The De La Riva Guard Is A Must For All Jiu Jitsu Fighters

Why You Need To Learn The De La Riva Guard

The De La Rival Guard is a type of open guard having origins in the judo which was made known by the Brazilian Jiu jitsu (BJJ) legend known as Ricardo De La Riva. This De La Rival guard has to do with the player at the bottom hooking the player at the top front legs from outside using his or her own legs. From this stage, the ankle of the player at the top is greatly control by one of the hand of the bottom player, whereas the top player’s collar or sleeves is monitored by the other hand of the bottom player.

Early history of the De La Riva guard
As it was noted earlier, the early De LA Riva guard version was used in Judo. But, in the early 1980s, a BJJ practitioner called Ricardo De La Riva started to create a whole jiu jitsu system from this position. De La Riva was a Carlson Gracie Academy student, when he started utilizing this awesome guard system because of his stronger, bigger teammates would smash him and his small, slender frame.

Birth of De La Riva guard
The De La Riva guard received its name officially after a tournament between Ricardo De La Riva and undefeated Royler Gracie. This BJJtournament, which was greatly covered by the Brazilian press, showed De La Riva against the undefeated Royler Gracie in a feather weight match. At this time, Royler Gracie was a Gracie Jiu Jitsu black belt undefeated competitor and was considered widely to be among the world’s best BJJ fighters.

Evolution of the De La Riva guard
Since it’s introduction by Ricardo De La Riva during the 1980s, this De La Riva guard has kept on evolving, especially in Modern BJJ.

The De La Riva Guard has been used in the highest of levels Jiu Jitsu tournaments by most champions like the Mendez brothers and the Miyao brothers. This guard has also achieved fame as the entrance to the Berimbolo, a technique in BJJ which has to do with taking and inverting the back of your opponent.

Advantages of the De La Riva guard
The De La Riva guard gives a number of advantages to BJJ practitioners, such as:

• When done appropriately, the De La Riva guard provides practitioners with a high control level over their jiu jitsu opponents legs and posture.
• The De La Riva guard closed down a number of recent popular guard passes and it makes it very hard for competitors to step around the legs of the guard players.

Tips for establishing the De La Riva guard

There are different ways to enter this De La Riva guard, plus entries from the sitting and standing positions. Irrespective of how it gets entered into, the De La Riva guard can be established as follows:

1. Control the right ankle of your opponent using your left hand.
2. Put your left leg around you’re the exterior part of your opponent’s right thigh.
3. Put your left foot in-between the legs of your opponent.
4. Keep your opponent’s lapel, left sleeve belt, or right sleeve under control with your free hand.

Once you have been able to establish the De La Riva guard, the player at the bottom can then initiate submissions, sweeps, and transitions to other related positions.

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"AP" De la Riva is a step by step break down of, World Champion, Kristian Woodmansee’s DLR game. The lesson plan starts with basic theory and guard retention. It moves on to drills and sweeps, followed by submissions and combinations!

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