Key Takeaways
- A Gi Jiu-Jitsu DVD offering a very well thought-out and effective game plan centered around the De la Riva guard.
- Covers everything DLR-related, from guard pulls to finishing sweep, back exposure, and submission attacks.
- Places a lot of focus on maintaining top position after sweeping and provides interesting lapel options.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 9 out of 10.
DE LA RIVA SWEEP FELIPE SIMPLICIO DVD GET HERE
The Felipe Simplicio De La Riva DVD is not just another DLR instructional that you’ll forget all about the moment you stop watching it. It is an easy-to-understand, effective blueprint you can start using today, regardless of your belt level.
Felipe’s DVD works so well because it provides easy-to-focus sweeps. He centers all his attacks around sweeps but takes them as far as passes and top-position submissions, offering a well-rounded game that starts from guard.
The Holy Trinity of BJJ Guard Attacks
How do you attack from the guard? It depends on the guard, I know, but at the end of the day, it’s going to be one of three things:
- Submissions
- Sweeps
- Back takes
That, however, is not the Holy Trinity I am thinking about. What I had in mind are the three reasons why everything you do when attacking from guard ends up working — or failing, for that matter. These foundational reasons you can attack are: timing, leverage, and transitions.
As it happens, all three appear as the main cornerstones of the highly effective and very simple guard game offered in the De La Riva Sweep Felipe Simplicio DVD. This instructional represents the shift toward more goal- and outcome-based BJJ rather than the old-school focus on millions of details — and I enjoyed it a lot!
Third Degree BJJ Black Belt Felipe Simplicio
Sometimes, learning from the students of some of the best grapplers in the world is even better than learning from those greats themselves. Such is the case with Felipe Simplicio, a renowned BJJ instructor and 3rd-degree black belt under Thiago Oliveira.
Felipe is a competitor himself, but hasn’t quite managed to replicate JT’s performances and results — with all respect to him, I doubt he, or anyone else, can. However, Simplicio is just as good, and I daresay even better than JT when it comes to teaching BJJ.
Grappling since he was 16, Felipe earned his belts in his native Brazil, arriving in the US as a brown belt under Thiago Oliveira. Once stateside, he had a hard time finding a teaching position, but eventually, after a few attempts, he connected with JT Torres and found his new home under the Essential Jiu-Jitsu umbrella.
A real wizard with the Gi and a very active IBJJF referee, Felipe is exactly the man to teach you what to do in competition, how to do it, and all the different ways in which you can achieve it. His De La Riva Sweep Felipe Simplicio DVD is one of the better instructionals I’ve seen this side of 2025.
De La Riva Sweep Felipe Simplicio DVD Review
This Felipe Simplicio De La Riva Sweep DVD contains five volumes, each of a different running time, all amounting to a total of three hours of top-quality video material.
Part 1 – Pulling an Attacking De la Riva Guard
The De La Riva guard is a great attacking option, particularly with specific Gi grips on. While effective, the guard has a flaw — it doesn’t offer immediate access to submission finishes.
However, what it lacks in the submissions department, it more than makes up for with sweeps, and that’s what this De La Riva Sweep Felipe Simplicio DVD is all about. Before going deep into how to develop a deadly bottom and top game based on DLR sweeps, Felipe first covers the basics of the guard.
In the opening volume, he talks about positioning, gripping, leg placement, and a few easy ways to get to the guard immediately off the first grip you establish. I liked the fact that he bases his attacks on off-balancing as the main first offensive goal from the guard and emphasizes connections, like replacing lost grips and building frames, over fancy moves.
Part 2 – Sweep-Based Attacks
The first actual sweeping motions begin in the very first chapter of the second part of the De La Riva Sweep Felipe Simplicio DVD with the Money Sweep. Felipe offers plenty of different ways to get it, using it as a gateway sweep to different DLR variations (seated and supine) and a lot more sweeps.
The majority of sweep attacks in this volume originate from a collar-and-pants grip combo. I particularly loved that Felipe doesn’t just get stuck with the sweep but takes it all the way — he gets on top, shows you how to pass, get points, and land a sub.
Toward the end of the volume, he presents the idea of guard layers, tying the De La Riva to X-Guards and opening up more attacking avenues, such as leg locks.
Part 3 – Exposing the Back
A very fine example of the vast grappling experience that Felipe has is his methodology on getting to the back from the DLR. Instead of fidget-spinning around the mats, he sticks to the easiest routes available by sticking to the De La X guard combo.
This part of the Felipe Simplicio DVD contains some very interesting ideas about pairing up sweeps and back takes as dilemma attacks. The fact that he hybridizes the DLR with the X guard means he has a lot more options at his disposal than classic De La Riva systems.
Part 4 – Stabilizing Post-Sweep
Another great demonstration of Felipe’s forward-thinking approach to Jiu-Jitsu. This volume of the De La Riva Sweep Felipe Simplicio DVD covers how to make sure you don’t lose the sweep by stabilizing your position and launching passes the first chance you get.
The focus here is on understanding where you land before you even go for the sweep and introducing passing threats before the bottom person tries to establish their own guard game. The leg drag, always accessible after an outside guard such as the DLR, gets plenty of attention here, along with the submission follow-ups it presents.
Part 5 – Adding the Lapels
Finally, the Felipe Simplicio De La Riva Sweep DVD addresses the lapels and their place in the DLR game developed by Simplicio. Unlike most folks in BJJ who tend to overcomplicate lapels, Felipe isn’t looking for a new guard, but rather an added handle.
Felipe’s take is that when you can’t sweep, you should wrestle up and use the lapels to create these opportunities. He also shares a few attractive submission setups that tie in with DLR guard pulling, such as the Helicopter armbar, bringing the contents full circle.
Versatility From Open Guard
The more things you can do from a position in BJJ, without having to exert too much energy in the process, the better that position is. When you’re playing guards, the part about exerting energy is not always under your control, but that doesn’t mean we should start avoiding guards.
What you need to focus on instead is finding the best guard position that allows you to do many things that align with your grappling goals from the same spot. The De La Riva guard checks all the boxes associated with this approach.
You can play the guard in Gi and No-Gi just as effectively, which is one of the major advantages it brings to the table. You can also attack lower and upper body submissions, albeit not directly, but effectively nonetheless.
The DLR guard offers a plethora of sweeps, available from different grip configurations and from both seated and supine positions. Last but not least, back attacks are just one short step away if you know exactly what you’re doing.
Obviously, the guard is something you want in your game, but it is also apparent that it is not an easy one to figure out. This second part can be made simpler, though, with the De La Riva Sweep Felipe Simplicio DVD.
DOWNLOAD HERE: DE LA RIVA SWEEP FELIPE SIMPLICIO DVD
De la Riva Sweep The World!
All it takes is one good sweep, and you can completely destroy your opponent, easily following up with passes, pins, pressure, and submissions. Developing a high-level DLR game is not hard; you just need the right resource in a sea of useless information — in other words, you need the De La Riva Sweep Felipe Simplicio DVD. Now that you know it works, all that’s left is getting your hands on it!
