#364 The Guard Tier List | 28 Different Guards RANKED

I suck at jiu-jitsu. I'm a white belt. Hey everybody, Josh McKinney here. So I ranked every guard in jiu-jitsu. In order to do that, I had to play every guard in jiu-jitsu. It's taken me about 18 years to do so, but I did it for you guys. And now I can keep you from wasting 18 years of your jiu-jitsu journey on an F-tier guard, on a D-tier guard, on guards that don't make sense to play. And not only will I bash some of your favorite guards, guards that people have dedicated their entire journey to. Uh, not only will I tell you how you shouldn't do that, but I'll also explain why. And then I will give you guys the two double S-tier. I guess I don't know what SS-tier is. I think that's in cars, I think it's super sport. And so the super sport, the top top, right? Better than S-tier. And I'll tell you the criteria of what we're looking for, um, in these guards and, um, because it might not be your same criteria. You may look at it differently. You may, uh, you know, want to play jiu-jitsu for less logical reasons. And so, um, that may be why we disagree. But understand, there's a good chance if you've been training jiu-jitsu for a long time, that we are going to disagree on this one. And I would love to hear from you. I am not saying that I am 100% right on this, but I do know that no one really has compiled a list, uh, like this. And I really do think that this is going to be so helpful for people to be able to dedicate, I mean, when you really look at it, to master a guard, to really be good at a guard, even if it is your only focus. The fastest I've ever seen somebody go from like a white belt to a black belt level in a specific guard is about three years. And that is with them just being a total sellout for that position. Every question they ask is about that position. Every positional spar is in that position. Every time they're in around, they're trying to create that position. And that is, and this is just to me. Maybe some people can master, you know, get to black belt level, meaning you can effectively use it on black belts. You can do both defense and offense from that guard on black belts. Not every black belt, but on black belts. Um, that is to me the, the ranking system for whether or not you are, like the litmus test of whether or not you are good at a guard, right? Or a black belt level at a guard. And so, um, you don't want to be a black belt level at a guard that because of how the strategy of jiu-jitsu works, that it screws you over in the long term. And so, um, I know it's kind of a weird disclaimer to start with, uh, but I think that this episode is going to solve that. And so, um, thank you guys for checking this out. And I really would love to hear from you guys because I know I'm going to have some takes on this that people are going to absolutely not agree with. And I would love if, if I am wrong, I would love if you explained why. Um, if you agree with me, I think there are going to be a lot of people disagreeing. So if you do agree with anything, I would love if you tell me, if you let me know, if you give me some encouragement, because we may, we may take some hits on this one, boys. Um, so here's the criteria that I used in thinking about guards, because the whole thing about this is this is a long game way to look at things. Um, I'm going to break down how there are certain game, uh, certain guards that won't hit that SS-tier, that you could focus on right now and they would generate more wins for you right now. Um, and, but I do feel like that there are still problems with looking at it that way. And we'll talk about that, but the biggest things that we look at, and the first one, the most important one, is are these effective at a high level? Is this guard used both defensively and offensively at a high level? Do we have, you know, do we have footage of it being used? Then it is the cost to learn this guard. Meaning, is there a crazy time requirement to learn the guard retention? Is there a crazy time requirement to learn every little nuance of the grip sequences of these guards? And, um, that can, obviously, if it's simple to learn, if this is something that you can just start to implement and it doesn't cost you five years, 10 years to actually be good at the guard, I think that's incredibly important. Um, but the other cost to learn some guards is actually injury. Some guards are not smart for your body. And there's a good chance that you hurt yourself in the long run. And I'm going to have some actual warnings and real facts for you guys about, uh, certain guards to avoid because of injury. Um, and again, this is in my opinion. If you don't care about injury, if you want to do jiu-jitsu for the next 10 years and that's it, well, do it that way. But as somebody who has done it for 18 years, I still love training jiu-jitsu. It is still the highlight of my day when I get to train. And so, I think that for longevity, there are certain guards that you can play that just make sense that are going to work as you age and aren't going to destroy your body near as much as others. Um, and then there are two more parts of our criteria. We look at how hard is it to enter this guard, right? If you have a 10-step move to get into, to, to, to have an entry, well, those are 10 places that you can lose. Those are 10 places that a guy has a chance to defend. All I have to do is defend one of these 10 steps and then your guard doesn't work, right? And so if your guard requires 10 different moves, it's just so hard to get into. It's just not available very often. Um, even if it's very effective, even if it clicks those up, hits those other things, it's still not going to be able to be at those top ranks of, uh, in my opinion, guards you should dedicate your life to. And that's really what we're looking at here, is what guards make sense to kind of dedicate your life to. And I'm going to give you my kind of off the top of my head, um, uh, opinion. And then at the very end, we'll look and maybe I'll change some tiers. So stay with me till the end before you, ah, nah, just argue with me. If I put it in the wrong tier, just be mean to me. And then maybe I'll correct it. We'll just figure it out. Um, we'll figure it