Ground game when you have poor flexibility

[SPSUDISPATCH]

So, I am a bigger guy and have a horrible combination of lack of strength and lack of flexibility. However, I have learned to concentrate on my strengths while being able to work within my limitations. The one thing you HAVE to do is position your hips correctly. While this is important for everybody, it is more important for you because you can gain the illusion of more flexibility by proper body positioning. Personally, I work a very basic bottom game of mostly simple sweeps and have a pressure game from on top. YMMV.

 

[Higus]

One of the best and most frustrating aspects of grappling is that your style is dictated by the physical tools that god gave you. There is no perfect body type for grappling, only grapplers that have perfected a style that maximizes the efficiency of their body types. So while you may feel frustrated that you don't have the flexibility or length to pull off some guard sequences, you can find your niche in another area.

 

[McClure]

I'm a brown belt - no more flexible than the first day I started training. Being more flexible would be nice but it hasn't greatly hindered my progression. Half guard, deep half, lasso spider, hybrid, x, butterfly all played no problem - if anything it's the length of my legs (5'9") that limits my open guard play. I find it most problematic when I'm trying to place butterfly hooks from bottom or while reguarding etc. And TS there's nothing wrong with using strength. Nothing at all.

 

[Uchi Mata]

Maybe I'm underestimating my own level of flexibility but I view myself as having below average flexibility and found that it wasn't a huge problem to play any of these guards

You can play them without a ton of flexibility, especially if you play DLR as more of a situp guard than the berimbolo game, but it's pretty hard to play spider against good opponents and not be flexible. Reason being, you need to be able to counter getting your hooks thrown off with hip bumps and the most effective way to do that is to let your legs come over your head (and endure stacking if necessary) and get to a bicep ride. Really helps to have some flexibility for that.

In general any open guard that allows you to be frequently stacked or where inversion is an important guard retention strategy is going to be hard for non-flexible people to play.

 

[Uchi Mata]

One of the best and most frustrating aspects of grappling is that your style is dictated by the physical tools that god gave you. There is no perfect body type for grappling, only grapplers that have perfected a style that maximizes the efficiency of their body types. So while you may feel frustrated that you don't have the flexibility or length to pull off some guard sequences, you can find your niche in another area.

Absolutely true, and one of the things I love about BJJ. Personally, I always had trouble in Judo because I'm not very strong for my weight class (by any means), and with all my back injuries I've lost a ton of flexibility. But I am really quick on my feet for my size and have excellent balance, and I've been able to build a game largely around those attributes. Even if you have no special physical attributes, just being mentally really tough and willing to work on the same stuff for years can be enough: just look at Bernardo Faria. BJJ is so technically deep that you can make up for immense physical gulfs between competitors in a way you can't in many other sports.

 

[dmwalking]

Flexibility is like A-1 sauce.

It's nice to have but your steak doesn't need it. Just learn how to cook better steak and stop using the sauce to cover your lack of skills.

Well said.

What's the equivalent of just making the steak sous-vide in this analogy? Hmm

That would be like having black belt technique. The flash sear at the end would be the tap.

 

[QingTian]

I just play top game. What if you end up on bottom? Well, it's like when de la Riva said he doesn't practice escapes, lol.