Open Guard BJJ: Spider, De La Riva, Butterfly & More

Understanding Open Guard

Open guard encompasses any guard position where your legs are not locked. Unlike closed guard — which creates a physical constraint on the opponent's posture — open guard relies on constant adjustment, grip fighting, and positional awareness.

Open guard is fundamentally a distance management problem. Too close and you lose your frames; too far and they can pass around your legs. The open guard practitioner must constantly find the right distance while creating threats.

For gi players, open guard is the dominant competitive position. Many modern championships are won and lost in open guard battles. No-gi players have adapted many of these principles with grip changes.

Spider Guard

Spider guard uses sleeve grips with your feet placed on the biceps. You control both arms, creating a web that limits your opponent's ability to posture, pass, or attack. Spider guard is highly effective for practitioners with long legs and strong gripping.

Spider Guard Fundamentals

• Maintain strong sleeve grips — the guard breaks immediately if you lose them
• Alternate tension: push one foot, pull one sleeve to create constant imbalance
• Keep your hips active — use hip movement to shift angles
• Threat of triangle keeps them from posturing; threat of sweep keeps them from backing out

Spider Guard Attacks

• Triangle: release one bicep foot, throw the leg over their head
• Omoplata: swing the leg to the shoulder side for the shoulder lock
• Overhead sweep: when they push into your foot pressure, use momentum to sweep over your head
• Lasso transition: switch one foot from bicep to sleeve wrap for the lasso guard
• Balloon sweep: use the tension of both grips to catapult them

De La Riva Guard

De La Riva guard (DLR) hooks the outside of the lead leg — your outside foot wraps around the back of their lead leg while your inside foot pushes on the hip. Combined with sleeve and collar grips, DLR is one of the most dynamic guard systems in competition BJJ.

Ricardo De La Riva developed this guard in the 1980s to counter the leg pressure passes being used against him. Today it's a staple of competition grappling at all levels.

De La Riva Attacks

• DLR sweep: control the far leg and sweep them toward the hook side
• Back take: when they try to step out of the hook, follow them to the back
• Berimbolo: invert under them and take their back
• X-guard entry: slide under to X-guard for mechanical sweeps
• Single leg: stand up with the DLR hook for a takedown

Reverse De La Riva

Reverse DLR hooks the inside of the near leg instead. It transitions well to back takes and is often used as a guard recovery position when standard DLR gets compromised. The Mendes brothers and Cobrinha are masters of this position.

Butterfly Guard

Butterfly guard is the most fundamental open guard. Your feet are inside the opponent's thighs (hooks), and you control their upper body with underhooks, overhooks, or collar grips. What it lacks in complexity, it makes up for in effectiveness.

Marcelo Garcia is the defining practitioner of butterfly guard. His approach: get the double underhook and then elevate and sweep. Simple, but when executed at Marcelo's level, nearly unstoppable.

Butterfly Guard Sweeps

• Butterfly sweep (hook sweep): underhook, lift the hook, drive forward
• Back door escape: when they base wide, slide out the back to take their back
• Technical stand: use the hooks to create space and stand up to a wrestling takedown
• X-guard entry: when they stand, slide under to X-guard

Butterfly guard is the best open guard for no-gi because it doesn't rely on sleeve grips. It's also excellent for grapplers with shorter legs.

Lasso Guard

Lasso guard wraps your arm through a sleeve grip in a coiling motion — your leg threads through to create a figure-four-like control on their arm. It limits shoulder mobility dramatically, making it extremely hard for the opponent to pass or posture.

Lasso Guard Principles

• The lasso arm is your primary lever — don't lose the grip
• Off-balance them toward the lasso side before sweeping
• Triangle is the most common submission from lasso — the shoulder is already compromised
• Tilt them forward before shooting the triangle

X-Guard

X-guard is a deep leg entanglement where both your legs control one of their legs. Marcelo Garcia created this guard and used it to dominate at the highest levels. Once you establish X-guard properly, sweeping is nearly automatic — they have no base.

• Tilt sweep: elevate the near hip while pushing the far hip
• Back take: when they step their trapped leg, follow to the back
• Single leg X transition: adjust the leg position for leg lock attacks

Getting to X-guard requires the opponent to be standing or posturing — butterfly guard and DLR are the most common entries.

Choosing Your Open Guard

With so many open guard options, practitioners often make the mistake of sampling too many without mastering any. Here's a framework for choosing:

• Gi-focused competitor: Spider guard or DLR — both are proven at every level
• No-gi specialist: Butterfly guard or single-leg X — no grip dependency
• Short/stocky build: Butterfly guard — less leverage needed, more upper body control
• Long legs: Spider guard and DLR — your reach becomes a weapon
• Leg lock focused: Single leg X, K-guard, ashi garami — connects guard to leg lock system

Pick one primary guard and develop two or three connecting guards that complement it. Deep mastery of one system beats shallow knowledge of five.

Open Guard Retention

Open guard retention is even more critical than in closed guard. Without the lock, your guard can be broken in an instant. The core principles of keeping your open guard:

• Maintain grips at all costs — when you lose grips, you're on defense
• Move your hips constantly — don't let them pin your hips
• Shrimp and re-frame before they can establish side control
• Know your guard recovery positions — what do you do when DLR gets passed?
• Turtle is a valid last resort — it's better than giving up back mount