Today, I am here with Rehan Muttalib. Rehan is going to show us some drills to improve your spider guard. He has a brown belt from Cobrinha and he moved to New York 6 months ago. Rehan has a really good spider guard. He was one of the main grapplers at Cobrinha’s academy and he has a very high level of jiu-jitsu. He was a medalist in the Pan Ams and he won the European Open.
One day at Marcelo’s academy, I saw Rehan doing some very good drills from spider guard. So, let’s see how Rehan does it.
This is an excellent drill to work the spider guard fundamentals, particularly the hip movement, which is essential in order to have a good spider guard game. When he drills this technique, he over-exaggerates the hip movements.
First, he gets the spider guard position with control of both of his opponent’s sleeves. Before he extends to the side, he wants to get his hips all the way over.
When he wants to switch sides, he lifts his hips before he turns. He lifts his hips because it allows his hips to move more smoothly and get all the way over. Every time he moves, he really wants to lift and swing his hips forward. He wants to get completely lateral on his opponent.
He lifts and kicks, lifts and kicks from side to side. It’s very important that he gets his hips all the way to the side.
Once Rehan gets that motion down, he keeps that motion going. Then when he is ready to break, he releases his foot off his opponent’s bicep. When he releases his foot, he pulls his opponent’s sleeve towards him and kicks his foot simultaneously to break his opponent’s grip on his pants.
Now that he has broken his opponent’s grip, he does the same hip movement as earlier. He lifts his hips, then turns toward his opponent, chopping his leg down on the back of his opponent’s arm and he looks for the omoplata.
As you can see Rehan’s spider guard game is really good. When Rehan moves his hips side to side, notice how high his hips go. He really attaches himself to his opponent. He doesn’t allow his opponent the space to break the posture and start passing.
The way Rehan breaks the opponent’s grip on his pants, reminds me of Michael Langhi. When I trained with Michael in Sao Paulo, he always broke the grip the same way and he would finish with an armbar, which is another option as well.

Here is the breakdown of the key points on drills to improve your spider guard:

1. Once Rehan is in the spider guard position, he lifts his hips and he extends to his opponent’s side. The goal is to get his hips completely lateral on his opponent. This will help improve your fundamentals of the spider guard.
2. When Rehan is ready to break his opponent’s grip on his pants, Rehan releases his foot on his opponent’s bicep. It’s very important that Rehan pulls his opponent’s sleeve and kicks his leg out at the same time to break the grip.
3. Then Rehan lifts his hips, turns towards his opponent, chops down on the back of his opponent’s arm and looks for the omoplata.

I hope you enjoyed the video. Oss.