Rickson Gracie’s tips to become comfortable inside the closed guard

Passing the closed guard is never an easy task. We all have or had problems during our training sessions on this position. 

Either trying to get the perfect time to stand up, finding the perfect connection, fighting for grips, or opening it from the knees, it is a hard job to avoid our training partner's grips and attempts to break our posture.

The truth is, once you start to focus on keeping a good posture and your elbows/arms close to you, it will be hard for your opponent to sweep or submit you. So, knowing how to frustrate your adversary by avoiding his attempts to attack will eventually help you open and pass his guard. 

Learn from Rickson Gracie a few tips to become comfortable inside your opponent's closed guard in the following class. He clarifies:  

"So, the more important thing here is the posture. To have the hips involved, to have this. If she controls my arms, my energy is not on my arms anymore. Stop, go! My energy is on my elbows. She is pulling, not my hands. She is pulling my whole body because I am engaged. My hips and my elbows are engaged here."

"So, and if the pressure still. Keep going. I can always move a little bit and bring my weight to my elbows. So here, I am not tense here, fighting here, I am putting my weight. Pull! All my weight, I am relaxed. All my weight, I am relaxed here and bringing this arm inside too. So I am cool here."

"That's what I am looking for, is always have a good posture, a good control on her grips, a good sense of elbow positioning, to be able to complete my position here. So, I am always using my elbows. In case she traps my leg, I have to bring my weight down here. If I lift and she goes, I go back here."