Where will you focus your connection from open guard? When you work from your back in open guard, it is crucial you form a solid connection to an opponent so that defensively he will find it difficult to create angles that lead into guard passes and offensively, you will be able to break his balance and attack with sweeps and submissions. One of the major choices you will make in forming this connection is whether you should entangle your legs into the opponents arms (spider guard and lasso guard) or LEGS (De La Riva, Reverse De La Riva, ashi garami, x guard etc) or employ a mixed strategy and entangle both arms AND legs (eg ashi garami on one side at legs and spider guard on the other side arm). All of them are tremendously effective and you can find many champions who specialize in one of these three choices. It is natural to favor one of the choices and develop it as a specialty, but don't ignore the others. In truth the overall game is the same – form a strong connection using all four of your limbs and get the opponent out of balance as a precursor to your sweeps and submissions – they just employ different ways of doing it. Using all three entanglement strategies makes you a very tricky opponent and a versatile one – even if you are noticeably better better at one type of entanglement than the others. Understand also that it is easy and natural to go from one to another – when you do so you maximize your potential from open guard.