out together. But then, how hard is it to enter? And then versatility. Can it be used in only the gi? Can it be used in only no-gi? Can it be used in both? Can it be used in both and in MMA or a street fight? Could it be used in a self-defense situation? There are, um, uh, uh, guards that are just more versatile. And guards that are incredibly, incredibly top tier, but only for their specific rule set or only for what you're wearing, right? And this is totally okay, but if you're thinking in the long term of if you ever want to expand your jiu-jitsu into other places, it also makes sense to dedicate your time to guards that allow you to do that. Even if they don't generate wins immediately. Even if there are some guards that are like lower hanging fruit, you can just grab and immediately start to get wins, does it make sense in the long run? And that is really what I'm hoping to answer on this for you guys. Um, and then I just want to anger certain groups of people for some reason. I don't know why. You, you always know when the suit comes on, Josh is just going to be hot taking for no reason. And I think that's, when I went through this tier list, I mean, we have, I think 28, 29 different types of guards/guards that we're going to go through. And so, when you get to a type of tier list like this, I think what ends up happening is you'll get into this, this mindset of like, oh, well, this can't be here. This has to be here. And to me, my hope is that I have, you know, I've been working on this for a really long time, but, uh, that I have it dialed in enough that at least you guys are going to get a general idea of how I look at guards and why. And so, we're going to start, and I thought the easiest way, place to start, we could either go like top tier or lowest tier. Because like, in the house that I grew up in, if this, if there was like a grades tier list, the two grades that you could have were A and F. And here's how that tier list worked. A was anything A or A+. A- was in the F-tier. A- was fail. You might as well have just not done it at A-. So this, having seven different ranking systems, it's hard for me to not just see the world in pass/fail, you know? And so, this has been hard for me to, you know, see the spectrum of the world here, you know? But we are looking at our guards, and I thought the easiest place for us to start is what is an F-tier guard? And we can all agree that though it is not points, that is the only redeeming quality of quarter guard. You are on bottom. All you have is the ankle. Here is the proof of why this position is irrelevant, is because the top guy can even have the bottom arm underhook. Okay? So you have, I'm in mount, and then you have my ankle, right? Which, yes, I understand this is part of escaping mount, but why are we calling it a guard? It is part of escaping mount still. You are still two inches from mount. I have everything else. And if you, you can let me win that bottom underhook, right? So you have my, I guess my right foot. You're on your left side. You have my right foot, and you let me get your left underhook. So your bottom arm underhook. You're going to start to get flat. And then you can pinch my ankle or whatever, but I'm in mount, bro. It really doesn't matter. I've gotten a few different Americanas at black belt over the last year in competition while guys have me in quarter guard. Because, yes, you don't get points, but there are certain parts of jiu-jitsu that actually the point system has hurt the game. Um, another good example of this is how willing people are to jump off of mount and pull their opponent on top of them for the chance at the back. But then if they lose the back, they end up flat on their back in maybe closed guard at best. They could have just stayed in mount. They could have just let the person trap their ankle into quarter guard and then win the bottom arm underhook, put pressure, crush the person. Make them do it again. And then they're like, man, I'm tired of doing this. And so, you see this, though, this idea of I've got to fall back and chase the back. Why? Because it's points. If it's not points, keeping your opponent stuck between the mat and yourself, especially if you were good enough to get all the way up into that position, you're probably going to be able to do it to this opponent again, even if they started to get back to a guard. And so the mindset of, well, to advance, it has to be to take the back, is like, you limit a lot of your options once you take the back, right? And I'm not saying the back isn't an incredibly effective position, but your weight, the, the person's weight is now on top of you. And you just took like your biggest asset and you go, okay, well, I'm going to give it, I'm going to need to, you know, maybe you're good at it. Maybe you have good grips on it, but you just can't tell me you don't lose it ever and end up on bottom. And then it's like, well, we're not in the same fight anymore. What if this guy's guard passing is just better than mine now? I could have stayed on top and just kept passing him. And, yeah, so that is why we start with quarter guard as an F-ranked guard. And I think, I don't even think that's that hot of a take. I think for some people this next one might be. And I put two together, and you'll notice that there is a lot of categories in this. So I have this listed as donkey guard, the next one we're going to go to. But this is also reverse closed guard, okay? So donkey guard in itself, it's biggest problem is honestly not how weird it is. Not how weird it looks, not how it makes a mockery of jiu-jitsu. But to me, is the risk of you standing on your head when another person could be jumping on you and doing kind of, it's just, it's too risky to me to, to play that, to, to play like a true donkey guard where you're standing on your head, right? Uh, the reverse closed guard position, though, if you can get there, though weird, and it really only has a couple of options, it is so overpowered. Because not only do you have control of the guy's hips because you have closed guard, but since he's facing the wrong way, he can't hand fight you anymore. His hands are stuck on the floor and, you know, it's like, as a guard, that reverse closed guard is