Rilion Gracie Energy Corridor

Jiu Jitsu is about thriving not just surviving.

By recovering, you’re creating an opening for them to pass and you’re passing up chances to attack. You don’t trust your frames enough or your ability to hang.

What you want to do is use the fact that they’re close as an opportunity to attack them. If you notice that the passer is scared to come forward, then you can recover your guard back to neutral. Otherwise, keep attacking.

Stand on the point, walk the tightrope, live your life. Do Jiu Jitsu.

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Everyone needs this route in their game.

Becoming confident here means you’ve developed a few perceptions that will translate into all kinds of other scenarios. That’s the beauty of this route.

Eventually, you’re going to end up in this range. When that happens, don’t automatically recover back to neutral. Don’t defend, create space, rebuild your guard, and only then try to attack. That may feel like the rational sequence, but here, it actually makes the situation worse.

Defend, but stay in the exchange. Keep attacking. Stay slightly ahead until a real opening appears.

Recognize that you’re already in a mixup. Trust that you can defend and attack at the same time. You don’t have to escape the exchange before attacking.

This route works even against bigger, stronger opponents because you’re not trying to stop or overpower their energy. You stay connected, move with it, and manipulate it into an attack.

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Willpower is keeping you from the art

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Stop Blaming Your Flexibility.

I teach this in the Fundementals class. Anyone can feel their way through learning this move.

You see an inversion and immediately think, “I can’t do that.”

But this isn’t a move you learn by memorizing a hundred details. You learn it l like a kickflip. Play with it until it clicks and gradually discover the trick through your attempts.

This setup makes it hard to mess up. Because your foot stays on their hip, they can’t easily stack forward. If you miss the inversion, you have a frame protecting you.

It’s the safest way I’ve found to experiment with inversions, and once you understand how to whip it in there, it’s surprisingly hard to miss.

It’s a fun move. I recommend it.

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Your A game is why you keep getting passed

Does your guard feel great against some people and completely useless against others?

It’s because you keep recovering back to the same guard. You gotta change it up, give them a different problem.

If you keep giving them the same reaction, you deserve to get passed.

Stop blaming the lack of grips. You just don’t know how to hang.

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In Jiu Jitsu, skill is seeing three possibilities at once and knowing what not to force.

To make your guard flow, you only need a few reliable destinations, one tip over, one go behind, and one submission.

You could impose your own style, always wrestle up, always pull into deep half, always funnel toward one particular attack, but if you want to flow let your opponent participate in creating the route.

Read their reactions like a conversation. Stay slightly ahead, but not so far ahead that they panic, disengage, or become completely defensive. Keep them in the mix up. They think they’re solving one problem, and in solving it, they expose another.

Because their reactions are never exactly the same, the route is never exactly the same either “You never step into the same river twice.” The river is always changing, and so are you. Even if you return to the same place, the conditions are different.

Here’s a solid example route from stretch guard. Try it out, let me know what you think.

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Nogi guys will never know how fun this is.
Collar sleeve stretch guard is great for beginners, and there’s a huge amount of depth for advanced players. There are so many ways to upgrade to another guard, and there’s also a lot of depth when you stay in it.

That’s what makes it so potent. It’s not the kind of guard where you funnel everything into the same sequence. It takes full awareness, and because there are so many possibilities, it never gets boring.

To do it well, you gotta develop your ability to hang, one of your four modes of action. Hanging means actively using tension to manipulate both your body and your opponent’s body. You’re not just holding grips. You’re using that connection to stay ahead and control the relationship.

Once hanging clicks, keep the aim simple: get under them or get around them. Once you get there you have them in a mixup, you can let the position unfold naturally or check out Part 2 for some tested, quality routes.

If there’s a case to be made for the gi being better than nogi, this is it. The passer can’t easily disengage and walk back. The grips extend the guard’s capabilities. Nogi guys like less friction. I want more possibilities.

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Deliberately develop hanging as a skill instead of relying on frames.

In no gi, framing is the more obvious response, you use your arms and legs to create structure to keep someone away.

Hanging is almost the opposite relationship, instead of pushing them away, you attach yourself to them and use your weight to create tension that works against their posture and movement.

Rather than immediately framing or going straight to a technique, deliberately try to hang on them and feel what their body gives you.

This drill helps you learn the underlying ability to hang. This ability eventually makes sweeps, off balancing, back takes, and other techniques easier.

Bad grapplers never think to hang. Good grapplers do it naturally, but rarely recognize it as a distinct skill.

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Here’s what’s obvious yet hidden when you’re caught in X-guard.

There’s too much happening to consciously think. You have to develop sensitivity through touch to can feel what your opponent is attempting and recognize familiar patterns.

They only have 3 options of attack, tipping you over, taking your back, or submitting you. Your main concern is to keep your balance and prevent them from happening.

Once you’re stable, take your turn on attack by passing or submitting. Even when it feels overwhelming, there are openings. Trust your balance and take your shot.

Find a local to workshop it with. This is plenty to tinkerer with and find your way. Let me know how it goes.

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