “Troubleshooting
Mission Control”. Consider this the pictorial companion to his words.

To start fixing this problem, we’ve got to move back to before we’re even in rubber guard.

I’ve got a normal closed guard and I’m breaking their posture.

I step with my right foot on the hip as I climb my other leg up the back. This is actually where you start
setting it up so he can’t pass over your leg. It’s hard to see, but you need to understand that I am
squeezing my knees together with constant pressure, pinching them to his sides. I call this the “thigh
master”.

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When I grab my foot and go to mission control, my free leg is still thigh mastering against his ribs.

Compare this to the first picture in this tutorial, paying special attention to the position of my knee, and
the relationship of his arm to my thigh. My knee is up under his armpit and my thigh is behind his triceps,
blocking him from behind his elbow or reaching back and pressing down on the inside of my thigh.

Eddie stressed this point over and over again at his seminar, saying the ability to maintain this constant
squeezing pressure with your legs is extremely important to a tight rubber guard (or any closed guard). He
also said (and writes in his book) that it takes a while to build the endurance to keep the thigh master on
all that time, but it will pay off when you can.

I’ve been trying to work the constant thigh master into my closed guard, and it’s one factor I attribute my
tournament wins to. If you keep a constant squeeze (as well as pulling your heels to your butt), any high
guard game becomes drastically tighter and harder to posture out of. Once you’ve got your legs
conditioned, it’s harder to high guard well with loose legs because they’ll be able to posture up and rip out
whenever they feel in danger. So putting in a little extra effort beforehand will prevent a lot of problems
from arising later.

I can cover the basics of defending the stack as well as minimizing flexibility abuse and joint injury (which
go hand in hand) at the same time.

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Here is a view of mission control from the side.

The first point to notice is that I have my foot on the hip. This is my first defense to the stack, allowing me
to push them off when they drive in. Simple enough. Eddie covers counters to the stack in his book that
actually sweep and submit them.

This foot on the hip is also what saves my joints and reduces the demands on my flexibility. Even before I
use it to defend the stack, I can use my foot on the hip to tell if I’ll be able to easily get rubber guard or
not. If I can’t get my foot on the hip, I know my guard is too low and I’ll have to pull my leg too high to
work rubber guard. I’ve seriously hurt my hip joint before by not keeping this point in.

Another way to gauge this is by the position of his head relative to my stomach. If he is at my sternum or
above, I know I’ll have to really stretch to pull my leg up for rubber guard. If his face is in my stomach,
down by my hips, then I know I am high enough that it won’t be hard to get rubber guard. Look at the
angle between my back and my left leg, with my hip as the corner. It’s nothing extreme, like having to
bring my foot to my face, and this is because I made sure to get my guard high enough that I could put my
foot on the hip.

I know a lot of people have hurt their knees and even their ankles while trying rubber guard. I’ve never
had problems with this, thankfully, and I think it is because I have always tried to bend at the hips more
than trying to pull my knees or feet around. When you’re going for more demanding moves like tight
omoplatas or gogoplatas, be careful with how much you pull your foot and how much stress is on your
knee, and try to get your leg into place by bending at the hips.

Rubber guard does demand a degree of flexibility that most people have trouble with at first. Go easy at
first, and don’t try it on anyone who’s going to spaz out and thrash out of it. Work on your flexibility;
Eddie’s stretching chapter is great for this. Drill it for a while to get the steps and positions down.

If you want to really get into the rubber guard, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Eddie Bravo’s
book, Mastering the Rubber Guard. What I’ve shown here is just a couple little scraps of the complete
game he’s designed.

6 Comments » (No Ratings Yet)

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OldDog53 said:

Most excellent, although on my Training Log I’ve been banned from discussing or showing any
interest in Rubber Guard until I have lost my newbieness.

# 29 November 2006 at 4:23 pm

Aesopian said:

You are violating your parole.

# 29 November 2006 at 4:24 pm

OldDog53 said:

This isn’t a question about actual Rubber Guard techniques, just the general theory, so hopefully
I’m not violating my parole.

But IYHO (in your humble opinion) do you think Rubber Guard is principally no-gi, or do the
techniques work well with a gi? We know that Eddie’s big thesis is that a lot of gi techniques don’t
translate well into no-gi because you lose your gripping points, but is the opposite true as well, that
no-gi techniques lose their edge when you put the kimono back on because of all the added gripping
points?

(By Rubber Guard I don’t mean just Mission Control etc., but rather the whole flow-charted and
interrelated sequences Eddie shows in the new book, like Butterfly Guard, Twister Side Control,
Half Guard, the gi-less guard passes, etc.)

# 30 November 2006 at 12:24 pm

Aesopian said:

It all works with the gi on. The friction is just different, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the
worse. You can even add gi grips to most of his stuff to make it tighter, though your opponent can
also use gi grips to defend it.

# 30 November 2006 at 12:27 pm

Dochter said:

Continue discussion here: http://www.aesopian.com/forum/general/topic-2/

?

# 30 November 2006 at 2:01 pm

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Aesopian said:

Here, actually: http://www.aesopian.com/forum/techniques/topic-3/

# 30 November 2006 at 2:11 pm

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