How To Control The Distance To Pass ANY Guard In Jiu Jitsu by Guilherme Mendes

okay guys i'm here today for guillerme just huge honor for me taina guys uh we just shot an entire structure with guillermo all about like how to control the distance when you were passing the guard and he's one of the very best ones on on this and the uh let me think everybody used to watch you completely and everything you used to do was so well calculated and the you have probably like the best passing that i've ever seen especially when you are way too busy so yeah like when we were like we were talking

last time we came here during the dvd and when we finally like uh decided that we were going to do it i was thinking like what should i teach for my first instructional because i really wanted to teach something that was very related to my game competing and [Music] was also something that people could see nowadays when the aoj students complete like they could see all these techniques all these concepts in action uh in the in the competition and i was i had multiple different ideas i was thinking about like a certain technique that would

uh would be very good but in the end i came up with the idea of teaching distance control on top because to me the concept was always like this the the way we trained youtube the way we learned jiu-jitsu was always studying and trying to not only discover new techniques not only create new techniques but also trying to understand what the other person's thinking like how they're going to approach the fight and it's always like it's like that the more you understand something the better you you get because then like you can predict things you

can you cannot you cannot be more creative and distance control helps a lot with the sparring part because if you understand the distance control you you can avoid getting caught in the game of the person is fighting against you it's like i'm going to show you guys a couple examples of like how you apply this knowledge and how you you can you can use this to strategize for for a competition but like whenever you watch everything like you see the distance uh the difference between being really close to the person and what scenarios you're gonna

face there versus like when you're far away from the person like you understand very well what i'm talking about like and like it's really cool how you can you can keep using the same techniques that you like to use but you just understand if you understand this knowledge it becomes like a tool that's very important for you like if you see my brother for example like he is a person that passed from far distance like he is a lot of leg jacks and leg works like he's always moving side to side and then whenever you

watch me fighting i fight from a different distance we use similar techniques i use we use a lot of like a leg jacks knees like leg traps but my distance is different like i fight from a distance where you can control the collars instead of controlling the pain so we call median distance where like you're much closer to the person the person is able to use more de la hiva reverse the lahiva and uh you guys whenever you watch the full the food it did and then you start watching fights again like you competition footage

you're gonna see the difference in the in the game like every person that you watch yeah no and when i remember you competing you were one of the only guys on the rgb that would not pull guard so fast that he would wait for them to pull and they would trust that he would pass the guard and i have all those memories of like you're doing you mix you have like kneecaps getting the halfway it was always like and it's something it's cool because like my my professor like whenever like whenever i got to the

black belt was me and my brother competing always in the same division and then when we got to the black belt i remember that my professor he started saying like the way you pass on top and the understanding that you have on passing will make it very difficult for that style of the game in the lightheader division like everyone there like they fight with the like bad distance where they play spider guard they're very flexible and your understanding of closing going from far distance to to the near distance where you're very tight will make it

very difficult for them and i felt that whenever i was competing i remember that like people would start like feeling really comfortable and controlling and then as i was putting pressure and shutting down their game and getting closer they're very uncomfortable and that was the main thing for me like that built a lot of my confidence over the years like winning the tournament but also seeing like how uncomfortable was able to make my opponents feel yeah yeah no i'm interested to see and to learn i'm gonna start showing like can you go on martin so

normally like far distance is when the person is playing from here where the person uh they normally use spider guard they use uh they use any kind of guard where like you they they're using the legs much more so like from far distance is normally here you're going to see a lot of like this kind of control where you can move your legs but they're controlling the upper body and then you have medium distances where like you see the way i fight the way thailand fights like it's from uh normally you go to reverse salahiba

you're using a lot of knee cuts you use a lot of like leg traps and the next one is the near distance when you have the half guard pretty much or you have a leg jack where like you're really close to the person yeah so the way i thought this did i broke down all three i showed like drills and scenarios for all three and for me whenever i'm like talking to them about the competition and i'm trying to uh create strategy like based on the opponent's games like that's how we analyze the fight so

for example like if i'm gonna fight against someone that is really good playing spider guard right so the person they feel really comfortable in the far distance because they have a lot of space they have good hip mobility here they can control so it's really hard to make the person get tired from this business because that's what they train that's what they feel comfortable that's what they face every day in training but if you understand that and now you close the distance you're going to make the person fight out of the comfort zone you're going

