Tarantula Guard by Dominique Bell

Like Spider Guard? Then you'll LOVE Dom Bell’s Tarantula Guard, an innovative alternative to spider guard!

Tarantula Guard is a comprehensive guard system that controls your opponent’s posture and leads them into an endless web of submissions and sweeps.
Tarantula Guard opens an all new attack system that allows you to control your opponent’s better then Spider Guard.
Dom gives you an aggressive attack based approach that forces your opponent to react.
Get Your Grips and GET TO WORK!

Are you having trouble stopping aggressive guard passers who you can’t seem to get a hold of? Then you need an aggressive guard that lets you get to work right away. Atos Black Belt and multiple time IBJJF Open champion, Dom Bell has just the guard you are looking for. Tarantula Guard is a 4-part instructional designed to stop the guard passer in their tracks. Once they are webbed into the Tarantula Guard sweeps and submissions will open up!

Part 1 of the instructional is focused on getting right to work. Dom covers pulling directly into the Tarantula Guard. A great benefit of this style of guard is that you can impose it on your opponent regardless if they are standing or on their knees to widen their base. Another key aspect to the effectiveness of Tarantula Guard is that you are able to enter from both Lasso Guard and even from guard recovery situations. Dom dives deep on the details of controlling your opponent and describes one of the major differences between Spider and Tarantula Guard, and that is controlling the collar!

Modifying the Spider Guard into the Tarantula Guard involves using only one foot on the bicep, and your free hand to keep your opponent’s collar. This leaves your other leg free to help set up nasty traps. Once you start to understand the controls of the Tarantula Guard your opponent will start to make mistakes, or even better you can force them to slip up! This is where part 2 picks up.

A Major theme of Tarantula Guard is forcing your opponent to react. One of the first reactions you will encounter is your opponent trying to posture out of your grips. This is a super common reaction when playing traditional spider guard. This is where having the collar grip comes in handy because it lets you enter into a number of sweeps.

Now that you have your opponent slipping around on the mat it’s time for some submissions. Part 3 and 4 of Tarantula Guard will have you transitioning back and forth between sweeping options and submissions. If you have played spider guard before some things will look familiar, except this time you have a free leg and a collar grip which provides for some innovative ways to trick your opponent. Dom’s rolling armbar against a passer using a heavy combat base is a perfect example of this trickery.