I love guillotines! I am sure many people agree with me, and just as many are going to shrug them off as just another choke. Well, if you dare to look into the Systematically Attacking The Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD, you will probably emerge on the other side agreeing with my opening statement.
The guillotine has been around for millennia and is one of the most effective and versatile grappling moves you can use. Unfortunately, it has been downplayed and underestimated in BJJ, mostly falling victim to the Gi vs No-Gi debate in the sport. So, can this Gordon Ryan DVD finally change how we look at guillotines in Jiu-Jitsu? Let’s find out!
Key Takeaways
- No-Gi BJJ DVD, with 4+ hours of ultra-high quality material on guillotines.
- More than an hour and a half of live rolling and rolling breakdowns.
- A complete system to teach guillotines to white and black belts alike.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 8 out of 10.
DOWNLOAD THE NEW GUILLOTINE GORDON RYAN DVD HERE!!!
The Guillotine – A Heavily Underestimated Choke in BJJ
If there is one position that deserves a lot more recognition in the entire sport of grappling, it has to be the guillotine. I will not write ‘choke’ next to it because the guillotine is just so much more than just a way to strangle somebody. It is one of the best attachments that, once achieved, provides you with control over every aspect of a grappling or MMA match.
Not many positions offer such a threat from standing, guard, and top positions, not to mention the potential for further transitions and connecting chains. It is staggering that people only think of the guillotine as a choke, and even then place it exclusively in the realm of No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu. That’s just criminal.
Take a look at any successful top-level grappler and you’ll see heavy use of guillotines all across their game. From Marcelo Garcia, through Rickson and Kron Graci, all the way to Craig Jones and ‘King’ Ryan, every top competitor has a guillotine system up their sleeve. Now, with the latest Systematically Attacking The Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD, you get such a resource at your disposal as well.
The Teaching Legacy of Gordin Ryan
As a competitor, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Gordon Ryan is one of the best grapplers ever. I’ll leave the GOAT debate open, as I lean towards Marcelo Garcia over Ryan, but that is a subject for a different day.
Apart from his well-documented competitive escapades, there is another side to Gordon Ryan that is just as important – his role as a coach. While he is not a full-time instructor, which is very understandable given his competitive focus, he does issue a lot of video instructional, so much, in fact, that he’s just about covered every important subject in the sport.
In terms of that material, some Gordon Ryan DVDs are better than others. If we skip over that train wreck of an instructional that was his very first DVD about weight lifting for grappling, Gordon has had some hits and misses, but nothing too horrible.
The issue I have with some of his instructionals is that it is very difficult to follow his train of thought, as he goes on huge tangents as he is teaching. He seems to be clearing this up, though, in his latest instructionals, as the Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD demonstrates.
Systematically Attacking The Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD Review
Gordon quoted hundreds of direct messages asking him to produce an instructional covering the Guillotine. Despite some coverage in his front headlock instructional, everyone (me included) wanted more, given that he used the position to win the ADCC.
The Systematically Attacking The Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD is another 8-part grappling instructional, as all previous DVDs by the ‘King’. It runs just over 4 hours, covering the guillotine more than any other DVD in the BJJ world, concluding with Ryan’s signature narrated rolls.
Part 1 – Positioning & Connections
As the instructional begins, Gordon shares his thoughts on the variable uses of the guillotine as a position, making the very important distinction that it is much more than just a choke. After a short intro, he covers crucial connection principles, such as distance management and hand positioning.
Lots of attention in this volume goes into gripping, as it defines the mobility you have with the Guillotine, as well as the restrictions in movement you impose on the opponent. Ryan also shares several different types of guillotines at the beginning, often referring to this section as the instructional unfolds.
Part 2 – Closed Guard Guillotines
A quintessential attack from the closed guard and one I still use very often and with great effectiveness to this day is attacking with a guillotine from the closed guard. Gordon offers a myriad of finishes, featuring different elbow and wrist positions, as well as different grips.