gonna make them fight in a distance where they're not they're not comfortable so normally i start skating and my goal is to get to this distance now why because now there's no spider guard anymore now he's using reverse allah but now he's using his upper body like to frame and before he was only using his legs and the hands were just using for the he was only using for the grips yep it's like by understanding that it doesn't matter what technique you use your only goal in the fight is to get out of that distance

and close the distance yeah so yeah it used to go from far to middle to here sometimes you go straight from far too near yeah so like sometimes like if you're here and then you're able to break the the control and you get close and i can go straight from one far distance to the near distance but the main idea is to understand all three and the difference and start recognizing which one your opponent is using because if he's using far distance and he's comfortable there i cannot stay there because like yes i can beat

the person but i'm gonna go in the hardest way as possible like in the where the person is comfortable so i always try to take them out of the comfort zone and make them feel uncomfortable so for example like a person that plays half garland for example like your game so you like to feel comfortable with the person in the near business right because you have access to underhooks you have access to the lapel right so if i stay here by watching you if i put myself in this situation i know that i'm fighting where

you feel comfortable that's exciting right that's exactly what you want now if you're fighting against the person and the person doesn't let you control the legs like they're here like yeah it's gonna be much harder for me much harder for you why because the person is using the far distance they don't give you the chance to use the positions that you feel comfortable and like this is part of like what we do here what like i always uh did as a competitor i always try to study my opponents by your point uh my brother's appliance

and that's what i try to do more than so that's a question i have so if you would fight against someone you would plan the far distance of your juices in your juices according to their game that guy is more happier you don't want to go to the nearest you want to do more like far and far distance or maybe all right let's see yeah and like this kind of like uh understanding is what i think like a lot of people they miss because like they focus a lot on just doing a technique for example

like i'm gonna fight against a guy that does like half guard for example i'm gonna get down there who can you cut this is the first thought that the person like will have like i get the underhook so the person doesn't have the control over my leg or my back and then with the underhook i finished the kneecap but how many times you train that position with the person getting down there who can you regaining the underhook so like this is the scenario that you train every day in class right it's like yes maybe if

you fight against someone that is stronger than you it's better than you the person will be able to go to the hardest uh way and still win yeah but like the smartest thing to do is to go to a different like a scenario and make you fight in a scenario where you don't train you're not comfortable so if i was going to fight against someone that plays half guard and like fights like controlling my leg and getting under hooks yeah i'm going to stay away from the person and start using leg drags and moving the

legs away to force the person to give him the back instead of hugging my leg and come up on a single leg like i think like this is uh what's going to be special about this dvd what's going to make people like it and that be able to implement not just techniques but a lot of concepts in their game and understanding and one thing that's cool too is that whenever i was doing it i was trying to be like complete with everything i was like the first impression is always like what it sticks you know

and like one like people that's our person and like i i was like man like i wanted to be for people to have a good experience when they watch and like to see like how how my work is i did multiple different things that i showed the technique all three like i showed the concepts all three concepts and then i did a list of drills like i think we have like 20 journals of techniques that you can use to improve your leg work and improve your understanding it's like after you watch everything like you go

over that drills and you drill that 20 techniques and for sure we will improve your leg work to improve your your technical level there and i also did uh i i broke down a couple rounds of sparring like i was spotting the academy and like they were filming and uh yeah voice over and like so you cannot understand like how i think whenever i'm fighting yeah because like i'm trying to describe exactly how i see the fight and i also did a little bit of the breakdown with my students competing so this is something that's

cool too because it shows different people different weight classes different body types using the same concepts the same the same system and uh yeah i really believe like uh people will like it a lot and will be very important for them to go from uh being just like a person that fights hard in the academy to a person that actually like understands and it's able to to think before they put the plane in action oh gee another thing i would ask you so i saw your entire career i saw you from blue belt to black

guy i used to follow you and that kind of stuff and you guys pretty much changed youtube so like there was a point where you guys were purple or brown though that people started hearing about bearing bolus and then you guys got to the black drop everybody was playing the green ball yeah and i think that was a huge advantage to you guys as well because all your opponents were trying to do what you guys do the best and when i see you passing guard that was related you see a lot of people trying to

