This week I was coaching some teenagers at Judo and some of them were lying face down or staying in turtle and not attacking. A lot of the time these guys got turned over and held down, armbarred or strangled.
After this happened a few times I got the class together and told them that in Judo YOU are attacking or your OPPONENT is attacking, and attacking Judo wins. I encourage them to always be on the defensive, always move and always do something. Don’t just lay there and do nothing, this does not develop your Judo and it certainly doesn’t help your ground game either.

To help demonstrate this point I had one person get in the turtle position and 100% defend while their opponent attacked. We found that the person who was solely defending lost a lot of the time. However when the person in turtle actually moved and attacked their opponent was unsettled and found it hard to attack, this resulted in the attacker not winning as much as they were in the first round.

Attacking Judo wins when you are standing AND on the ground. In this post here are 4 videos that will help you develop an attacking style of turtle. These techniques will also build tremendous awareness which will help you in competition Judo.

Here is probably the best Judo example I know of being AWARE in turtle and Attacking from there:

I encourage all of you to start trying some of these turtle attacks out at training BEFORE you do so in competition. Slowly develop your techniques until you become really good. There is a guy in my BJJ class who has a really good turtle and he very rarely gets submitted or pinned from turtle purely because his awareness is so good.
In this video BJJ world Champion Renato Migliaaccio teaches some really cool turtle attacks that I have never seen before (and I been doing Judo and BJJ for a long time). I have seen variations of them but never taught the way he explains here:

Eduardo Telles is known as being a ‘turtle expert’ in BJJ and in this video he shows a really cool sweep from turtle. When doing this just watch out you don’t get crucifixed which could happen if your opponent slides their left leg through to catch your arm. This has happened to me one or twice 🙂

In this video we see my mate Ken Primola teaching some turtle attacks as well.

And in the video below have a really really really old video I did back in 2009 I think. Please excuse my opposite gi colour choice, and the audio, but this was probably filmed with a low resolution camera. But you get the idea, The first basic roll is god but the second variation is really sneaky, I learnt it in France and I sub a lot of people with it.
With the third option I show you (the wrestler sit out) I find that no-one actually lies flat, but instead the roll and it gives me a straight armbar or mune gatame hold down.

This video below has some great little tips for turtle attacks. The camera work is pretty bad and it is no gi but you get the idea.

In conclusion we see that all of the videos above teach one thing, ad that is to ATTACK. Whenever you are first to attack you are more likely to come off winning, Yes there are times when you try to attack and get countered but the more you attack, the more you grow and the better your judo will become.

If you liked the article please share it and feel free to comment below and let me know what you think.

Matt