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.

Physics of Disdain

“I hate losing more than I even wanna win.” — Billy Beane, Moneyball

I am secure in my knowledge that I’m pretty good at jiu-jitsu, but I’m also very aware that I can only get better while being one injury away from never getting on the mats again.  Ultimately my goal is to be able to blow through anyone on the planet and submit them at will. Realistic, no. Inspiring, yes. Recently I’ve been less than happy with my ability to pass the guard (not that I’m thrilled about my ability to play guard) so I’ve been watching the best and thinking about the rest. Part of my conceptual thinking was inspired (stolen) from Jeff Serafin’s Art of Uncomfortable guard passing concepts and the Mendes Brother’s Leg Drag.

Fighting is essentially trying to get ahead and if you are ahead, staying there. In combat sports that has to be done within the rules of game. For example, get grips first, if you’re not first, get a better grip than your opponent.  When I pass, for whatever reason, I am often faced with an open or spider guard.  I’m not light and I’m longed limbed so it is difficult to contain me in a closed guard, passing on the ground while certainly feasible does leave a certain amount of space for opponents to re-capitalize given my length of limb and spaces it provides. This is a long way of saying, I often finding myself standing and trying to pass the open guard.  I’ve been watching how Rodolfo Vieira passes and it has been inspiring, BJJ Scout has an excellent analysis of this:

When I first watched Professor Vieira pass, it seemed to me as if he had nothing but disdain for his opponents guard. It would have been called cocky if it didn’t work.  The key that I noticed, which is true for all top competitors, is that they do what they do not regardless of their opponent but because it prunes the decision tree of possible actions by their opponent.  The open and spider guard work by getting the legs at a 45° angle with the floor, this provides the maximal amount of force against your opponent with your feet having the greatest amount of friction. Vieira destroys this by changing the angle reducing the efficacy of his opponent’s legs and the ability to control the open guard with their feet.  He increases the angle by advancing, contemptuously appearing to walking into the guard. By driving in, dropping and then lifting the hips, your opponents feet are displace upward, they lose contact with your arms or hips.

Obviously I try to get a good grip on their pant legs to help facilitate good posture and re-positioning of their legs as I glacially displace their open guard. Either I grab first, or break their grips to get there. Sometimes simply to slow them down, I step in first and then break the grips, if I’m a step or two behind.  It is important not to hunker over your opponent but to try to lift their hips off the mat as you approach.

My first iteration was the “horse stance” I ended up moving in but with my feet parallel and both within reach of my opponent.  While this was effective it is is limited because they can bump you backward and have a choice of legs to snare.  Remember that you are trying to get them off-balance and defensive, no trying to climb on top of them, you climb on top of someone and you will be swept.  You will notice, as BJJ Scout points out, inserting a knee either inside or outside their knee is a more effective way of breaking them down.  So my second iteration was to try to control the pant leg and drive my knee on the medial side of theirs, bending and abducting their leg laterally.  Do not allow them to hook inside. A third variation is step slightly laterally and pull their leg in the contralateral direction, placing your opposite knee on the lateral side of theirs, bending it medially and adducting it, into a leg drag-esque position.

From the medial knee insertion, you can start to pass by knee slide, by “hiking” their opposite leg through your own, or switching to a leg drag. From the lateral knee insertion you can practically drop into the side mount from there, if they turn back fast enough you can drop into their half-guard and pass from there (after getting your advantage for placing their shoulders on the mat).  You will also notice that Vieira switches directions, so drive for your pass but if it’s not working try passing on the other side by switching to another pass, e.g. “hike” to one side, knee slide to the other.  One thing that I found effective, when I couldn’t hip lift in well enough was to grab both legs and toreador pass, they’re fighting your pressure so much that their legs are easily extend and get stapled to the mat.

Attention to this concept will make you do something else: when you play open guard you will not want them to do this to you, so you will get good grips and stretch them out, making sure their posture is something their mothers would bemoan.