very powerful. Here is the problem with it. The entries are hard. You don't see many people building, you know, it seemed like one person ever built a, a huge game off donkey guard and, and reverse closed guard. So it is possible. But I just, to me, it's more of an injury risk thing. Obviously, it has less practical application, like in a, a self-defense or in mixed martial arts. You're never seeing anybody run butt forward, you know, uh, in an MMA fight. And so, um, that for me puts donkey guard in the C-tier. I think I like it there. I think I like it in the C-tier. We'll see. We'll see how everything else fills up, and I think that will give us, that will give us an indication. Okay. So, I have two, possibly three guards. And we'll see at the end. We'll see where we end up. But, I know it's very, very, very few. We're about to look at X-guard, and this is going to shock people. Hey guys, Josh here. I've been getting so much good feedback from the Rob Bernacki instructional, Jiu-Jitsu for Imbeciles, that we have been giving away for free. But I have bad news. We're about to switch the free giveaway from our friends at BJJ Mental Models. And so, if you have not gotten Rob Bernacki's Jiu-Jitsu for Imbeciles, this is a conceptual course on learning jiu-jitsu. And the amount of feedback that people have felt the need to give me, I didn't create this course, but still, to tell me how much it has helped them has been so interesting. I mean, pretty quickly it made me go, oh, this is, this is something that I should start to pay attention to even more than I realized. People love Rob Bernacki's way of explaining jiu-jitsu. And like I said, this is the last time we are running a commercial for this course. And so, the next free giveaway is about to change, um, in the coming weeks. But for right now, you can still get your free copy of Jiu-Jitsu for Imbeciles at BJJMentalModels.com/I Suck. And be sure to check the link in the description and get in on that free course. Let's get back to the episode. This is going to shock people. I have two or three guards that are going to end up in that S-tier, SS-tier, okay? There are some gi-only guards that are going to end up in S-tier, I think. There are going to be some, you know, no-gi-only positions will probably end up there too, but the, that, the, the lack of versatility in those is just like that, they can only, on this list, they can only get to that S-tier. You need to be able to be used in gi, no-gi, effectively at the highest level, gi, no-gi, and fighting, right? And MMA. And that's, you know, we'll use MMA as our, our, uh, our tester, because there's a lot of, you know, there's just so much footage of MMA. So it's very easy to see if like this works or it doesn't. Um, or if anyone's even gotten it to work, okay? And so, we're taking X-guard and we're putting it as our first into the SS-tier. And let me prove it to you. Obviously, we see X-guard in the gi. We see it in no-gi. We've seen it by Marcelo Garcia in both at a crazy high level. Here is, in my opinion, why it is so effective in like the perfect jiu-jitsu sense, is it will limit the athleticism of some of the most athletic people you will ever go with, even if you're smaller, even if you're nowhere near as strong as them, and it will allow you to change the fight to get on top of them, okay? And obviously, there are other, there are all kinds of leg entanglements that come from this position too, but the biggest, the biggest part of jiu-jitsu, in my opinion, of this guard is the ability to change the fight. I am in guard and possibly I don't want to be. The person is too athletic to do anything, and I get this, this time to control both of their legs at once, and so they can't be near as athletic anymore, right? We're controlling basically both of their feet, and that makes it so much harder for a person to be explosive and be athletic. It gives us this chance to not only come up on sweeps, but come up where we're knocking them totally flat on their back, and again, they're unathletic for a second, and it gives us a chance again. And that is a big part of it for me. But when you look at, even in the UFC, you look at, um, Rory MacDonald has used it effectively. Carlos Condit has used it effectively, um, in really, really high-level fights, right? Um, those, you see those guys like, um, I want to say it was Rory MacDonald. I, one of our, when we were at the Hit Squad, um, so this would have been in 2008. This was before he was in the UFC. Uh, just some random Canadian kid. I guess he was young too. And he fought one of our best guys at the Hit Squad. And, um, a guy who probably should have been in the UFC too. Probably, I mean, definitely should have had the skill to be there. And, you know, he accepted a fight with a tough 19-year-old kid. No one knew who he was. And, man, Rory MacDonald beat him handily. But it was also, what was interesting, is he was using X-guard in that fight. He was using it in 2008, 2009, and using it effectively against a guy who was a way better wrestler to go from bottom to top. He wanted to play top on this guy, especially in a fight, right? It would make so much more sense to play top. But he didn't have that option through wrestling. He had that option through how powerful X-guard is. And, um, and it, you know, it protected him. It kept him out of, out of a lot of danger. And so that is for me why I put X-guard in the top tier. And now we'll look at lockdown. I've got some, people are going to be furious about. I'm just going to say it. Lockdown, we're throwing it next to donkey guard in the C-tier. Hey, maybe by the end of this, maybe by the end of this, I, I talk myself out of it just because I don't want to take the heat. But to be honest, if you, and we're looking at long term, we're not, like, on effectiveness, lockdown can be incredibly effective. It can be effective in all three sports. It is incredibly versatile. But here is the problem with dedicating your jiu-jitsu to lockdown, is there aren't a ton of avenues for success. There are some. Look, I know there are moves. I know 10th Planet guys are listening to this early morning and they are furious. They have not, they have not had their marijuana for the day, and they're mad at me. They're