"you fucked up a long time ago" is my personal pet peeve. Yeah, i get that there are things i can do to not get in this position. There are also things i can do to never end up in guard, and that involves never engaging. There should be a strategy for every situation.
The higher level strategy really is "you fucked up a long time ago" though. That's why so many guys keep saying it.
If a technique has an easy counter, we don't consider it a legit technique. For example, cross choking from guard is not considered legit because it has a consistent counter. That doesn't mean cross choke from guard will never work; it just means that the counter is too good for it to be relied upon consistently as a legit technique. It is the same for crossing your feet from the back, etc.
But legit techniques really don't have counters. At white belt and blue belt, it might seem like they have counters because you can count on the guy using them against you to make several large technical mistakes that will give you holes to counter. But this is more of a blunder than an actual weakness in the technique that you can exploit.
At purple belt and up, legit techniques start to get close to 100% effectiveness, especially in the same weight class. So the whole match becomes less about countering legit techniques and more about setting things up so that your opponent cannot use any legit techniques.
For example, my whole guard passing strategy is to never end up in guard. Here's what I mean:
The match starts. I grip fight and don't allow my opponent any significant control. So my opponent pulls with a minor grip. I break this grip off because it was no control in the first place.
Now I'm standing, and my opponent is sitting. I have to engage. Rather than just walking into guard, I will attempt to deny him any legit guard at all.
My first grip is going to be low on his pants by the ankle. From here, he can't do much. He can't reach my legs yet. My grip is too low to be put in spider guard or lasso guard. Does he have a guard here? I guess, but it's not a legit guard. It won't work well.
Then I can pressure in from here. His other leg will come over to try to lasso, put the DLR hook, go to X guard, etc. But I can prevent him from establishing any of these guards by being prepared and holding it off. I will keep on pressuring, moving side to side, moving up and down.
Eventually I can get to a point where I have both of his legs controlled, both of his feet off of me dangling in the air, and he has no grips on my legs. This "guard" is not in any DVD because it's not a legit technique. He's about to get passed. I have effectively denied him guard by never getting into it in the first place.
Now if I had just let him establish a proper lasso guard right away? At the black belt level, I'm almost guaranteed to get swept before I can get out of it. That's because the lasso guard is a legit technique, and the chances of a black belt opponent capitalizing on it are close to 100%.
So really after a certain point in your development, the entire roll becomes about denying your opponent the chance to use any legit techniques against you. This is possible to do, although against a good opponent it's far from easy.
Every time I roll with a black belt, I know that if I give him a shot at a legit technique, he will probably take it and make me pay. Even if I get lucky and he makes some mistake, I still have to act as if he won't make the same mistake again. Because chances are he probably won't.
So the entire roll becomes about who can give himself the most chances at legit technique while denying the other guy chances. And the roll starts right at the initial grip.
I say "don't get caught in the first place" all the time, and that's what I mean by it.
