It has been a while since I’ve seen an elaborate Gi-guard DVD that features all the stuff that was a buzz in the BJJ world circa 2012. Inversions, Berimbolos, heavy use of different Gi grips and elaborate attacking schemes all feature in the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD.
I’d dismiss such a DVD as ineffective and a waste of time and money in an instant if it wasn’t for the underlying concept shared by the young Aussie BJJ black belt. To be honest, while there’s a lot of fluff, this instructional does deliver a powerful idea on how to combine guards for an ultra-effective bottom game in Jiu-Jitsu.
Key Takeaways
- A heavily Gi-based BJJ DVD with 6 volumes, lasting just under 4 hours.
- Offers the concept of dividing guards into upper and lower body dominant and creating hybrids.
- Features sweeps, a few submissions, and plenty of leg entanglement entries.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 6 out of 10.
ARIEL TABAK HYBRID GUARDS DVD AVAILABLE HERE!!!
What is your favorite guard? Depending on how long you’ve been involved in BJJ, this answer has changed for you multiple times. If it hasn’t you’re either crazy good about playing one guard, or you’ve just started the Gentle Art.
I really have no idea how many different guards BJJ has, but I doubt I’d be wrong if I claimed they’re more than a hundred. That just means you can’t really understand all of them even if all you did was play guards throughout your BJJ career. Luckily, you don’t have to know them all.
The best way to think about guards is in terms of defensive and offensive ones. Some are awesome at helping you stay connected to the top player, while others offer plenty of sweeps and submissions. But what happens when you have a guard, such as the half guard, that’s great for both?
The ideas outlined in the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD about dividing guards into lower and upper body dominant and blending them together is definitely one worth exploring further.
BJJ Guard Virtuoso Ariel Tabak
Ariel Tabak is a BJJ black belt under Cicero Costha and is famous for having one of the best guards in the game. Tabak has been training since 2009 when he was a teenager. The Australian spent his colored belt days under the tutelage of Daniel Keane and Daniel Shaw, getting his black belt in 2019.
Since then, young Tabak has conquered the IBJJF Pan Pacific championships twice, as well as grabbing third place at the ADCC Asia and Oceania Trials in 2022. Still not in his prime, Ariel has already spent a lot of time sharpening his skills with regular trips to Brazil so there is still a lot to come from him in the future.
While he is comfortable in all BJJ settings, Tabak has so far excelled in Gi Jiu-Jitsu more than No-Gi, and the guard is his main playground. Some snippets of his prowess with Gi guards can be seen in the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD, demonstrating his impressive teaching capabilities.
Detailed Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD Review
If you are a fan of modern Gi-based guards, you’re really going to enjoy this Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD. While in my opinion not overly practical, his iteration of hybridizing upper and lower body guards and combining them with lege entanglements does have a lot to offer in terms of potential:
Part 1 – Key Concepts And Principles
As the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD kicks off it becomes immediately apparent that there are going to be lots of inverting, spinning, and Gi gripping in this one. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Ariel begins by introducing his key concepts of merging different guards together. He uses
It has been a while since I’ve seen an elaborate Gi-guard DVD that features all the stuff that was a buzz in the BJJ world circa 2012. Inversions, Berimbolos, heavy use of different Gi grips and elaborate attacking schemes all feature in the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD.
I’d dismiss such a DVD as ineffective and a waste of time and money in an instant if it wasn’t for the underlying concept shared by the young Aussie BJJ black belt. To be honest, while there’s a lot of fluff, this instructional does deliver a powerful idea on how to combine guards for an ultra-effective bottom game in Jiu-Jitsu.
Key Takeaways
- A heavily Gi-based BJJ DVD with 6 volumes, lasting just under 4 hours.
- Offers the concept of dividing guards into upper and lower body dominant and creating hybrids.
- Features sweeps, a few submissions, and plenty of leg entanglement entries.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 6 out of 10.
ARIEL TABAK HYBRID GUARDS DVD AVAILABLE HERE!!!
What is your favorite guard? Depending on how long you’ve been involved in BJJ, this answer has changed for you multiple times. If it hasn’t you’re either crazy good about playing one guard, or you’ve just started the Gentle Art.
I really have no idea how many different guards BJJ has, but I doubt I’d be wrong if I claimed they’re more than a hundred. That just means you can’t really understand all of them even if all you did was play guards throughout your BJJ career. Luckily, you don’t have to know them all.
The best way to think about guards is in terms of defensive and offensive ones. Some are awesome at helping you stay connected to the top player, while others offer plenty of sweeps and submissions. But what happens when you have a guard, such as the half guard, that’s great for both?
The ideas outlined in the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD about dividing guards into lower and upper body dominant and blending them together is definitely one worth exploring further.
BJJ Guard Virtuoso Ariel Tabak
Ariel Tabak is a BJJ black belt under Cicero Costha and is famous for having one of the best guards in the game. Tabak has been training since 2009 when he was a teenager. The Australian spent his colored belt days under the tutelage of Daniel Keane and Daniel Shaw, getting his black belt in 2019.
Since then, young Tabak has conquered the IBJJF Pan Pacific championships twice, as well as grabbing third place at the ADCC Asia and Oceania Trials in 2022. Still not in his prime, Ariel has already spent a lot of time sharpening his skills with regular trips to Brazil so there is still a lot to come from him in the future.