like, how dare you put lockdown in the C-tier? But, I, what do you want from me, bro? It's like, you are letting people get too close if lockdown is your only position. Lockdown as a position, I'm not saying that it is not an amazing position. I'm saying that looking at it from a sense of you are going to dedicate all of your time to playing lockdown, it, it limits you too much. And here is my biggest problem with it. And this is, this is, this is my, my argument. Is it's too taxing on your body to learn. If you are not incredibly flexible already, right? Even in, even then, though, your neck being turned with pressure on it is not good for your spine. And the more you allow that to happen in live rounds with tough people, where you're accepting that pressure on your face and then trying to off-balance the other way, I'm not saying you don't use it when you get there. I'm saying that you're missing so many layers of guard by allowing people to start there and just going, yeah, all I do is this. All I do is this. And it's like, and it probably, again, it's like these, these positions where I look at like, if the person doesn't know how to play on top, then it can be really effective. But what's interesting is it seems to be easier to learn how to beat it on top than it does to learn how to play it on bottom. And that to me is, that's a huge limiter of this position. Its versatility and stuff, I could push it. Maybe we talk at the end and I push it up to a B, but as of right now, it's just too limiting. And this is, and I'm not an anti-half guard person. We're about to go on knee shield. And knee shield for me, because it controls distance, or at least that's the attempt. It tries to control people from walking forward. You keep their knee stuck on the floor. Knee shield, we're putting up in the A-tier. First inductee into the A-tier is knee shield. And also, we're looking at how many places knee shield can expand into. When you really look at all the guards we're going to touch on, knee shield can be, is one move away from butterfly. It's, honestly, when they're putting pressure on you, it's one move away from like single leg X or an X. It's, um, there's some, there are certain sweeps you can do like almost directly from knee shield. It's a move away from a Kimura. It's a move away from, we're going to look at coyote guard next. It's one move away from coyote guard. And, um, so to me, that puts it, that puts it in that A-tier category. Um, now we'll look at coyote guard. So we got, we got coyote. It's very effective once you get there. It's a very effective guard. Um, but again, as an only thing you play, isn't it limiting? I don't know. We've seen, we've seen Lucas Leite use it effectively at the highest levels, right? Um, obviously, it was a little bit ago, but still, I mean, he was using it very effectively against guys that are still competing at a high level today. And so, um, that shows its effectiveness. We see it in MMA. We see it gi and no-gi. My only real qualm about it, to be honest, is, um, once you're committed to it, you're relatively committed to it. Um, I guess my, I have two. My other qualm is it's so closely connected to wrestling that what if the guy is just a better wrestler? That's something that, you know, and this may, this may be a big thing that changes the way that I look at guards, is training in the Midwest forever, there's, you, you will go with good wrestlers. And you'll go like, okay, well, all my jiu-jitsu leads into wrestling, and most jiu-jitsu guys I go with just suck at wrestling. And so I can just finish these takedowns. But these guys, once we get to that layer that starts to feel like wrestling again, it's like, oh, they're the black belt and I'm the white belt. And so having stuff that doesn't just limit you, where you go like, well, if my coyote guard doesn't work, because that's what I'm committed to, that's where I'm trying to fight to, there's not a lot of exits for coyote guard, right? And so, that for me puts it in the B-rank. I know that that is going to probably upset some people, but not as much as this one is going to, because we're going over deep half. And I promise we'll get deeper into this. And I, I really think it's going to make sense. Maybe you guys are just going to hate me forever for this. But I think it's going to make more sense. I think you're going to go like, oh, this is the, um, uh, this is why it's ranked this way, okay? Uh, but deep half, to me, when we're talking about limiting guards, we're talking about when you see guys get in situations where they are just on bottom for the entire match, and it's like they're almost in mount. They're in quarter guard and then they're in deep half. And then do a bunch of moves, and then they're in quarter guard, and then they're in deep half. And then they go underneath, and the guy just stays on top the whole time. That can be really hard. Don't get me wrong. I have gone with incredible deep half guard players. But, and there's also this caveat that I'm going to throw in at number 16. We're at number nine or 10, eight, seven. We're at number seven. Um, but at number 16, so in a bit, I'm going to throw in a caveat that's going to change the deep half thing. It's going to change a few of the other guards rankings. I don't know, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just trying my best on this, guys. But I think it's going to make sense. It's like one of those things when, the risk of this podcast is like, I'm always trying to get you guys to step into my head. And that's a dangerous place to be. And, uh, I don't even know what the heck I'm thinking of. But deep half, we're throwing with lockdown and donkey guard in the C-category. And, something I've noticed about a lot of people that I know that have dedicated a lot of time to deep half is they generally end up going somewhere else. They generally end up adding X. They end up adding something a little more powerful. Um, you're dealing with a lot of the person's athleticism and a lot of their weight when you're playing deep half. And you can just, you're ending up flat on your back so often. You can be so slow. There are just limiting factors to it. There, like I said, there's going to be a little thing