So what guards would you guys consider the best for long terms well-being and longevity? 
TexDeuce - So what guards would you guys consider the best for long terms well-being and longevity?
Gi/Nogi gotta go with knee shield half or butterfly. Can throw in some X applications but strictly to come off the bottom. At least thats what works for me.(Mid 40's)but feel like late 50's. I know I know, NO CRYING. sniffle....
Robobear -Sgt. Slaphead -meatballcheeze - "I have a wife and kid, and am the sole provider and oh, i dont have health insurance."
You should quit jiu-jitsu and use that money to buy health insurance, for the sake of your family.
BAH....thats for pussys!
JUS GO TRANE!
Wow, now I respect the brazillians wi their multiple girlfriend having, party all night escapades and still traine five days a week?!
On a serious note, training partners got a lot to do with your game and how often and hard you can train. Ask sarge, some of our training partners are straight outta some science fiction movie, big, strong, heavy freaks of nature. Closed guard, open guard, it don't matter. You will be sore.
Yeah.....old school pressure style+freaks=everything hurts no matter what you do. I rolled there last week and took all rest of the week to try recover to my normal broken level. I train elsewhere and also with people from various places and LOL at their pressure. I rolled with a 3rd degree black belt and it never came near the pressure of thise an8mals.
Kyoki, myself and people I know have dealt with being sore for a long ass time.....for me,19years in jiujitsu and a 46year lifetime of assorted stupidity. It wears on you and the older you get the worse it is. I didnt train one day last week b/c I was "sore" pussy. But if you're a sole-provider and dont have insurance then I gotta question your intelligence with your attituude. Good luck with that.
Robobear -TexDeuce - So what guards would you guys consider the best for long terms well-being and longevity?
Gi/Nogi gotta go with knee shield half or butterfly. Can throw in some X applications but strictly to come off the bottom. At least thats what works for me.(Mid 40's)but feel like late 50's. I know I know, NO CRYING. sniffle....
Butterfly. If you have shoulder, hip and/or knee issues it lets you brace and use momentum.
It's the constant flexion I the spine that causes the discs to bulge from what I've been told. Eg inverted guard, getting stacked, etc.
My guard now consists mainly butterfly x guard and half guard.
Spent my first two years upside down, after multiple cervical and lumbar disc issues no more. 
Sgt. Slaphead -Robobear -TexDeuce - So what guards would you guys consider the best for long terms well-being and longevity?
Gi/Nogi gotta go with knee shield half or butterfly. Can throw in some X applications but strictly to come off the bottom. At least thats what works for me.(Mid 40's)but feel like late 50's. I know I know, NO CRYING. sniffle....
Butterfly. If you have shoulder, hip and/or knee issues it lets you brace and use momentum.
butterfly is the safest guard IMO, that and maybe half guard if you have really bad knee problems (but I find halfguard to be significantly more taxing on the body.
Butterfly is also good because you can start wrestling from the position ie. single/doubles from butterfly. Easy way to get on top.
Caught_clean - I came up skateboarding in my youth, now I have some years into bjj. I used to think exactly like Kyoki and other people. I was sore, I gutted it out and fucking trained, all these people complaining about injuries, just excuses, they weren't as mentally strong as me.Bad disc injuries are a wake up call for sure
....Then I suffered a real injury. No not a hurt wrist, a cranked arm, a sore neck. I tore my ACL and never was able to skateboard the same. Got into BJJ and was able to adapt my game, for about 3 years I never had any serious injury and trained my ass off 5 times a week including wrestling. Never got the part timers or people who claimed injuries.
...Then I blew a disc in my neck and have been struggling to keep training 3 times a week or more for the last year and a bit. I have adapted my training, but these are realities that people who have been LUCKY to never been seriously injured and will never understand. I dont even fucking know how I blew the disc in my neck, over a period of months my pinker finger area of my hand started going numb, then it got to the point where I was bed ridden for 2 months and couldn't work. It wasnt like I played inverted guard every day and got slammed or any one act, I dont even play inverted or anything crazy, it just happened over time and now it is what it is.
Can't say that i've ever purposely avoide a day that i normally train because i was too sore, but after nearing two decades in the art, I am definitely too worn out from the mileage i've put on my body to train as much as i used to.
3x a week is all i'll put, maximum, these days, and one of those days is typically judo, which significantly wears your body down.
