Around 3 months ago I joined a Muay Thai and BJJ gym and I'm loving BJJ the most. I'm a lanky 16 year old weighing at around 65kg and would like to make the most of my long legs against my opponents. I was wondering if anybody has any tips or YouTube videos for me to watch as a not so strong white belt to use my legs to my advantage and pull off some sick moves.
Welcome to MAP. Stephan Kesting's instructional videos are very good and easy to follow. Stephan Kesting His apps are very good, so do a search for those.
Spider guard might work well for a lighter person with long legs and opens up a whole lot of takedowns, sweeps and submissions but it's probably not appropriate just yet. Give it a few months.
Tbh you're tall and lanky, sick guard skills will come as you learn them. It's just a given. If you're tall and rangey then you will enjoy open guard DLR, spider-guard and lasso guard. I'd advise repping out things like side control and passing guard. That's what you're going to struggle with. I wish I had done it sooner. For the longest time I only ever used guard and it was great but my passing wasn't up to level and neither was pinning or submitting from top position.
As everyone else says, just attend classes and you'll go far, if your tall, look at triangles and armbars from guard, and from mount, youll get alot out of them, and guard is mount, just with reversed gravity, and the floor in the way!
How tall and lanky? I got a guy in my gym, who is like 6ft 4 ( I think) and when I'm in his guard, I have a lot of limb to try and get off and around me. I use stack passing a lot with him, and I have a long journey to get around
Yeah that's a good point, I'll keep reminding myself of that. I already do find myself getting side control/mount and then not being able to finish it.
You're doing better than me. I just used to get benched off. I couldn't hold side control on anyone for any length of time even when I got my Blue belt. It was my weakest point and it's often neglected by really good guard players. I was exactly the same weight and size when I started BJJ btw.
Whilst Finishing is the main aim for competition, you only get good, by controlling them, and then trying to finish them, nothings 100% on day one, john Danaher has written a good guide for tactics for improvement vs competition tactics, I'll see if I can find it.
Edit I can't find it on his FB account. Essentially you need 100% intensity sparring for comp success, but lower intensity sparring to learn new skills, it essential you know the difference. And regularly cycle through both formats. I've recently been trying this, with some good effect. I used to just try to roll 50/60/70% with everyone, so I always had some gas left in the tank, but it definitely did hamper my timing and submission finishing rate.