Key Takeaways
- A 5-part No-Gi BJJ DVD focusing on how to stay in guard(s) and attack efficiently.
- Delivers critical guard retention concepts, explored in detail and through examples.
- Offers plenty of versatile upper and lower body submission attacks.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 9 out of 10.
DON’T STAND UP CHRIS WOJCIK DVD GET HERE
WATCH FULL TRAILER: Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVDLet’s talk guard. People have been kinda hating on the guard lately, as Craig popularized the concept of getting back u pt the feet. If we put the wrestling craze that is all anyone can talk about in BJJ these days, the guard remains one of the most powerful positions you can play.
Even more so, the guard is an essential aspect of Jiu-Jitsu you can’t do without. The Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD helps us return the focus on the truly important aspects of playing guard, while still keeping the option of standing up open. We’re just going to choose not to use it so we can improve our guards. You know you need to.
Why We Play Guard
What’s the point of the guard in BJJ? Have you ever asked yourself that particular question? If the answer is to sweep, submit, get the back, or any other offensive aspect, you have it very wrong.
There is no attacking if you can’t keep a guard, which brings the focus of every guard in BJJ, open or closed, back to the subject of guard retention. The longer you can stay in a guard of your choice, the more you can control the top person, and attack because of the structure you have.
A downside of being extremely good at one guard is that you end up being one-dimensional – there’s only one guard for the passer to solve. That is where a system of at least three guards comes in, which means triple the work you need to put in to figure out retention in all of them.
Once you do, though, you’ll have a very easy time dealing with anyone who stands, half kneels, or kneels against your guard. The Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD is a top resource to help you understand this concept.
Chris Wojcik’s Pedigree
London-born Chris Woicik is a BJJ black belt under Jeff Serafin and one of the top prospects in No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu today. He is part of the infamous B-team ld by Craig Jones and is focused solely on competition.
Chris is also the competition class coach at Serafin Jiu-Jitsu, where he went through the belts. Even though he received his black belt fairly recently (in 2022) Wojcik is among the top black belt prospects in the world in the -88kg division, ranking in the top 4 of the West Coast ADC Trials.
He also has a bunch of important wins during his colored belt days, the most notable of which is becoming a No-Gi world champion at purple belt. His focus on competition from both the perspective of competitors and a coach positions him uniquely for preparing grapplers for the demands of competition.
Since he is mostly a No-Gi grappler, the Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD is an instructional without the Gi, containing many of Wojcik’s favorite and tested bottom game tactics. Let’s look at it in more detail.
Complete Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD Review
Over the course of five volumes, the Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD offers the best No-Gi tactics to submit people from different guards, without risking your positioning too much. It takes Chris almost three hours to put things into perspective, but he pulls it off in a way anyone can understand:
Part 1 – Guard Retention
The Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD opens with the key skill anyone using guard in Jiu-Jitsu needs – guard retention. The way Chris approaches this subject is through a conceptual framework, covering seated and supine positions as well as defining whether you should attack or defend.
If this DVD stopped at this point, it’d still be more than worth its price. Luckily, Wojcik keeps going, discussing the role that flexibility plays in guard, as well as covering group fighting, solving the push-pull timing question, and offering a very interesting approach to using frames for offense and defense alike.
The final portion of this volume goes outside the box of concepts through a technical overview of the octopus guard and the turtle, which many consider a subset of the guard. These set the stage for Wojcik to cover rolling and body positioning to deal with some common passing threats.
Part 2 – Leg Locks
A modern-day BJJ DVD on guard is bound to have leg locks feature at some point. The Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD does not disappoint in this department, offering several high-percentage leg lock entries from guards that don’t mess up guard retention.
The False Reap is a notable success at first glance, along with the different integrations of the K guard that always go with it. Chris then uses the entry to progress deeper into Ashi Garami leglocks, using the mto come full circle back to guard and talk about Reverse De la Riva as he concludes this portion of the instructional.
Part 3 – Upper Body Subs
Covering the opposite end of the body, part three of the Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD focuses on the highest percentage of upper body submissions that are immediately available and, once again, do not affect your guard retention (much).
All attacks here center around the use of armlocks, most notably the highly popular Choi Bar. Chris shares the basic setups and mechanics but also covers immediate follow-up submissions for failed Choi Bar attempts.
Part 4 – Double Guard Pulls
Arguably, the most interesting subject covered in this Chris Wojcik Guard DVD is the one in the fourth volume which targets the infamous double guard pull. Heate it as much as you want, it is going to happen, and when it does it is much better to know what you need to do.
Chris covers exactly that, offering solutions to this conundrum. He covers the situation first, and then offers both offensive and defensive directions, depending on the timing of your initial reaction. Both options utilize guard retention, and eventually lead to leg lock finishes from different positions.
Part 5 – 50/50 Guard
Offering even more in the world of lower body submissions, the Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD wraps up with a fairly short volume on the 50/50 position. Since it is a guard by default, all the concepts shared so far in this DVD apply, with the exception of the need for retention – it is very difficult to get out of it, to the point of being detrimental.
So, Even though Wojcik offers a couple of reliable options to spin in both directions when trying to deal with the position, he uses it more as a guard to trap the other person, forcing them to stand.
The Foundation of a Bottom Game
There are plenty of things you can do from the bottom in BJJ, but only if you have the ability to use your legs against the top person. Once the entire weight of the opponent is on your torso, you’re pretty much doomed to try to figure out defense and work double the amount that they are.
That is where guards come in. The guard position is the bridge between being safe in a bottom position and having the man to attack. Even better, it offers more attacks than any pinning position, as guards provide not just the option to attack submissions (both lower and upper body) but also sweep and transition to the back.
This is before we even start entertaining concepts such as the opposite of Wocjik’s like that of his teammate Craig Jones about standing up to introduce takedowns in your game. Not one of these actions is going to lose you points, and most of them end up improving your score.
Tactically speaking, the guard is an absolutely essential position to develop and master if you want to be able to do BJJ for a very long time. The Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD can help you set up the basics.
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Stay Down!
Standing up is an option in BJJ if you know how to play guard. The question, though is why stand up when you can be more dangerous and attack with more versatility from the guard? I find that the title of the Don’t Stand Up Chris Wojcik DVD is just as important, bringing focus back to the position that defines BJJ and plays a crucial role in any Jiu-Jitsu exchange.
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