Ok guys, Today in class we were doing a drill where one guy sits down and plays guard looking to sweep/submit and the other guy tries to pass. I managed to get my grips and establish open/spider guards most of the time. Only thing is though, I don't know a whole of that many options to do from here. I managed to hit the tripod sweep fairly often and the feet on the hips sweep, but beyond that I'm really not too sure what else I can do. Also, I have no idea what to do in spider guard against a standing opponent, all I know is to keep your feet on his biceps and to keep his arms on the outside to avoid getting passed. Any tips, ideas or links would be appreciated.
There's literally a million things to do from spider guard, which is why I like it so much. There's a few excellent sweeps you can find on Youtube, or you can go right into the triangle/armbar/omoplata chain that is also available in guard. Alternatively, you can transition to DLR/RDLR and back again. Combining DLR and spider guard is a particularly effective combo.
I had the same question of my instructor and he recommended that I concentrate on two basic sweeps-- the hook and the sickle sweep. Stephan Kesting has a free video demonstrating both, I think it may be one of the ones with Emily Kwok. I think DLR is going to be more effective overall later for me, but right now I'd rather just suck at Spider than suck at Spider and DLR at the same time (since we are GJJ and most of the modern sport guard work is self-study).
Just watch any competition, and you will see a ton of open guard against standing opponents. And if you particularly want spider guard against standing opponents, watch Romulo Barral's matches. There are just so many techniques you can do.