Howe It's Done

Today I sat in on Chris Howe’s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class and had the pleasure of seeing him teach.  Chris and I share the same Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor, Jack McVicker, and have trained together in the past.  It is fascinating to see the details that Chris explains, because while much of the source is the same, we have different contexts and insight into the same technique.  Although we have trained with different people and gone to different seminars it was illuminating to have someone teach familiar technique with a different viewpoint.  Just a reminder to take advantage of the knowledge that might be sitting right next to you.

Dive Pass

We started with the Dive Pass, control both pant legs just distal to the knee, thumbs toward you.  Push the leg laterally to the mat, then dive the ipsilateral shoulder to their abdomen, head crosses the midline.  Underhook the unpinned leg and regrip the pinned leg on the lateral side of the pants.  Now, use a “windshield wiper” to free your leg, that is, trap their leg with your lateral leg to allow the medial leg to overhook.  You can use your outside knee laterally, to push their leg medially to facilitate an easier pass.

Rather than passing you can also knee bar, by transitioning back in-line with your opponent while squeezing your knees, this should straighten their leg with it the knee pointed straight up.  Your pubic ramus should be just proximal to their knee, loosely triangle their leg and do a leg curl.

North-South Attacks

To set-up the north-south attacks from side mount, reach the arm nearer their head over your partner’s head, your arm tucked just under their lateral arm, your hand over their kidney (I like to grab the kimono here) and tuck your elbow to their head.  Your other hand controls the near hip, now rotate to north-south position to force their arm in their hip to “pop out”.  Underhook this and grab their trapezius/kimono sleeve.

Paper cutter choke

Transition back to the side mount.  Using the arm over your partner’s head, pull your elbow to your hip, catch the far lapel and drop your forearm across their neck, drop the elbow under their chin, and flare the elbow slightly, roll your weight by dropping the hip nearest the head to the mat.  If they try to turn into you pull them flat with your triceps grip arm.  This arm will also cause counter tension as you choke

Reverse, arm-in, guillotine

Transition back to the side mount.  Place your knee next to their ear and your head overhook elbow near the contralateral ear.  Pull your elbow to your hip, lifting their head onto the “ramp” formed by your thigh.  Wrap their head and grip your opposite wrist (now freed from controlling the arm/sleeve).  Now transition back to be parallel with your partner.  Move inferiorly, trying to slide such that your arm stays wrapped tight to their neck and your trapezius tight to the opposite side.  Your head should slide next to their chest, so that you can hear their heart beat.

Near straight arm bar

From the paper cutter choke, if blocked, rotate your distal leg so that your toes point to their head and your opposite hip.  Shift your weight unto your blocked choking hand on their chest or onto their far arm.  Slide the leg nearest their head around their head until perpendicular but across their head.  Now sit back as the knee nearest their legs rotates to the ceiling, squeeze your knees together.  Grab this knee with your free hand to increase arm bar pressure.

Kimura

If you obtain north-south and you decide or if their arm does not “pop out”, you can instead pick-up the kimura.  Use the overhook to pivot your opponent on to their side, using your legs to push.  Slide the overhook arm underneath their forearm and grab your opposite wrist which in turn grabs their wrist.  Tuck your leg to their face and your opposite knee to their back, foot on the floor.  Lift their hand free from their body, use the push-pull of the figure four to rotate their shoulder posteriorly.

Deep kimura/biceps slicer

You get a kimura set-up but your opponent stays flat on their back.  Release their wrist and shoot the hand gripping the wrist, like a hook, so that forearm is trapped proximal to your elbow, posteriorly.  Your other forearm is in their cubital fossa, the palm of this hand on your distal biceps.  Imagine a really loose rear naked choke of their elbow joint.  Your free hand and forearm should be on the mat, their hand near their hip.  Move out next to your opponent on this side.  Keep your chest on your hands, walk your feet toward their feet as you lift your trapped forearm.

