De La Riva Guard

Last updated: May 29, 2026

What is the de la Riva guard?

The de la Riva guard, often shortened to DLR, belongs to the family of open guards, meaning the guard player keeps their legs free instead of wrapping them fully around the opponent, the way they would in closed guard. Its defining feature is the outside hook. The bottom player threads one leg around the outside of the opponent’s near leg and curls the foot back toward the inside of the thigh or hip. That single hook does most of the work, pinning the opponent’s leg in place and making it hard for them to step around or drive forward.

Grapplers reach for this position mainly against a standing opponent who is trying to pass the guard. With the outside hook set and a grip on the sleeve, collar, ankle, or lapel, the bottom player can off-balance the opponent in several directions and turn that disruption into a sweep or a path to the back. The position matters because it gave smaller grapplers a way to control larger, stronger ones without relying on muscle, and it became the launch point for much of modern guard play, including the berimbolo, a spinning movement used to take an opponent’s back.

How the de la Riva guard works

The whole position rests on the hook and the grips working together. The hooking leg wraps the outside of the opponent’s lead leg and tucks in behind the knee, while the same-side hand usually controls the ankle so the opponent cannot pull the leg free. The other hand takes a grip higher up, on the sleeve or collar in the gi, or the wrist in no-gi.

From there, the bottom player works with angles rather than muscle. Shifting the hips and pulling or pushing with the grips tilts the opponent off their base, and every time the opponent steps to recover, a new attacking line opens up. Someone watching a match can usually spot the de la Riva by one telltale detail: a grappler on their back with a leg curled around the outside of a standing opponent’s shin, steering them around like a lever.

De la Riva guard vs other open guards

Open guards overlap a great deal, and newer players often mix them up. The de la Riva gets confused with the reverse de la Riva, the spider guard, and the X-guard, even though each one controls the opponent differently. The table below lays out where they part ways.

Position	How the legs control the opponent	Common use
De la Riva	Outside hook around the opponent’s lead leg, foot behind the knee	Off-balancing a standing passer, back-takes, sweeps
Reverse de la Riva	Inside hook; the leg wraps the lead leg from the inside instead	Countering knee-cut passes, leg entries
Spider guard	Feet on the opponent’s biceps, controlling the arms through sleeve grips	Managing distance, setting up sweeps and triangles
X-guard	Legs crossed underneath a standing opponent, lifting and splitting the base	Sweeping a standing opponent from below

The clearest line to draw is between the de la Riva and its reverse. Both entangle the opponent’s lead leg with the foot and shin, but the regular version hooks from the outside while the reverse hooks from the inside. Plenty of competitors play both and switch between them as the opponent moves, since the reverse de la Riva answers the knee-cut pass that can trouble the standard hook.

Common variations of the de la Riva guard

Rather than one fixed position, the de la Riva is a small family of related hooks. A few variations come up often enough to have earned their own names.

• Reverse de la Riva: the hook switches to the inside of the opponent’s lead leg. It works well as a counter when the opponent pressures forward or tries a knee-cut pass, and it feeds into leg entanglements and back-takes.
• De la Riva X (DLR-X): the outside hook stays in place while the free leg threads under the opponent’s base leg toward an X-guard. This combination opens up sweeps and entries into single-leg X.
• Lasso de la Riva: the bottom player adds a lasso, wrapping the free leg around the opponent’s arm while the hook keeps control of the leg. That extra control point makes it harder for the opponent to free the arm, and it suits the gi, where sleeve grips hold well.

Where the de la Riva guard came from

The position carries the name of Ricardo de la Riva, a Brazilian black belt who developed it at the Carlson Gracie academy during the 1980s. The story usually told is that de la Riva, smaller than many of his training partners, started wrapping his leg around the outside of their lead leg to off-balance them without trading strength for strength. Training partners reportedly nicknamed the early version the “pudding guard” for how unstable it left them feeling.

A version of the outside-leg hook had already appeared in judo, so de la Riva did not invent the leg position itself. What he built was a full system of sweeps and attacks around it. The name stuck after a widely covered match in the mid-1980s, when he used the guard to beat Royler Gracie, then one of the most respected competitors of his generation. The Brazilian press covering the bout referred to the position by his name, and it spread from there. Lighter-weight champions such as the Miyao brothers and the Mendes brothers later carried it into the highest levels of competition and tied it closely to the berimbolo.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the de la Riva guard a gi or no-gi position?

Both. It started in the gi, where collar and sleeve grips make it especially strong, but grapplers adapted it for no-gi using wrist and ankle control to create the same off-balances.

Is the de la Riva guard good for beginners?

The basic hook is approachable. Many of its best-known attacks, such as the berimbolo, take time and flexibility to learn, so beginners often start by using the hook simply to stop a pass and off-balance an opponent.

What is the difference between de la Riva and reverse de la Riva?

The de la Riva hooks the outside of the opponent’s lead leg, while the reverse de la Riva hooks the inside. The reverse version is often used to counter knee-cut passes.

Does the de la Riva guard work in MMA?

It shows up less often in MMA than in sport jiu-jitsu, partly because strikes change the risks of playing off the back. The control principles still apply when a grappler is managing a standing opponent, though grips are harder to keep without a gi.

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Sources

1. Evolve MMA. “What Is The De La Riva Guard?” Accessed May 2026.
2. BJJ Heroes. “The De La Riva Guard.” Accessed May 2026.
3. NAGA Fighter. “What is the De La Riva Guard?” Accessed May 2026.
4. BJJ Fanatics. “Understanding the De La Riva Guard.” Accessed May 2026.
5. Graciemag. “Ezequiel, Kimura, de la Riva… Study the BJJ moves named after people.” Accessed May 2026.

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