Andre Galvao Passing the Guard Seminar and Coach Los Faixa Preta Promotion

 

Andre Galvao of ATOS presented a seminar hosted by Impact Zone in Lafayette, IN. Professor Galvao is a top-level competitor yet simultaneously an excellent instructor. Today he presented part of his top game against the open guard and De La Riva guard. One of the key elements of his game is the "leg drag". The leg drag concept is a solution to the problem with clearing the legs and going directly to side mount, your opponent invariably shrimps out and reestablishes guard or half-guard. To remedy this, all the passing we did has a step where your opponents knees are directed away from you and you attempt to control their hips, before going to side mount (or taking the back). In essence you take a step back to get eventually get ahead.

Galvao is similar to other top level competitors in that he does not worry about what his opponent will do, rather he attacks the way he wants pruning the decision tree of responses that he has to deal with. We can all learn that confidence in our game is not arrogance and is necessary to obtain victory.

Open Guard Passing

1. Simple open-guard leg drag pass: Your partner is seated, back off the floor with feet on the floor. Lower your level and place one hand on the ipsilateral hip and the other on their ipsilateral knee. Push the knee laterally to the floor and circle in the same direction as you push their legs away from you, their knees should switch to being pointed away from you. Now “park the car” by circling behind them sliding your knee nearest their legs between them, stay on the balls of your feet. Your abdomen should pin their hip and your near arm comes over trapping their thigh between your triceps and knee, your “far” hand controls the kimono. If they should try to stop you with their top leg use your hip control arm’s elbow to relieve the hook.
2. Take the back from leg drag: As above but as your push their legs away from you they shrimp out, “running away” from you. Step the foot nearest their head, superior to their head and spin to their back. Your ipsilateral arm underhooks their arm and grabbing your opposite hand which comes between their neck and mat, over the shoulder to form a seat belt grip. Stay on the balls of your feet, control their shoulder with your chin.
3. Shin hook pass: As in #1 but this time they attempt to use their bottom leg to hook inside. Step your contralateral foot so that you hook shin-to-shin and push their foot to their butt. Now step your free leg up, with a shin just superior to the hip and pinch your legs around theirs. Post a sit to your butt, in an inverse kesa gatame.
4. Outside-inside toreador pass: Your partner is flat on their back, pushing gently on your thighs with their feet, grab their ankles, one hand outside and one hand inside, hollow yourself slightly and throw them to your hands open side. Step in, placing your shin hook nearest their legs against their thigh.

We then drilled each of these for speed, one side doing repetitions for time, going through all four passing types.

 

De La Riva Guard Passing

The De La Riva guard has three ways to grip your opponents leg (1) cupping the heel, (2) controlling the pant leg, and (3) overhooking the leg and grabbing your own thigh. They increase in the difficulty of freeing your leg. One of the keys of passing the De La Riva was to lift the leg that is controlling your hip and pushing the knee down on the hook side, freeing the medial thigh hook.

1. Shin hook scissor step: Loosen the De La Riva by lifting the straight leg and pushing down on the hook knee. Control the lifted leg and step your free leg back placing a shin hook, their leg is now trapped around your “hooked” leg. Squat to prevent them from sliding up and control both lapels as you slide your trapped leg’s knee laterally and to the floor to free it. Clear the thigh and then move their legs away from you to the leg drag position
2. Check mark pass (heel cup): Push their straight leg down as you pull your opponent to a seated position, rotate them 90° by pulling their leg through yours and pushing them back flat to the mat. Now knee slide over their thigh as you grab their sleeve with the hand contralateral to the knee slide and drop the lapel control arm to their body to block their knee from creating space. Slide your shin distally between their legs to free it. Get hip to hip then shift toward your opponents hip and legs to get to the leg drag position.
3. Shin knee slide (pant leg control): Lift their straight leg and push down on the hook knee, move your hooked leg outside of your elbow, drop the knee laterally to the floor, trapping their grip hand under their leg. Use a window wiper to clear the leg, then retrace your steps to the leg drag position. Option 1: simply let them take half guard, option 2: get head control and long step out, or option 3: if they are pushing step all the way around and take the back.
4. Leg drag (pant leg control): Lift their straight leg and push down on the hook knee, move your hooked leg outside of your elbow and underhook it. Push forward then shift back while passing their legs to the far side, ending in leg drag position.
5. Stack pass (overhook control): Lift their straight leg and push down on the hook knee, get double under control grabbing their pants at the belt line on the straight leg side and your opponent’s triceps on their overhook side. Pull their posterior upward stacking them on their neck and shoulders. Squat as if your were sitting, placing your free leg behind back. Knee slide over their arm, window wiper to clear, as your opposite arm cradles them and brings them to the mat. If they try to post their free hand on their hip to stop this, grab their wrist and pull it behind their back. If their overhook remains high (or you pull it higher), drop to your hip distal from their head and pull them across your body feet to head to the crucifix position.

And then we drilled, starting from open guard until submission for two minutes then switching. This was followed by starting from De La Riva until first point.

 

James Clingerman, Max Burt, Evan Mannweiler, Carlos Soto, Tim Sledd, Andre Galvao, Thabet AT, Mat Stratta, and your humble blogger.