He also demonstrates several examples of dilemma attacks you can launch using the guillotine, such as tying it with the threat of the hip bump sweep, Sumi Gaeshi, and triangle chokes.
Part 3 – Open Guard Guillotine
As the Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD progresses, so does the game he demonstrates. Starting from the most secure position to hunt for the guillotine, Ryan opens up the guard, which also offers a lot more attacking avenues using guillotines.
Part 3 is all about keeping a hold of the head as you make your way through sweeps, submissions, and backtakes using the guillotine. Ryan covers an important alignment rule first, before heading to explore how the guillotine connects different open guards and how opponents usually react.
He then builds on those common reactions, teaching exactly how he uses the guillotine for effortless Sumi Gaeshi sweeps, to counter body lock passing and even get out of side control.
Part 4 – Guillotines vs. Passing
Immediately following the bottom guillotine game is Ryan’s tactical blueprint for using guillotines to deal with a bottom player’s guard. There is a natural progression here, as he started in the closed guard opening the game and tying sweeps with submission finishes to allow the guillotine to get him to the top and in a passing scenario.
The position works like a charm for passing as well, particularly against seated guards and the half guard. Chapters in this volume of the Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD cover footballing the head (I love the term!), rolling past the opponent’s legs, and setting up knee slides.
In most of the cases, Gordon picked a landing position for his passes that still allows him to use the guillotine for control and finishing, such as side control and the mount. This is where different types of guillotines appear again, as each works slightly better in a specific position compared to the others.
Part 5 – Top Position Guillotine Chokes
A personal favorite aspect of mine when it comes to using guillotines is to torture people from top positions. I expected Ryan to share lots of options for improving control and submission rate, and he did not disappoint.
Albeit shorter than the other volumes in this series, this part covers everything guillotine-related from the mount, side control, and the back mount. Since things are pretty clear mechanically, Ryan showed diversity by going over some common scenarios and troubleshooting common problems.
Part 6 – Headlock Guillotines
If there is one position that screams guillotine, it has to be the front headlock. This part of the Systematically Attacking The Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD is a throwback to Ryan’s previous front headlock DVD, covering subjects such as setups vs. defensive grips, hand positioning, body alignment, and how to set up other arm triangle chokes, such as the Darce choke and the Anaconda.
Part 7 & 8 – Rolling and Commentary
As expected, the Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD ends with rolling sessions including several different training partners, followed by an analysis of each and every roll, explaining exactly how he used the guillotine system in a real sparring setting.
This is arguably the best part of the instructional, as Gordon is exceptionally good at analyzing rolls, and does not spare any details. A great way to end a very solid instructional.
Don’t Neglect The Guillotine
The guillotine has a place in every grappler’s toolbox, Gi or No-Gi. Don’t shy away from it simply because you perceive it with a choke. It is a very powerful position that you can use to navigate around the entire game without ever sacrificing control and always maintaining a threat of a finish.
Just think of the Kimura trap system. You essentially get the same with the guillotine, a trap system that, once activated, is only going to draw your opponent deeper into trouble. And don’t worry about nonsense like the Gi is going to get in the way. If anything, having extra handles to grip is only going to make you a lot more efficient at what you’re doing.
The reason the guillotine works is simple, and you already know it: it breaks posture and keeps it broken. Wrestlers have been using variations of the position for thousands of years to out-grapple opponents, so why would you skip over using such a great weapon in modern BJJ?
GUILLOTINE GORDON RYAN DVD – GET IT HERE!!!
Off With Their Head!
I will dare to claim that the Systematically Attacking The Guillotine Gordon Ryan DVD is the best instructional by the ‘King’ to this moment. I am not the biggest fan of his instructional, but I am coming around, and his covering one of my favorite subjects certainly helped.
The fact of the matter is that nobody has ever covered the guillotine so diversely as Ryan did in this BJJ DVD instructional. Just go on and grab it, there is no way you’re not going to benefit from this instructional, regardless of how good you think you are at Jiu-Jitsu.
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