Whenever i hear all these rants about the high an mighty who train 6-7 days a week and have been in BJJ for only 5 years tops or who are still in their 20s, all i can think of is Ivan Drago in Rocky 4 when he's had enough of his coach berating him on not being able to put Rocky away.
"I fight for me, DLYA SEBYA!"
how the fuck are you supposed to invert when you have herniated discs in your neck?
kyoki is one fucking hard man. props to him. champion in life and well apparently everything. vote up from me
The truth is, if you're training hard enough to to create effective jiu jitsu, you're going to encounter injuries.
BJJ is not Tai Chi. It's not some no-impact ballet done in parks by old people.
Robobear -Would you consider deep half ok to use as well? Anyone have problems from deep half or does that seem to be ok as well for back and neck? I'm early 30's so I don't feel any neck or back pain at this point but want to avoid those issues if possible.TexDeuce - So what guards would you guys consider the best for long terms well-being and longevity?
Gi/Nogi gotta go with knee shield half or butterfly. Can throw in some X applications but strictly to come off the bottom. At least thats what works for me.(Mid 40's)but feel like late 50's. I know I know, NO CRYING. sniffle....
checkuroil - I hear this from a lot of guys, even higher belts. When I do hear it, I can't help but think "it's cause you chose an unsustainable game".
Usually their game requires
1. Explosiveness
2. Speed
3. Inversion
4. Weak open guard
I don't agree with this. I'm a hobbyist, and I partake in bjj for fun. I do compete, but recognize it as a parth to improvement, not a path to a world title. Because it is a hobby for me, it competes with other hobbies. One of those hobbies is lifting. I lift heavy. I get tendinitis. Sometimes, this means I can only train once a week until the inflammation goes down.
It's really weird, dude. It's almost like people are different sometimes.
Honestly I don't see why anyone cares what someone else is doing?
The only way this is a legit gripe is if the guy is always bowing out of rolling or goes on and on about not getting better or getting promoted. Or he's a bud and you give him crap about not showing up.
TexDeuce -Robobear -Would you consider deep half ok to use as well? Anyone have problems from deep half or does that seem to be ok as well for back and neck? I'm early 30's so I don't feel any neck or back pain at this point but want to avoid those issues if possible.TexDeuce - So what guards would you guys consider the best for long terms well-being and longevity?
Gi/Nogi gotta go with knee shield half or butterfly. Can throw in some X applications but strictly to come off the bottom. At least thats what works for me.(Mid 40's)but feel like late 50's. I know I know, NO CRYING. sniffle....
Deep half is good with guys your own size up to about 50 lbs heavier. After that, I wouldn't advise it.
Really? People sore from three days? I'm going 4 days straight and I have bad knees and am slightly overweight...
I have always hated the weird judgements you get at bjj schools. If you want to train once a month, if that makes you happy, good for you. It is a personal journey and as long as you aren't hurting me I don't care how you conduct your training. Now, if you are bitching about not progressing but you train once a month, that is a different issue.
Having a physical job and then going hard at the gym takes a toll. In my job I have to climb power poles a lot and being in your climbing hooks all day will tend to make you a little beat at the end of the day. Some days are easier than others but bottom line is what you do for the other 21 hours a day might add to being too sore to train.
checkuroil - I hear this from a lot of guys, even higher belts. When I do hear it, I can't help but think "it's cause you chose an unsustainable game".
Usually their game requires
1. Explosiveness
2. Speed
3. Inversion
4. Weak open guard
I think this is very insightful.
What do you consider specifically to be inversion? I imagine Berimbolo, tornado guard, kiss of the dragon type of movements. I feel I don't really need these type of inversion to be effective as there are plenty of alternatives.
However, for guard retention, I think I need to incorporate some inversion and granby roll type of movements to be effective. Or do you think I should focus more on grip fighting etc to shutdown his passing attemp at an earlier stage so I won't need to invert or granby to retain guard?
Medusas Weave -Just like Miyaos and Ryan Hall invert like crazy without any known neck problems, so I guess everyone can do it!checkuroil - In half and closed guards you have to hold peoples weight on you. With open guards you can control your opponent without bearing their weight
Wow, are you BJJ Scout? Such detailed breakdown.
yeah, Roger Gracie (closed guard), Kron (closed guard), and Lucas Leite (HG) are just getting crushed by peoples weight on them.
My game doesn't rely on any of that tbh but Im really struggling with tendonitis in my right arm if i train more than two days in a row. Just trying to baby it at the moment but competitions coming up :/