While he is comfortable in all BJJ settings, Tabak has so far excelled in Gi Jiu-Jitsu more than No-Gi, and the guard is his main playground. Some snippets of his prowess with Gi guards can be seen in the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD, demonstrating his impressive teaching capabilities.
Detailed Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD Review
If you are a fan of modern Gi-based guards, you’re really going to enjoy this Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD. While in my opinion not overly practical, his iteration of hybridizing upper and lower body guards and combining them with lege entanglements does have a lot to offer in terms of potential:
Part 1 – Key Concepts And Principles
As the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD kicks off it becomes immediately apparent that there are going to be lots of inverting, spinning, and Gi gripping in this one. Not necessarily a bad thing.
Ariel begins by introducing his key concepts of merging different guards together. He uses Leandro Lo’s spider guard and De la Riva combo as an example, demonstrating the principle of combining upper and lower bodyguards for the ultimate bottom control.
The entire first volume explores this connection, looking at ways to off-balance the top person and win the essential grip fight. There is also some useful information on how to precisely remove and re-attach your upper and lower body posts to make the opponent stuck at all times.
Part 2 – De la Riva Guards
The De la Riva guard, both regular and reverse plays a huge role in this entire instructional. The first mention of the sleeve and pants DLR guard is in the second volume of the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD, where lots of the focus is on keeping the position and attacking with elaborate sweeps.
In my opinion, most of the stuff is overly elaborate, taking away from the efficiency of Jiu-jitsu for the sake of connecting more and more stuff together. The few finishing chapters that cover the high knee shield are actually the most useful part of this 45-minute-long part of the DVD.
Part 3 – Hybrid Spider-Single X Guard
The third volume of this Ariel Tabak guard DVD goes on to explore the knee shield further, offering leg lock entries with the knee bar as the main finish. The way Tabak hybridizes the half guard is by exploring the use of a spider guard hook with the free leg, essentially guiding the opponent to a spider-RDLR hybrid or a combination of X-guards and spider-inspired biceps control.
There is a lot of emphasis here on pants control, combined with biceps spider control which are very useful and innovative, opening a lot of opportunities for Gi guard players and leg lockers. The hybrid Spider X guard emerges from all this chaos, and I am left pretty unconvinced by its practical application against seasoned grapplers.
Part 4 – The Whip
As far as somewhat useful aspects of the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD are concerned, the fourth volume is as useful as things get. All usual overcomplication aside, Ariel Tabak explains his Whip concept here, which is essentially a play on the leg lever sweep.
He uses a drawstring grip to control one end of the leg, and a pants grip on the other, allowing him to effectively sweep from all the hybrid guard positions he shares in this DVD. The spider hook makes it easier for Ariel to open up entries into inverted and spinning attacks using the Whip.
Part 5 – Lasso RDLR Guard Hybrids
I spent a lot of time doing inverted Gi-based guards, lasso stuff, and RDLR in my time on the mats, and I avoid them for a reason – they’re not necessary. With plenty of easier ways to weep or get back, I find no allure in this type of guard play, but since others might like it, I’ll try to be impartial about it.
The penultimate part of the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD focuses on connecting the lass guard as the upper body control with the RDLR hook as the lower body one. Looming brutal leg lock threats aside, the position is a solid one to retain guard and attack.
Tabak does provide a different dimension to the game, building up the arsenal of attacks to include more than spinning sweeps and Omoplatas by integrating the Ashi Garami game into his system.
Part 6 – Lasso DLR Guard Hybrids
As we near the conclusion of the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD, the final half hour or so is about the deep lasso guard and how it relates to the Berimbolo. Yeah, just when you thought you found a Gi guard instructional with no Berimbolos, it had to crash the party.
Some of the stuff sections of the instructional are really good, such as the hip post hybrid and the R guard combo that opens up leg locks. The rest, I’d recommend skipping if you want to learn BJJ instead of break dancing.
How To Combine BJJ Guards
The art of combining guards is a crucial one if you want to have a successful bottom game in BJJ. Gi or No-Gi, your guard has to have layers that target the main distances that top players use to pass. Understandably, you need different guard configurations for different distances and passing threats.
What I love the most about the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD is the underlying concept behind the material Tabak shows, which is combining upper and lower body guards in a way that makes you as sticky as possible from the bottom. This is widely applicable to any type of guard game in BJJ, all kinds of guards, and is the smartest way of building a very difficult-to-beat guard game.
It was also refreshing to see leg locks feature as part of guard attacks, especially in a Gi-only insturctional. Introducing this threat to the mix of hybrid guards literally covers every base you need to easily create your guard, and stay offensively dangerous at any point during exchanges. I’d just skip over all the spinning and self-stacking.
FULL DOWNLOAD: ARIEL TABAK HYBRID GUARDS DVD
Hybrid Guard Tactics
At the end of the day, the Ariel Tabak Hybrid Guard BJJ DVD is going to teach you how to play guard better, as long as you can look past the crazy sand overcomplicated technical directions it contains. While all the techniques, including the spinning stuff, are delivered with super-high technical proficiency, I remain doubtful that any of those things will work in a competitive setting.
All BJJ Guard Passing DVD and Digital Instructionals GI & No-Gi
Roger Gracie talks berimbolos, 50-50 & learning BJJ from YouTube
