Today I am here with Hudson Taylor. Hudson is one of the most impressive guys I have ever rolled with and he is the best wrestler I have ever trained with. He was one of my wrestling coaches when I was training in NYC and he has transitioned from wrestling to bjj very well. Hudson is a 3x All American in NCAA D-1 and he holds the top five best pin records in the history of D-1 college wrestling. I convinced Hudson to start training bjj in 2014 when I started training with him and he won the No Gi Pan Ams Adult Blue belt Division Double Gold after two months of bjj. 6 months later he did the worlds in the gi as a blue belt and he won 1st place at adult, another 6 months later he won the worlds no gi as a purple belt in the adult division. Today Hudson is going to show us one of the new guards that he is doing. We were trading privates, I would teach bjj and he would show me wrestling.
Hudson came up with this new guard called the Umbrella guard that is very good for him because all Hudson has to do is turn on the knee and he will be able to take anyone down. The guard he plays is a little similar to the butterfly but it is very easy for him to come one his knees and get the double leg. Check out how he does this below and then I will break down.
Breakdown of the Umbrella Guard by Hudson Taylor:
So guys as you can see this position is a little different than many of the traditional guards that we see. The main goal for Hudson is to be able to take his opponent down using his strength which is wrestling. I always told Hudson that all he has to do is find a position that he was used to seeing in wrestling and that he would be able to take anyone down and hold them.
This umbrella guard makes it very easy for him to come up on his knees, stay facing his opponent and eventually start some type of takedown. The goal for Hudson is to end up with a single leg, double leg, or a head and arm position. These are positions that he has seen a lot when he was wrestling.
One thing I can say a bout Hudson is he has the best double leg I have ever seen, if he gets close to setting it up the guy is in trouble. The umbrella guard may not be for everyone but there are a lot of people who start bjj after wrestling and if that is you then this position is great. Hudson has a whole DVD called “Wrestling for BJJ.” He is a good friend of mine and this a great DVD, check out the digital version below! Enjoy guys, OSS!