we do for deep half. We bring it back up. But that's all I'm, I'm just going to leave it at that then since we're going to, we're going to touch on it in a bit again. Um, so now we're going to look at K-guard. Um, this to me, and this will probably be, um, some people will agree. If you play K-guard, you're going to agree with me on this. K-guard, I put up in the S-tier. Our first inductee into the S-tier. And the only reason that I don't have it in the kind of, the, the above tier there is, um, uh, in, in a fight, in MMA, it is going to make less sense to do. Not that it wouldn't be effective, but the entries are going to be less common to happen, right? They're generally more jiu-jitsu situations that cause that. And so anything like that, that is, again, it's just got one caveat against it, and that's it. Um, but K-guard, when you think about it, because it's so closely, closely related to guard retention, and then you can enter leg locks. You can enter, there are some upper body attacks that people do. You can enter your X-guard. Um, you can enter so many different positions. There are so many ways to go from my guard is about to get passed to, I'm on offense again, right? Now I have, not only am I on offense, but I actually have a lot of options of offense. And so, that's, um, when I think about K-guard, I go into that, that S-tier rank. And, we have single leg X, um, next. And single leg X is, I could go, I mean, it's, it's very close to K-guard. The only difference between, to me, between single leg X and K, they're both incredibly effective. Um, they both can be kind of used across the board in the same scenarios. Um, I would say that single leg X tends to be a little harder to enter. And I know K-guard hasn't really been around as long, so people would maybe be surprised by that. Um, but I have had big guys recently, um, much bigger guys than I would expect to try to get good at K-guard, and then they get good at K-guard. And, um, it's like, it seems to not require the same amount of athleticism as it seemed like when I first started playing it. And you're getting guys that are learning that position because, again, it's closely related to guard retention, especially when the top guy is just being fast and going side to side, right? And so, um, yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of what I'm seeing, um, on single leg X is like the only thing that keeps it out of S is it's a little harder to get into. Um, it's a little harder to play, right? It's a little harder barrier of entry. I think it's just as effective as K-guard probably. But we're dropping it into the A-tier with knee shield, right? Both places address distance. They do, um, they control the person's ability to walk forward. They both do exactly what a guard probably should do. Um, so now we're going to look at, we're going to look at, the jiu-jitsu mats are really gross. If you really think about it. I try to not think about it. I've actually run into this problem of writing commercials for my friends at Sports Hygiene. It's so hard to write commercials because if I just really am honest with people, and we all just sat for a second, and we think about how gross the jiu-jitsu mats are. We just really, we marinate on that thought in the same way that we marinate on all of the body fluids of our friends. And then you hear about a product from Sports Hygiene. You hear about their product, Full Guard. And you hear about this idea of hypochlorous acid and how it can literally kill ringworm. It can kill staff. And it is good for your skin biome. And this idea that there is a spray that you could literally spray on in between rounds to protect your body from the grossness of the jiu-jitsu mats is unbelievable. And it just so happens that they love the I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu show and want to give a promo code to you guys. And that is promo code I Suck. And so, at checkout, when you are getting your case of Full Guard to just douse your body in because of how gross the mats are, be sure to use promo code I Suck at checkout. Let's get back to the episode. And we're back, ranking every guard in jiu-jitsu. What is the most important one to dedicate your time to? Why are some very effective, but why do they have problems? And before we get into that, question for you guys. Seated guard. Or is it sit-up guard? Or is it koala guard? I've heard all three. I've heard even single leg guard. I've heard a lot of people describe it as single leg guard. And so, um, it's a good question. I, I think the first time I ever heard of it was called koala guard. That was the first time it was ever explained to me. Um, but I think seated guard makes a, makes more sense, right? Um, that's a more logical, uh, term, right? I don't know. Which one do you guys use at your gym? Regardless, I put seated guard as a high-level guard, a good, important guard to dedicate time to. Um, but we will put it in the A-tier. It doesn't make it to that top rank. I don't think it really goes, to be honest, I don't know if it goes really much over that. I think that's exactly where, where we should have it. Um, seated guard is that A-tier guard. Um, now we will look at, ooh, here is an interesting one. Some people love this guard. Um, some people will disagree with me just because they don't know how to pass this guard. They're like, this guard feels overpowered. Um, but, we're going to look at reverse De La Riva. I'm going to put reverse De La Riva not totally in the trash, but, I mean, pretty close. In the C-tier with donkey guard, lockdown, and deep half guard. And the reason we put reverse De La Riva there is because it is incredibly effective in the gi. It becomes a lot more limited in no-gi. We see it used in no-gi, but almost more defensively than offensively. You see guys use it to stop the pass from happening. But there is a level of closeness. Ooh, man. I'm almost talking myself out of it. No. Sorry, I lied to you guys. We put it in the B-tier. I put it up, reverse De La Riva in coyote guard. It's more of just the limiting factor of it. There are, there is a, um, there is a limiting factor to it. And there is a flexibility, not requirement, but when it's an actual overpowered guard, there is a