Key Takeaways
- A BJJ instructional aimed at teaching white belts how to play and deal with the closed guard.
- Delivers no-nonsense, super-basic options to stay in guard, sweep, and submit, along with the context needed to build a game.
- Covers passing as well, along with some escaping scenarios involving the mount, and features great drill ideas.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 9.5 out of 10.
Good start. Once it’s your turn to play the position, though, you’ll quickly find out that pay-per-view doesn’t do the guard, and what it is all about, justice. You’ll never call another grappling-heavy UFC match boring again.
If you want to master it, then be ready to dedicate years and lots of suffering to that goal. It is not unattainable, though, and resources like the White Belt Guard Fundamentals Ryan Gruhn DVD can help greatly to cut that time down significantly.
WHITE BELT GUARD FUNDAMENTALS RYAN GRUHN DVD GET HERE
BJJ Starts and Ends with the Guard
If BJJ didn’t have the guard, it would be a weird amalgamation of Judo and wrestling. If there is one thing that sets Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu apart from other grappling martial arts, it is the guard and all that it introduces to the combat sports game.
Understandably, the area of guard is also the area with the highest number of variations, options, and innovations in all of BJJ. A huge part of the addictive beauty of BJJ is the sheer number of options that stem from the opportunity to be offensive while lying with your back to the ground.
This entire story started with the closed guard, which the Gracies took to a whole new level and managed to market to the rest of the martial arts community. This is the one position that you see over and over again, in every gym, in every roll, all around the world.
Just watch any match at any level — you’ll see the closed guard feature, particularly when things get dicey for the bottom player. Even the top modern guard players (I don’t even know what the latest guard craze is) revert to the closed guard when the droppings hit the fan.
The White Belt Guard Fundamentals Ryan Gruhn DVD does the closed guard justice — it paints it as the super reliable position it is for beginners. Moreover, if any non-white-belt decides to give it a shot, I bet they’ll also figure stuff out that they thought only worked at white belt. Go figure.
Ryan ‘Guard Dog’ Gruhn
There is little that Ryan “Guard Dog” Gruhn doesn’t know about martial arts and combat sports. Currently heading the Central PA Mixed Martial Arts gym, he covers striking, grappling, and MMA, as well as specialized women’s kickboxing classes.
The fact that Ryan is an Eric Paulson black belt says a lot about his BJJ — direct, effective, and as close to no mercy as the Gentle Art can get. In other words, his classes and instructionals, such as this Ryan Gruhn Guard for White Belts DVD, are effective and to the point, with zero fluff.
One of Gruhn’s huge accomplishments is founding the Youth Martial Arts system, taught exclusively at his school to kids and youth. It is a mix of everything Ryan has done in his martial arts career, which spans from Filipino Kali and boxing to BJJ and Muay Thai.
Detailed White Belt Guard Fundamentals Ryan Gruhn DVD Review
This is a one-volume BJJ DVD — remember, Ryan favors simplicity and directness over anything else. That said, the White Belt Guard Fundamentals Ryan Gruhn DVD delivers just over an hour of top-quality material, mostly demonstrated with the Gi, with some No-Gi options appearing here and there.
Part 1 — Opening the Closed Guard
Ryan sticks to the true basics here, but that just means that this stuff works. White belts, don’t be discouraged if it is hard; stick to it, and I guarantee you’ll still use the same closed guard openings all the way to black belt and beyond.
Gruhn covers both Gi and No-Gi options to open up and pass the closed guard, using simple moves like staple passing. He also offers key drills to stick to, meaning you can measure your progress using his material.
Part 2 — Basic Motions
There’s no white belt instructional DVD in BJJ without some shrimping and bridging, is there? The White Belt Guard Fundamentals Ryan Gruhn DVD is no different, offering key basic movement patterns you’ll find super useful off your back. It also provides motivation to train and safety tips if you decide to try out this stuff unsupervised.
Part 3 — Sweeping
The real action in this White Belt Guard Fundamentals Ryan Gruhn DVD starts halfway through the instructional, when Ryan starts showing sweeps. He uses the closed guard as his main position, but isn’t a complete stickler, throwing in some super useful and intuitive half guard sweeps as well.
The scissor sweep (along with a reverse variation), sit-up sweep, and knee push all feature, topped up with some of Ryan’s own inventions in the area. I particularly enjoyed that he covers the sweep-for-sweep concept as well, bringing context into all the technical demonstrations.
Part 4 — The “Big Three” Submissions
Wrapping up are the three submissions that, when put together, are the most used finishes in the history of grappling martial arts. Concluding the White Belt Guard Fundamentals Ryan Gruhn DVD in style, Guard Dog offers a slightly unorthodox yet super effective way to tie in the armbar, Omoplata, and triangle together from the Gi closed guard.
The ‘Guard Dog’ Guard Game
There is a beautiful simplicity to the Ryan Gruhn White Belt Guard DVD, which comes down to two main reasons.
First, Ryan picked true fundamental moves that have been proven to work over and over again. They’re not flashy, nor will you catch your black belt instructor in them on day three of training. However, this type of guard game, top and bottom, provides the most stable foundation for building a competitive BJJ game.
Second, Gruhn’s style is direct and no-nonsense, which only makes the already simple fundamentals even easier. He literally strips every move down to bare essentials, only leaving the stuff that will work for everyone after time on the mats and drills.
Let’s not forget to mention his thoughts on rolling etiquette and overall approach to his instructions, which are two things almost no other beginner-oriented BJJ DVD provides. And, if white belts don’t need tons of context, then who does?
DOWNLOAD: WHITE BELT GUARD FUNDAMENTALS RYAN GRUHN DVD
Stick to Guard Newbie!
No need to look further than the closed guard. Yup, I sound just like your coach, I know. Well, the White Belt Guard Fundamentals Ryan Gruhn DVD is going to tell you the same, so if you’re not already scratching your head thinking “Why does everyone keep talking about the closed guard?” you’ll likely join a Zumba class in the very near future.
Want to avoid that? Pick up the DVD. Follow the instructions. Good luck, newbie!
