Key Takeaways
- A No-Gi BJJ DVD by the reigning ADCC champ that makes wrestling up from guard easy to master.
- Covers seated and supine positions vs kneeling and standing opponents instead of looking at different guards.
- Features staple takedowns such as double legs, singles, ankle picks, snaps, and footsweeps.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 8.5 out of 10.
FORGING THE GUARD WRESTLE UPS GIANCARLO BODONI DVD HERE
Call them sweeps, reversals, wrestle ups, or whatever else you can think of — you need to know how to become the top person during grappling exchanges. Once you end up playing guard and you’re not able to submit the top person, there’s not much more you can do to attack them.
While traditional sweeps tend to be expected in BJJ, and often overly elaborate, wrestle ups introduce a different approach to, well, sweeping. More direct, more powerful, and quicker to pick up, they do carry some risks that sweeps don’t, but they’re well worth the tradeoff. More in the Forging The Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD.
Lazy Wrestling – The Perfect Shortcut for BJJ
The moment I found out you can perform takedowns from the knees, my entire approach to sweeping from the guard (and turtle) changed completely. As it turned out, you don’t have to be on your knees to get the takedowns.
The ability to execute moves like double legs and low singles without having to shoot and endlessly grip fight during standing is a real blessing. At some point, someone dubbed them wrestle ups, which perfectly sums up what they’re all about.
If I had to describe wrestle ups quickly, I’d call them lazy wrestling moves that help guard-bound BJJ grapplers get sweeps in a way that most people don’t expect and can’t defend against. For more details, you have the Forging The Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD.
Giancarlo Bodoni’s “Forging The Guard” Series
One of the quieter members of the New Wave team — or perhaps now the Kingsway team — in terms of trash-talking and controversies is Giancarlo Bodoni. However, what he lacks in mindless banter, he more than makes up for in quality instructionals, with his works coming in steady, almost with the same frequency as Ryan’s and Danaher’s.
Bodoni has been active both on the competition mats and in the BJJ Fanatics studio. He has over a dozen titles at this point and is now going through his guard series. His previous edition covered the De la Riva guard but left lots to be desired. It’s not Bodoni; it’s the subject he picked.
The Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD is an entirely different story, though. Everyone is crazy about wrestle ups these days, and what’s more important, not many people know how to do them in a real setting. Giancarlo takes care of that with this DVD, once and for all defining a place for wrestle ups in the BJJ guard.
Forging The Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD Review
Bodoni treats us to yet another of his eight-volume instructional series, this time contributing to his Forging the Guard series as well. The Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD contains over 5 hours of material covering everything you’ll ever need to know about the subject:
Part 1 – Off Balanicng
The subject Danaher presented to the BJJ world as kuzushi, and still one of the trickiest things for most people to figure out, is how to make your opponent lose balance while grappling. The applications extend far past just sweeps and takedowns, but these instances are best used when you’re trying to learn what kuzushi is all about.
The Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD begins by addressing this particular issue, offering direct, short, and practical examples of how changing levels as a guard player can help you end up on top by precisely targeting the top person’s balance. Pay attention to the head height principle.
Part 2 – Seated vs Kneeling
The exchanges in the Giancarlo Bodoni Wrestle Ups DVD begin with you seated in guard and your opponent kneeling on one or both knees in front of you. Without wasting too much time, he offers everyone’s favorite takedown to mess up — the double leg — but this time, done from the bottom.
In other words, there’s hardly anything to mess up, and it works like a charm. Bodoni builds by offering different ways to score, sticking to wrestling classics like turking and clawing, before he introduces topics we love to talk about in BJJ.
These include shoulder and hip positioning and the different ways to move them when you’re playing guard so that you open up wrestle-up options that won’t get you flattened out.
Part 3 – 2 on 1 Setups
No way any of Danaher’s students can release a DVD that doesn’t contain a dedicated volume featuring the 2-on-1 grip. This Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD delivers on that front, building most of the seated vs. kneeling wrestle-up game around this grip configuration.