flexibility requirement. Um, you can use it and kind of use it effectively if you are not super flexible. But, I just think that that's really what keeps it lower for me. But I think we'll keep it in the B-tier. I think that feels better with reverse De La Riva. Um, now we will look at De La Riva. De La Riva to me, and this is going to make, okay, this is a perfect time. Okay, so De La Riva we put in the A-tier. And De La Riva, seated guard, single leg X, knee shield. Um, is the A-tier. The B-tier, we have coyote guard and reverse De La Riva. Here's the thing about what separates that line to me. At least right now, I'm sure there's going to be something that, uh, some guard that's, uh, some type of hybrid that's, that's okay with us. But, um, right now, the biggest thing that separates these guards on the top is that they address distance. And the reason that that matters is let's say that somebody, um, uh, starts to stuff your leg on De La Riva and starts to set up their knee cut. Well, you can go to reverse De La Riva, right? You have that ability to fall back to that next layer of jiu-jitsu. If you don't play De La Riva and you only play reverse De La Riva, you're putting way more eggs in that basket. You are allowing somebody to get through a layer of guard that you could have attacked them, that they could have had to beat. And then when they have to beat that next layer immediately, you could be going into your offense. And so that's the truth about this is we're looking at this from a perspective that you are only dedicating your time to one guard. And if you did, what guard would, what guards would make the most sense? But the problem with that is, as you get good, you're going to be dedicating your time to a lot of guards. Uh, this ideally is just going to help you go, okay, well, I'm getting stuck in the half guard. Which guards does he say to play? Which guards does he say to dedicate time to that are closely related to half guard? Because I'm getting stuck there regardless. I can't control that. And so that's how you can look at this instead of just saying, what is the guard that I want to use? Um, so now we will look at spider guard. And when I'm looking at spider guard, we're going to put this in the category, if we were just looking at pure spider, to me, it's probably a B-tier guard. You don't see a lot of people playing just pure spider and having much success with it anymore. And obviously, this is only a gi situation that that would even happen. But, you just don't see it as much. It's just not as versatile. Dedicating all of your time to spider can be a bit of a detriment to your jiu-jitsu. But, if you teach seminars, people will call spider what we used to call double sleeve. Spider was when you actually had feet in the crooks of the elbows. Now, people just like, if you're holding on to people's sleeves, people are calling it spider. And when you look at it that way, and you're just controlling the person's grip fight on top, it's really frustrating as the top guy. And the feet may not be in your biceps. They may be in your hips, and it's way more dangerous, right? You're getting triangulated, omoplata'd, or thrown overhead if that happens. And so, um, that to me pushes spider up. Um, uh, like I said, I'm, I'm thinking B, but I'm honestly going to go A-tier for spider guard because it does address distance. And it can be interchangeable with feet on hips, right? And as soon as you're playing it that way, you've got crazy good offense on spider guard. Um, there's some specific guard retention that has to be learned to play spider guard. But, there are a million videos of how to retain guard from spider. But, again, it is specific. It's specific to this guard. And by choosing to play spider, you're choosing to destroy your fingers over the long term. And you are choosing to dedicate your time to a guard that will only work in the gi. There is not a no-gi spider guard that works well. Um, unless you can start to hook the insides of the gloves in MMA, it, it, it's just not going to happen. And so, um, yeah, the, uh, uh, the spider as an effective position is, is gi-only. But I put it at A-tier. It is very effective in the gi. Okay, here's a perfect example too. Now we're at another gi-only position, being collar sleeve. The only thing that keeps collar sleeve from being in SS-tier is that it's a gi-only position. It has no versatility. It is only, you, if you're choosing to dedicate all of your time to collar sleeve, you're choosing to be a gi person. It's just a much harder transition from other guards that we may, if we're, you know, even more dedicated to single leg X or something like that. But when it comes to effectiveness, when it comes to, this is a guard that you could add and get success with like this week, and then just keep playing all of your jiu-jitsu and continue to get more and more and more success with it. We see it work at the highest levels. We see most guys at the highest levels play it in some capacity. Like, no matter what, they're, you're like, guard players, the highest levels in the gi are playing some version of collar sleeve. They tend to be, right? Because double sleeve controls the grip fight. Collar sleeve controls one half of the grip fight, and it controls the posture. But then it allows you an angle that allows you to not have to worry about their other hand very much. And so, it kind of just accomplishes more than double sleeve. Um, and that angle creates a lot of different submissions. And so, that is why collar sleeve is our S-tier guard. It's one of our S-tier guards. Not, not the double S, but the single, the single S right now, we'll call collar sleeve. So now we're moving on. So lapel guards were hard. Do we break down every single lapel guard? Honestly, I really think that it would just be like, counterproductive. I don't think a lot of people would even care about what every single, um, lapel guard is. So we've broken them down into three categories. And this is the point that is going to make some people hate me a little less if I ranked your guard in a bad spot, a place you don't like it. Um, so, the first place we're looking at is the shallow lapel guards. You need these to get to the deep lapel guards. And, I think