do them against you guys and hearing pause like this is cool because this is exactly how how i see it like i remember like my brother was always like his guard was like the most special thing in the training like we were talking here before uh about like the training and uh man like his guard was like the diamond in the training like everyone was like oh my god like his guard is amazing he can like take everyone's back and submit everyone like it's nobody can pass this guard and the fact that i was his

main training partner and i was training on top the whole time he was pulling guard every time he would train like he was pretty much on body and i was on top and i was the kind of person that i was always trying to emulate his opponents too so like i was always watching like the guys that he was fighting and then trying to do exactly what the guys would do so he could like kind of like uh feel that in the training and uh and and get prepared so i think that's how i built

my confidence on top that's how i built my game on top and people only were able to see that like our top game and like uh the way we move in the black belt like before that we were only guard players like just like uh taking the back from the bottom but uh i remember that things shift a lot like we had this uh bearing bowl of phase where like we were like taking everyone's backs and stuff and then whenever we went to the black belt like i won every world title that i won in

the black belt was on top like playing on top and in a division where like was really hard to pass the guard because everyone was like flexible and good lasso good spider guard and like i believe like my last year was like when i i really was able to use everything like all my experience and like that that's why i was like whenever i stopped competing like i was very proud of myself because that was like a performance where i felt happy with myself i felt that like you know like as a competitor like even

weenie worlds like the other three world titles like i felt good i i was able to beat good competitors but i always felt that like you go there and like you could have done so much better based on how you train or how much you know and this is the thing that probably like a lot of people that will be watching us like they feel too like you go to the you you train a lot and when you go to the competition like your performance even when you win your performance is not as good as

you know you can do and there's a lot of stuff like holding you back and my last worlds like i felt that i did like i was mentally i was very like calm like i was uh i was able to see the fight got like and be thoughtful during the fight understand what was happening like i didn't feel that straight in any second of the fight and uh again i think this is uh just a lot of was a lot of experience over the years like with the confidence like winning the competitions too and uh

a lot of study too i think like engineering so it's important for you not only to be a person that fights hard i tell my students all the time like if you're just a person that scraps all the time and hikes hard jiu jitsu will work for a period of time for you while you are young athletic energetic but like yeah after after that like you're not gonna be able to do it anymore or people are gonna start using if you find someone that has that same level of intensity and the energy they're gonna be

able to shut you down the person that has a very long career and can win a lot and can uh even when they stop competing they can still train good as the person that has a very good understanding that person like it's very technical and i i think like that's always the the path that we we try to to go you know always trying to be very technical always doing a lot of study we were always the people that sit after training and discuss about techniques and like what we were going to do and like

how people were fighting and what techniques we saw in the competition and uh it all paid off you know like this studies hours of study this is hours i'm still like there's like i was not able to go to venemes no but like i was watching every competition i was like every fight i was watching like all the black belts and like and i think that's what keeps you improving keeps if you already have this mindset of like studying and improving and you use that even when you start competing like to keep evolving like that

that's something that's very special and i think like everyone should have like this mindset of like studies it's not only fighting hard you find hard always but like if you study you always be better no i mean and we always heard that you were the scientist and you were obviously one like studying calculating everything and that and i think now i have the proof here like and many others about how yeah like and but he's he's just like i i tell him all the time like like tainan it's very similar to what i was and

what my brother was when we were his age of course like every generation that comes like you get better faster because you get to learn like things faster but like the approach that he has now it's like it's very similar like he's a person that also like it's always like studying always like trying to like uh talk about the techniques that he saw and discover like new ways to bring this to his game and yeah i think this is the main lesson for everyone watching like don't be the person that just fights hard be the

person that fights hard but also stood a lot of jutsu and like be very technical because that will always put you ahead will always make you perform better in training and perform better in the competition for sure no that's awesome yeah so guys uh you just shot this entire instructional all about like figuring out the distance on how to pass the guard when you were on top and it came out really really good and it's going to be at bjj fanatics.com so maybe by the time you're watching somewhere there so make sure to check that

out and thanks so much