Michael Langhi and the three mistakes guard players make

By Vitor Freitas (Pictures: Budo Video & Rise Again BJJ)

Elite athlete Michael Alexandre Langhi, a 3X IBJJF World Champion, is one of the biggest supporters of The BJJ Mental Coach Movement. I had the opportunity to interview Langhi to talk about his passion of Jiu Jitsu and one of his favorite moves: the guard.

The Alliance Black-Belt shared his top 3 mistakes that can harm any jiu jitsu practitioner during training or competition.

Read the most valuable tricks of the lightweight and improve your trainings below.

1. Lose the fear of the pressure

"The first enemy is the fear of pressure. Many people give up the guard, because in the beginning, when we still don't have a good control, we end up pressured. So, because they're not in a comfortable situation, they end up giving up this very important fundament in Jiu-jitsu. Lose the fear", teaches Langhi.

2. Use your hips

"When we talk about guard, mainly spider-guard, the hip is one of the most important things to work with. You must have an active hip, because that helps defending and creating sweeps opportunities and submissions. For that, I'm used to give the boxing example. If you're constantly still, you're a fixed target, it's easier to hit you. But if you tilt your head and use the avoidance, you will defend yourself better. In Jiu-Jitsu it's the same thing, the more you move your hips, the more you can confuse your opponent, and easier becomes your defense. With the active hip you're not a fixed target, and more effective is your attack", says Langhi.

3. Strong grip

"The last but not the least, THE GRIP, which is a very important element. A strong grip makes you to work well with a good control. Just like the judoca seeks to do a dominant grip, on the guard this fundament is also important. A very big mistake that happens on the first "toureada pass" the opponent attempts, when you have the instinct of letting go of the grips to push the opponent. That ends up facilitating the pass. But if we use the resource of the grip, followed by the hip escape, the defense will work better. That's why in the open guard it's crucial to have at least on the opponent's sleeve dominated: the other one can change for the pants, collar etc", finishes the Jiu-Jitsu legend.