like if you're, again, if you're just dedicating all of your game to like just lapel lasso, that's crazy. That's, you're a crazy person. Don't do that. Like, it's, it, if you want to play the lapel guards, you need to learn lapel lasso, right? You need to learn to control the lapels from some distance when you're entering your guard for sure. But, but you don't want to just play that. Um, that feels risky. I've competed one time. I competed against a guy that was like only lapel lasso. And it was before I really knew how to deal with the position. And honestly, I'm not trying to be that guy. I took him down. I got no points for it. But, um, yeah, it's, uh, I couldn't pass him though. I absolutely could not get past him. And I had a few near passes, nothing that really deserved anything. But it was just the, uh, um, it was the fact that like, I felt stuck in the position. But the same thing about the position is it limited him. He didn't, like, especially when you look at like, he, he played different games at different times. He probably had some more offensive games that he could have played that would have had a lot better chance of submitting me or sweeping me. But it wouldn't have kept me as tied up. And so you're kind of with like those lapels at a distance, them not being as effective for offense, even though they can be really annoying to pass. If the guy just knows how to beat it, you better have another layer, right? You better have another layer. And that's always that thought. So, um, the shallow lapel guards, we're going to put in the B-tier with coyote guard and reverse De La Riva. Um, and this may anger some people. Who knows? I don't know, I don't even know, like, do, do lapel guard guys get, are they near as vocal as like the no-gi-only guys? Because no-gi-only guys, if I say anything bad about no-gi, they'll be freaking out. Um, but I think lapel guard guys kind of know their place. They're kind of like, hey, man, I'm just here to have a good time, you know? I'm just here to have fun and be creative. Like, this is what it's about for me. We don't have to be all angry about everything. So now we'll look at deep lapel guards. And this to me, when you go with somebody who's actually good at lapel guards, and they tie you up into something reverse, De La, upside down, worm, Poland, like, whatever the heck they're doing nowadays, they, it can be very frustrating. Um, it can be so hard to deal with. And then there are so many nuances to each of the games that you don't really, like, I've never really seen anybody teach a, I mean, besides me, um, teach a systematized version to just deal with all of them. And, um, to just stay ahead of all of them, honestly. It's just most people are like trying to teach you how to pass each individual one. Like, bro, you'll never beat these guys that way because then they'll just invent a new one. It's like, there's no, you got to beat them early. And if you can't beat them early, you got to beat them the next stage. And if you can't beat them there, you got to beat them at the next stage. And you have to look at it this way. And this is why, you know, really, I'm kind of revealing what I look at, how I look at this position as a top player. I look at the lapel guard as a top player, is they're way less dangerous when people are just starting to put a spider guard hook in your lapel, right? It can be annoying, but it's just smart to not make mistakes there, right? It's smart to try to stay ahead of certain things and avoid these deeper positions. But when you start getting put in the deeper positions, it is such a hard fight to know the decisions to make that is what's going to get you swept, what's going to end up getting your back taken, what's going to end up putting you in a deep, deep arm bar. And some of the things happen so quick, you blink and they're like, oh, this guy is figure-four'd on my back, and I thought I was about to pass this guard. I thought I was passed, honestly. And, so that for me takes these deep lapel guards and puts them in the A-tier. I still, and if I'm dedicating to a gi-only position, I still have collar sleeve above it, right? Uh, but, I think, I put spider guard in deep lapel guards like pretty much side by side. I think that is a perfect place, um, for the two of them. Uh, so now we will look at, okay, here's the next one that I'll consider, I'll consider lower. Let's look at lasso guard. Obviously, lasso guard is limited. That is the real problem with lasso, is it's very hard to pass. It's obviously, it's just, it's a gi-only position. But, it's so limited on the offense. And so, um, I, I just don't, I, not saying don't dedicate your time. It's still in the B-tier. But, I'm just saying like, as a, this is the only guard I'm going to play forever, it's very limited on the amount of offense that you can do from there. And it can be a, a tough problem for people. But guys who are good, if you just give them one problem to solve, they probably have solved that problem before. They're going to figure it out. And it's like, you need to, to me, you need to address that. So now, now we'll get into some last hot takes. So we have octopus guard. We have closed guard. And we have the butterfly guard. Which ones of these guards are S-tier? Which ones of these guards are, what are they, where are they at? Where are they going to end up? And so, let's start with butterfly. To me, and this is just, I mean, it's right there. But I would consider butterfly an S-tier guard. I would say it's so close to being the double S-tier. The only problem with butterfly is it's really hard to get down the feel of it. We haven't seen many people get down the feel and the timing of actually hitting butterfly sweeps on high-level guys because they base out so well nowadays. But the beauty of butterfly is that base out a lot of times creates X-guard, which to me is more powerful for sweeping an athletic person. The more athletic person you go with, harder to me it feels like to be able to sweep them from a butterfly. Like the proof of this, you go with somebody who's totally athletic, unathletic, you can easily, anyone can hit a butterfly sweep on an unathletic person, right? And so, um, that's what puts it in the S-tier. And so