Mendes Brothers Seminar: Passing the Spider Guard

I attended a seminar today, by the Mendes Brothers, Gui and Rafael, hosted by Small Axe BJJ.  The focus of the seminar was the leg drag pass, their predominant style of passing the guard.  Their style is an antithesis to what I've been "raised", but as they are multiple time world champions and I'm not, I'm more than willing to give it a try.  Some initial concepts:

• Squat position: The Mendes style advocates a squatting position while standing to pass.  Knees bent, low center of gravity.  This maximizes mobility and stability.  It is also a vigorous workout for your thighs and glutes if you are not used to it.
• Active Toes: Another aspect of the Mendes style is always engaging the toes.  Rather than letting the dorsal foot lie on the mat, posting up on the toes.  They argue that they can create greater pressure and move more rapidly.
• Learn the details slowly, but drill with speed and power: Take your time to make sure you cover all the details, however once learned, drill with the speed and power of competition.  Train like you fight.

They corkscrew their way to the pass, working first one way then the other, rather than trying to wear down their opponent like a steadily approaching glacier.  Their style takes three steps forwards, two steps back, to gradually work their way past your guard.  The hypothesis behind the leg drag position is that it is a more direct way to close with an opponent, rather than creating the large amount of space needed to go from guard pass directly to side mount.  It avoids the chase, by closing like a trap.

Spider guard pass #1

Your partner has gripped both your sleeves and has his feet in your cubital fossa.  Grip their pant legs, suck your elbows in, placing them in your "hip pockets".  Using the squat Mendes passing stance step backwards, bring your partner to a sitting position.  Roll one hand underneath their leg and to the medial side of their calf.  Now step laterally to the opposite side, rolling your partner onto their shoulder.  Pull the leg, whose foot is still in the cubital fossa to the opposite side.  Simultaneously close the distance, displacing their knees to one side with your body.  They should drape over your thigh, the knee should pinch down and inward.  The other knee should land at about their belt line at the opposite hip, also driving inward.  The shoulder on this side rotates to pin them to the mat.  Your head should be on the side of their face, on the same side as their legs.  Their shoulders are flat on the floor, the pinning shoulder hand can detach from the pant leg and rotate down to grab their belt, holding them.  You want intense pressure, made worse by corkscrewing your partner's spine.  Remember to post on the toes if your knee is down.

Spider guard pass #2

Using the same set-up as above, this time after you roll your hand from top to inside you want to break their grip.  Step your shin in against their forearm on this side and then pull back, breaking the grip.  With your free hand grab their opposite leg, make pressure, and when they attempt to push you back, drag the leg to your opposite hip, again setting up the leg drag position.  This time, we retain control of the leg with the pinning shoulder hand, and either regrab the other pant leg or grip the lapel.  The elbow is placed on the outside of the far thigh if you wish to take back.  The elbow goes inside if we want to take side mount.

Spider guard pass #3

Again from the set-up above, this time you circle your hands inside and underneath both your partners legs and lift.  Your want them posted up on their shoulders, but without having their feet on the floor.  Post one knee into their back. Drag their legs over this thigh and bring your other knee in as above, to set-up the leg drag position.

Spider guard pass #4

This is from the spider guard variation where your partner has placed their shin in one cubital fossa with their other foot in your hip.  Trap their shin by grabbing their belt on this side and creating pressure.  Push the opposite leg to the floor as you step to this side.  Now take two steps to circle in the direction of their shin hook passing that leg to the opposite axilla and then stepping in with your leg to begin the set-up of the leg drag.  Push their leg laterally with your head to complete the position.  I had to release my belt grip as I circled back because my wrist was in jeopardy of submission from my partner's thigh collapsing due to my pressure.

Once you have stabilized the leg drag position and your opponent has stopped fighting it is time to capitalize on either the side or rear mount positions.  Do not go for side or rear mount if they are moving, the small amount of room need to obtain position is the room your opponent needs to escape.

Side mount from leg drag

You have your partner pinned in a good leg drag position, the drag side is controlling the lapel.  Detach the pinning shoulder side, opposite the side their legs are on and obtain head control.  Go deep and clasp the uniform of their opposite shoulder.  Quickly move to side mount, in an "active toes" position with the knees tight.  Their arm should be displaced so that your hip is in their axilla, propping them on your superior knee and then propping your head control elbow on your thigh.  Your inferior knee and other elbow control the hips respectively.  Use your free hand to control the far arm.

Rear mount from leg drag

From the leg drag position, the side opposite the drag side underhooks and grabs the collar.  The leg drag side controls their biceps.  Pull their arm in on the leg drag side as you prop them on their side.  Bump their arm on the underhook side up and place your chin on their trapezius as you secure the seatbelt grip.  Slide your knee from the over the shoulder portion of the seat belt in behind them and pull them to rear mount.

The Mendes Brothers advocate using the thumb in the seat belt grip.  Thus the underhook grabs the opposite wrist with the thumb and attempts to conceal that hand.

A quote from today: "Passing the guard three times doesn't mean I did a good job.  It means I need to work on holding my opponent. I should pass the guard once, obtain side mount, mount, or rear mount, and then attempt to submit him."