i started using the rubber guard a little while ago and have a hard time breaking down my opponent's posture to gain mission control. This is probably because most of the guys i roll with are a good 20+ pounds heavier than i am. Any little tricks to making it easier?
Think of rubber guard as an omoplata setup. Thinking of it as a "guard" is silly. If it's there, set it up, but if it's not...don't force it. You shouldn't force any other setup, so why try to force rubber guard? It's FINE, but when people think of it as some sort of go-to position it just doesn't fit properly. In short, use other techniques, because regardless of how good you get at rubber guard, you won't always be able to set it up. The other thing I'd say is, yes you can get very good at breaking posture, you just have to practice. But once you're very good at breaking posture, rubber guard is just one of many options and you may find yourself to be less inclined to use it.
I agree with most of the posters here that will tell you not to use the rubber guard. That said, to break someone's posture, you need to mess with their base. If you have me in closed guard and I can settle in, you're going to have a hell of a time breaking me down no matter what your size. Start to go after a hip bump, twist around a bit and make me uncomfortable and at some point, I'll be susceptible. Or I'll be on my back. And as someone else said, don't try to force positions.
The problem is not that they are 20 lbs heavier than you. It's that you haven't learned how to break posture properly. Their weight should actually help you. Take their hands away from them by using grips, circling under their grips and stripping them, opening up their elbows, etc. Then use your legs to pull them down.
"Don't force it." Love it, Love it. Good advice. TS, I use rubber guard to just experiment with from time to time, it's fun and it does allow you to transition into an omoplata and gogoplata pretty easily, but before you worry about all of that.. learn to properly break their posture. Breaking the posture on an opponent who is larger than you can be a hastle, especially if they have a decent posture and are out of your reach. There are three things that I usually do when I'm trying to break a larger person's posture. 1.) Arm drag 2.) Pull the back of their head down 3.) knock their feet down back to their knees if they're trying to stand in your guard. There's way more that you can play with, but that's just my go-to techniques for bringing them down. (Also, I only do no-gi, so there's even MORE techniques for the gi with all of those grips ) cms9690
Is it alright if I can get a overhook from rubber guard? I go through zombie in order to get the overhook. I hate using rubber guard except when I break posture. I also do other posture breakdowns as well. Overhook in closed guard is money.
You have to go through a Zombie to get an overhook? What kind of mystical forest are you doing jiu jitsu in? Terrible jokes aside, why use rubber guard before you have the basics of posture breaking down? You're in the closed guard, you have a number of weapons at your disposal.
How do I pass guard without opening it? You are all out of order. Learning how to break posture should come way before working on a specialized game. I would put the rubber guard on the shelf for a while and learn some basic things like how to break and control posture.
Rubber guard is fine as long as you think of it as a specific omoplata attack setup, like the guy above says, rather than a guard you go straight into. When you think of it as a guard that you must impose, that's when you get in trouble. Trying to force it when the guy has good posture or you don't have him stretched out with a foot on the other hip. Ends in disaster.