now, which one is going to hit the double S-tier between closed guard or octopus guard? And let me just, let me just tell you guys, I put, I put your all, all your guys's favorite guard in the world right now, octopus guard, as a B-tier guard to dedicate your time to. I think that the injury risk is high in the position in a sense of like, when you just make the mistake and get cross-faced by the person, you can get your head wrenched so hard. Or you get pinned with your shoulder across your body. Still, both terrible for your spine. I hate that that is part of playing this guard. It is very closely related to wrestle up. Here's the problem. Be an octopus guard guy. I want you to do this. If you are like, if you're really into the octopus guard, you bought the instructionals and you're like, no, Josh doesn't know what he's talking about. This is an SS-tier guard. Here is the problem with octopus. And we've seen it work in MMA. We saw, uh, BJ Penn make it work years and years ago in MMA. Here's the problem with octopus. It is so closely related to certain wrestling positions. When you go with a high-level wrestler, they can beat octopus without having felt octopus guard before. They know the fight of the legs. They know the fight of the upper body, and they can just pin you and flatten you, right? And it limits that position. And so that to me is the biggest limiting factor. And again, we're looking at the idea of, of this being the only thing that you play. I think, again, it's a layers thing. It is a, that line of how close do we let somebody be, right? Is pretty much that A to B line. Like, lasso did drop below it. Um, but most of it has to do with like, just risk, right? The, we're playing guard. It's defense. We are guarding ourselves. Guards' real definition, I probably should have said this at the beginning, is that part of you is south of my hips. That's it. Part of you is still dealing with my legs. That's all we look at for guard. And so, if it's just your ankle, even though it probably shouldn't be, because it's like we said, this is why we have quarter guard so low. Even if it's just your ankle, like, yeah, it's no big deal. Like, it's not, it, it's still guard, right? And so that's how you look at it. That's what we're defining our guard is like, are they north of our ankles? Are, you know, are of our legs? But then there are certain positions like octopus that change the definition of guard. Because you're still really in octopus guard if you're, or you're at least very close to it, if you're in side control. People would still consider bottom side control when you get armpit to armpit and on your side before your legs come in, octopus. Even though it's still isn't guard, right? Your legs aren't really in. Um, but it's just to me, the problem with it is, it's just, it is a, it's a very good wrestling position that's being applied to jiu-jitsu. But, it feels like it's successful right now because of, you know, when people talk about the meta, what that a lot of that means is, there are so many things we can learn to beat in the jiu-jitsu space and learn to utilize in the jiu-jitsu space. And we tend to have a group thinking. We watch competition and we go, well, this is what guys are doing right now. So that's all that jiu-jitsu is. This is the beauty of having history of competition. A lot of the matches I've referenced for, uh, these things and fights that I've referenced for these things, they're old, right? And so these things stand the test of time. You see them happen again and again. And that's been the best thing for me is like, SS-tier guard, we have X-guard. The other one we're throwing in, obviously, the last guard we have is closed guard. And, that's our tier list, ladies and gentlemen. I am happy with how it turned out. Um, yeah, that's all I have for you guys. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. I hope that you can do something with this crazy information. If you like this guy, uh, this, uh, format of an episode, I've never done one like this before. Let me know. I would be happy to do another tier list too. We could look at tier list of all the submissions. We could look at tier list of guard passes. We could look at tier list of Lady Gaga songs and which ones are, you know, the, the top top Lady Gaga songs. Nah, let's not do Gaga. Let's do anything else. Um, but Gaga, I don't want to mess with the Illuminati stuff on the podcast, right? And so, I don't want to get into that kind of stuff and be weird. And so, um, yeah, we'll keep it about jiu-jitsu. I don't know. We could do like the best cheeseburgers too. I would, I would be happy to give you guys a tier list of the best cheeseburgers. You guys let me know what you need a tier list of. And I would be happy to do it. Um, but, uh, unless you hated this, then we'll just go back to the normal stuff that we do. We'll just go back to hot takes. Don't worry. I'll just shut up and I'll just give hot takes. That's what I'll do. But also, on the hot takes thing, while we're way at the end of the episode, 951 hot take. If you call 951 hot take, you will get a special message from me. And then you can give me a voicemail that ideally will one day be played on the show for a hot take episode. If you don't feel comfortable giving a voicemail, you can stay anonymous. You don't have to say who you are. Or you can even send a text message to 951 hot take. Not hot takes. It's not plural. You just give me one hot take. But then you can call me again and give me another. Um, but I would love to hear from you guys so we can do a different style of hot take episode. And you guys can be a part of it. And I think that would be what would be really fun. And so, if you have a hot take, save the number in your phone. If you have a hot take, you get done training, you're mad about something, tell me your rank, let me know where you're from if you want to. If not, just lay it on me. I want to know what you're mad about, and I want to talk about it. And I'm sure everybody on the show wants to hear about it too. But besides that, um, that's all I have for you guys today. I hope you guys enjoyed today's episode, and I hope that it helps you guys suck just a little bit less at jiu-jitsu. Have a great day, guys.