The Shower Technique: Biomechanical Concepts of Protection Against the Guard

Introduction

Today I went to a seminar by Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu faixa preta (black belt) Octavio Couto focusing primarily on the biomechanics of defending protecting yourself inside the guard.

Palm-Up Concept

The core biomechnical concept was using the forearms in the palm-up rather than the palm-down position, to allow more activation of the back, e.g. the position you are in when doing pull-ups, deadlifts, or lifting a box.  The angle of flexion of the elbow should be approximately 90°, increased flexion (more acute angle) will collapse, increased extension (more obtuse angle) exposes you to submission (see below).  This is a stronger biomechanical framework than palm down, i.e. "grabbing the pajamas" (kimono), which makes it a structure for obtaining posture, negating offense, and creating space.  That does not excluding grabbing the kimono, i.e. pronating the hand once more, once you have optimized your posture or position, but the supinated position allows you to apply greater strength with less effort.  In general, avoid grabbing/pronating unless your grip is below the belt.  The palm-up concept can have the arms in any position, i.e. they can be parallel, triangular, square, or opposite.  A similar concept is used in Filipino martial arts in knife and stick passing drills.

Horizontal Visual Plane Concept

The secondary biomechanic was head position's influence on posture, by keeping the eyes on a horizontal plane while still being aware of your opponent, you establish a straight spine.  A straight spine has been demonstrated to be stronger, it's the position we (should) use to do any Olympic lift.

Drills

1. "Obtaining closed guard versus the palm-up biomechanic": Allow your partner to obtain grips in the open guard, using the above two concepts keep them from obtaining closed guard.
2. "Protecting from guard attack using the the palm-up biomechanic": In this drill your opponent has you in the closed guard and attempts to attack, e.g. arm bar, choke, sweep.  Use hip movement and the above biomechanics to shut down your opponent's offense and enlarge the space they have already created when attempting offense.
3. Combine #1 and #2 above

Straight Arm Bait, Palm Up Defense

Once you have obtained an erect posture, inside their closed guard, supinate and grab the gi collar at the level of the shoulders.  Lock the arm, this allows you to not only hold your partner to the mat efficiently but also baits the arm bar.  The other arm is kept back, shielding that side, palm towards you, elbow on their leg  If they open their guard, immediately release and supinate the hand, returning to the protective palm-up position  If they attempt to triangle, use the shield arm to guide their leg over your head, and presenting the pass.

While Octavio taught a guard pass to the white, yellow, and blue belts, we worked on this.  After having us train this he had the black belts teach small groups of students while he observed and provided feedback.  I've never had to teach at seminar before, but it was an effective way of learning.

Palm-Up Guard Pass

From the hooks inside guard with your partner set-up to sweep, take one hand and grip the opposite pant leg, palm toward you, elbow parallel to slightly away from you.  Your other arm is in the opposite direction, in the palm-up position.  Now follow the elbow pointing away from you to essentially walk around their hook.  Keep a low base, place the knee nearest the direction of the pass proximal to their body near the heel of their foot.

Conclusion

The palm-up position allowed Buchecha to take Rodolfo's back in with 2013 World Championships (see about 5 minutes in):

Octavio points out that Brazilian jiu-jitsu is about technique, strategy, and efficiency.  One cannot explode for 10 minutes straight, no caliber of athlete can.  However, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is also about taking risk, as demonstrated by Buchecha when despite being ahead on points risked being swept to take the back.  We can simply roll staying within our safety zone, but we cannot improve without taking risk.

As for the Shower Technique, the continual movement of your hands in the palm-up position, looks like someone lathering themselves up for a shower.

Scrotal Compression Pass

Say you have a flexible opponent who likes to bring the leg inside to stop the guard pass.  Push their leg cross body, anterior to the other leg.  Under hook the straight leg and overhook the crossed leg.  Apply pressure as you pass.