Giancarlo goes through front and backside applications of the 2-on-1, extending his study into details such as elbow posts, cross posts, and heisting. Movement is in the spotlight a lot more than wrestling techniques, but the outcome remains the same — you end up on top using wrestling.
A few very useful ways to fold up the top person once you have the 2-on-1 you’ll learn from this DVD include the Te Guruma, snapdowns, and my personal favorite — the ankle pick.
Part 4 – Whizzeres & Overhooks
Another highly effective and often-used proven way of attacking from guard is the overhook, particularly in close-distance instances like seated vs. kneeling. In the fourth part of the Giancarlo Bodoni Wrestle Ups DVD, the attention shifts to whizzers and overhooks that open up some of the best wrestle-up options in grappling.
If you’ve ever used overhooks for takedowns, you know exactly what I mean. Cradle entries, bunched-up ankle picks, and a free entry to the front headlock all feature here. Bodoni spices things up with an elevation double at the end, marking the transition to a different guard configuration.
Part 5 – Seated vs Standing
One of the most commonly seen bottom vs. top exchanges in modern Jiu-Jitsu, especially without the Gi, is between a seated and a standing grappler. As we pass the halfway point of the Forging The Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD, the levels change, offering even more wrestle-up options.
Distance and grips need to be reevaluated as the top person stands up, which is exactly how Giancarlo begins this volume. Next, he offers several double leg finishes, all originating at a different distance relative to the top person. The single leg also marks its first appearance in this instructional.
Part 6 – Arm Drags & Footsweeps
Arguably the best parts of the Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD for me, as it provided a lot of super-useful details for the moves I like to use when wrestling up from guard.
The attachment of choice is the arm drag, offering a twisting posture break and easy access to stuff like Kouchi Gari trips and De Ashi Barai footsweeps. They’re all tied in with the inevitable double leg and topped with arguably the best chapter in the entire DVD — details on the tactic of overwhelming your opponent (without spazzing).
Part 7 – Supine vs Standing
As we arrive at the final possible exchange scenario in terms of guard positioning, Bodoni tackles a subject many struggle with, particularly in No-Gi Jiu-Jitsu. Grappling off your back against a standing opponent is one of the most difficult things to do when you can’t use lapels to stall.
Bodoni’s take on it is to grab a tripod grip configuration, effectively defining your guard in the process. Initial attacks on the top person’s balance from here begin with BJJ sweep staples but quickly morph into wrestle ups via double leg variations, tight waist rides, and the boogeyman of takedowns — the Kani Basami.
Part 8 – The Ashi Garami Factor
Finally, Giancarlo makes it a point to tie in his favorite aspect of grappling — leg locks — into the system. The last volume in the Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD covers the role of Ashi Garami positions in wrestling up from guard.
Here, Bodoni shows different ways to introduce Ashi positions using all the guards covered up to this point. This both introduces the threat of leg locks into the mix and opens up one more avenue to end up on top. It also provides a fallback option for guard retention purposes that still gives an attacking edge to the guard player.
Getting on Top
Not easy, I know — especially in situations where you’re supine and the top player is standing. However, it is not impossible and is not too hard to figure out once you understand the principles demonstrated in the Giancarlo Bodoni Wrestle Ups DVD.
In fact, you only need to figure out a few of them — off-balancing your opponent and effectively posting so that you can change levels quickly and without endangering your guard.
At the end of the day, wrestle ups are just takedowns masked as sweeps, which means it is not enough to just find a way to make your opponent fall — you’ll also have to find a way to keep them there. Pinning might be beyond the scope of this DVD, but Giancarlo covers everything you need to not just get on top with wrestle ups, but also remain there.
DOWNLOAD HERE: GUARD WRESTLE UPS GIANCARLO BODONI DVD
Up You Go!
Next time you’re in guard, don’t just linger between the same old sweep options that keep failing on you. Try out some of the moves and concepts from the Forging The Guard Wrestle Ups Giancarlo Bodoni DVD instead. You won’t just end up on top using wrestling — all those sweeps that constantly fail will suddenly start working too!
