Key Takeaways
- A No-Gi grappling DVD offering a different take on the K guard position.
- Neil offers plenty of leg and armlocks, as well as more triangles than you thought possible.
- Features positional details, setups, connections, submission combos and transitions.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 9 out of 10.
SPECIAL K GUARD NEIL MELANSON DVD GET HERE:
I never thought that any ‘letter’ guard would take over the X guard in terms of efficiency and versatility, but that’s just me being biased. The reality is that the K guard has beaten the X and the Z (I’m not even going to mention any of the lesser-known ‘letter’ guards) to become one of the most effective No-Gi open guard positions in the history of grappling.
IF you want to know more about it, you can go and pick up one of the tens of instructionals folks have on the subject. But then you’ll be just one of the bunch of people feeling lost about it. For those smart enough to know whom to look to for some effective innovation, the Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD is a no-brainer. Read on to find out why.
Why Aren’t You Playing K Guard?
Seriously, what’s up with you? Why wouldn’t you use one of the best open guard positions in BJJ when it is clear that it works at all the highest levels? I am still amazed that I see so many people shun the K guard as being just another leg-locking gimmick.
While it is a great launching pad for many Ashi Garami-based attacks, the K guard is a lot more than just another leg-locking position. It is, after all, a ‘guard’, and not a ‘Garami’. That means that it offers stability by allowing the guard player to prevent passing, trap the top person where they want them, and launch versatile attacks that end up with a sweep, back take, or finish.
One area where the K gaurd really excels, especially in terms of open guards is its structure. Everything is reinforcing everything else in the position, meaning there is no one weak spot that the top person can exploit. Pair that up with the crazy attacks from the Neil Melanson K Guard DVD and you just discovered your best guard going forward!
Neil Melanson’s Special Grappling Formula
When you understand grappling as much as Neil Melanson does, you can get away with everything, even tweaking stuff in grappling that people say shouldn’t be tweaked. Most people wouldn’t dare, but Neil has always had an “I don’t care” attitude in his quest for the most functional grappling techniques and patterns possible.
Given that he has spent a lifetime grappling, was the main grappling coach of Randy Couture when the ‘Natural’ was on top of the UFC heavyweight division, and has produced the most mind-boggling, yet practical DVDs out of any grappler out there, when he speaks, we listen.
Neil doesn’t have a a BJJ black belt, but knows (and can do) more than most black belts you know, possibly even combined. He is that good at figuring out what matters and finding the most direct, and often most painful way of achieving it. And that includes working off your back like in the Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD.
Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD Review
The Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD is a long one, containing about 5 hours of super useful and detailed K Guard material. It is spread over four volumes, all of it No-Gi, and delivered with long chapters and meticulous order, both signature aspects of any Neil Melanson DVD:
Part 1 – Unexpected K-Guard Attacks
First of all, the K guard you’ll see Neil play and teach in this instructional is slightly different from what you’re probably thinking when you think K guard. That’s fine, as Neil was one of the first people to mess around with the position, and I find his version more ‘user-friendly’ than that of Lachlan or Craig Jones.
In the opening volume of the Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD, Neil goes over crazy stuff to do from the guard before talking about the guard structure itself. Strange, but fun, and filled with stuff like arm triangles from the bottom Peterson rolls directly from the K guard.
A few things you might be more familiar with, at least as concepts, are kneebars, heel hooks, and armbars, all given a new perspective by Melanson. Oh, and let’s not forget the lazy Susan, a mind-blowing move to finish a mind-blowing volume.
Part 2 – Basic K Guard Positioning
While you might be tempted to only stick to the stuff in the first volume of the Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD, if you want to find out why it all works, you’ll have to watch some more.
Part two takes care of the ‘why’, introducing the K guard as a position. Here, Neil goes through key aspects such as posture, grips, drills, body positioning, etc in extreme detail that we’ve grown accustomed to seeing in his instructionals. Seriously, one of his chapters lasts more than 30 minutes, tying everything into the smallest detail!
Concluding this hour-and-a-half-long volume is a discussion on off-balancing and a pendulum example to help put context to the theory.
Part 3 – K Guard Submission Combos
The Neil Melanson K Guard DVD has over two and a half hours of material before we even get to the halfway point. You understand now why Neil’s stuff falls under the must-watch category for grapplers.
In a very originally thought out and presented fourth volume, Melanson goes over the different submissions available from the K guard, explaining the relation and connections each of them has with the guard, and how to use it to your advantage.
The submissions featured in this portion are triangles (Neil’s favorite), armbar, and Kimura. He presents each in several different scenarios, moving from bottom to top while looking to finish and showing how you can connect them between themselves if required.
Part 4 – More Finishes & Transitions
With a Neil Melanson DVD, there’s never a shortage of submissions, and the Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD is no exception. In the final part of the instructional, Melanson keeps on track with submission combinations, mostly offering more triangles from different positions, bound by elbow-snapping armbars.
Rounding off limb breaks with the K Bar, Melanson moves towards transitioning as the instructional runs its course. presenting back takes and roll outs as alternatives to directly finishing your opponent. What an instructional!
BJJ Guard Versatility
How many different things can you do from the guard? Not that I am not asking you how many different guards you have played, but rather how many things you can do to get a better position over your opponent.
Guard versatility means having plenty of attacking options both when you are in the guard position you prefer, and when you’re being forced into a guard situation you don’t necessarily like. At the end of the day, you need to have either sweeps, submissions, and/or back takes/wrestle-ups ready from as many different guards as possible.
But wait, there has to be a better way to go about it than just collecting guards. There is. Instead of trying to learn different moves from different guards, try figuring out the most effective guards, as proven in competition, and find out how to connect them to each other.
That’s how you develop a world-class guard game that will work in Gi and No-Gi. I’ll even start for you by suggesting a great resource for leaving one of those super-effective guards: the Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD.
DOWNLOAD HERE: SPECIAL K GUARD NEIL MELANSON DVD
The Special Ingredient!
The special ingredient you won’t get in your run-of-the-mill BJJ gym, or your standard Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructional is the practical grappling intelligence that Neil Melanson brings to his DVDs. The good news is that you don’t need to have that same intelligence (don’t get offended).
All you need is his guidance, which, for the K Guard comes in the form of the Special K Guard Neil Melanson DVD. Pick it up and learn why exactly Neil calls it ‘special’.
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