2014 Fall Megaton Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Seminar "Don't look at my eyes, look at the technique"

Counter Intuitive De La Riva Guard Pass: Free the grips, grab their ankle on the unhooked side (with either one or both hands) rapidly pop your hips forward. As your hips return to neutral, guide their leg to your opposite side (a lá the “leg drag”), slide the hooked knee to the mat. Bring the elbow on the side medial and then laterally, clearing their top thigh, then underhooking their head. Switch step your free leg across your opponents legs, insert your free hand at their hip to control. Now draw your other leg through to obtain side mount.

50-50 Guard to Straight Ankle Lock: Their distal leg should be next to your flank, overhook their ankle and grab your opposite lapel. The leg on this side is just lateral to theirs, your contralateral foot is tucked under their butt on the same side. Roll laterally, externally rotating their hip, until your are nearly face down. Now extend (don’t arch) your body to submit with the straight ankle lock

Lasso Guard Pass: Take your free hand and adduct their knees, place your shoulder on their lateral thigh, weaving your arm posterior and medial to their top leg, grab their opposite pant’s leg or bottom sleeve. Place your head on the mat next to their torso, pike up, control their lapel with your free hand, and slide your knee medially, over their bottom shin. Clear their legs with this knee. A variation would be to control their ipsilateral sleeve with your free hand, drop laterally to your hip on this side, using your sleeve and leg control from allowing them to come on top. Pull your leg free and take side mount.

Reverse De La Riva Guard Pass: Your opponent has reverse De La Riva, deny them control by grabbing their hook side, ipsilateral, lapel. Transition out to your hip and underhook their head. Free your leg.

Over-Under Guard Pass: Push one of their feet down, enter your opponents guard but they have this hook in. Overhook this leg and grab their distal pant leg, underhook their opposite thigh, keeping their hamstring on your shoulder, control their pant leg just distal to the draw string line. Place your head on this side of their stomach and walk your legs, circling toward their head. You may need to circle back to free their hook or to push it down with your lateral-most leg to step over with your other leg.

Spider Lasso Guard Sweep: Set-up lasso guard and place your other foot in the ipsilateral cubital fossa. You can perform a simple sweep by pulling them toward you and lifting either way, although I found sweeping to the lasso side more easily done.

Worm Guard Defense (before they cross the gi to the opposite side)

• Use our ipsilateral hand to reach behind you and push their leg down, step around this leg and pass it between your legs
• Pull the kimono skirt up, prying it from their grip

Worm Guard Defense (after they cross the gi to the opposite side)

• Spin and go to the mat while grabbing the foot and look for a figure four ankle lock

Oma Plata Lock In: Once you have the oma plata and are sitting up, free the skirt and obtain a good grip, drop your elbow behind there back to tighten the grip, scoot laterally to finish.

Spider Guard to Overhook X-Guard: From spider guard, scoot underneath and bring your hip control leg through their legs. Overhook his ankle on this side with your arm. Bend your knee and thread your foot back to his anterior side, placing your foot in the far inguinal area. Now if your opponent tries to step around this hook, pull him back into place by applying pressure on his arm with the foot in his cubital fossa. Now reestablish this foot behind his popliteal fossa. Pass his sleeve to your overhook hand, control the collar on the same side, Extend your legs and pull laterally, they will fall on their side.

Quarter Guard Knee Bump Sweep: From quarter guard your opponent posts to his free foot. Pass their far skirt to your top hand, giving them a “gi-string”. Your opponent grabs your bottom sleeve. Re-grab his sleeve, bump them with your top knee and come on top.

Half-Guard Half-Somersault Sweep: From Z-guard (shield guard) obtain contralateral sleeve control and ipsilateral grip on their distal pant leg on the side opposite the Z. Bump them toward the gripped leg, if they fall over come on top. If they resist pull their arm across your body, loading them on your knee, now lift them over your head with your legs and roll backwards until you are in the top half-mounted position.

Megaton talked a good deal about his approach to jiu-jitsu:

“I love to compete, I hate to lose” He talked about the importance of competing at least once in your life. He also noted that there is only winning or losing, whether by submission, points, or a single advantage it does not matter, a win is a win, a loss is not. He noted the importance of attending a rules course at least once a year.

“Train like you compete.” If you practice giving up position and points you will do it when you compete. Always grapple with the guy that gives you the most trouble. Become a black belt in a particular position and know how to get there and what happens there.

“For every action, reaction”. In the context of the game we play, we can limit that reaction to options that we have answers for. We should do what we know to do best, and expect reaction and have our own to react with.

“Jiu-jitsu is simple, we make it complicated.” We need common sense and moves that work for us, not an ever expanding lexicon that is ineffective. Do the simplest, biomechanically effective method of getting the result you desire.

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.

The Thrill of the Chase

A fight is a hunt, a chase.  Not like the big game hunter but like a predator.  Always on balance, never greedy, positioning oneself to strike with absolute surprise and ferocity.  In the ring you chase but do not over-extend, you may even go backward in pursuit of the optimal position to deliver damage.  Your tactics determine how you chase, depending on if your opponent is hurt, off-balance, or evading.  The chase is addictive, do not let the thrill of the hunt lead you to lose your prey.

In my lesson today Ian had me work some tiip derived combinations.  We worked front and rear defensive and offensive tiip.  The defensive lead tiip shifts your weight over the rear leg, base foot rotated externally to keep it straight.  The knee rises up between the umbilicus and inferior chest before the kick extends using the hips,  This is a defensive jab, thrown just as your opponent shifts onto their lead foot off their rear to advance forward.  The offensive lead tiip, bring your rear leg to the lead, foot rotating externally, throw the kick as described above.  The rear tiip is thrown by rising onto the ball of the lead foot and driving the rear foot through and extending from the hips.  Again on defense attempt to catch them on the step.  Ian held all these combinations, occasionally making me miss to see if I stayed on balance.

We also worked jab upper cut elbow, lead and read. For the lead throw the jab (no wind-up!), step the lead foot to mid-line and bring the elbow up, as if the hand were to rapidly style your hair.  Do not punch yourself in the face. The rear combo again enters with the jab, then step laterally to bring your rear elbow midline. Throw the elbow upward, catching with the tip.

We also worked offensive and defensive tiip. One key is to keep the base leg “locked” and straight. The lead offensive tiip is thrown by stepping the rear foot to the lead, lifting your knee to the target height and jabbing with the ball of the foot.  The rear offensive tiip is throw by stepping forward, rising on the ball of the lead foot, and driving the rear foot through to kick.  The defensive tiip needs to be timed, try to catch your opponent as they step onto their lead foot, shifting the weight off their rear foot.  For the lead defensive tiip shift your weight to the rear leg, keeping it straight and foot flat, throw the tiip.

Coming full circle to the chase argument, using the concept of the offensive tiip.  If you throw the lead tiip and your opponent backs-up, follow-up with the rear tiip.  If your opponent is hurt, remaining fairly close to you, the lead tiip is followed by a kick on this side.  To throw this, hop your rear leg laterally, making sure your weight shifts over this leg, your tiip leg sets posteriorly to throw the kick.  If you knock your opponent off balance and need to “run them down”, step forward with the tiip, step through with your rear leg, setting it as the base leg.  Allow your shoulders to twist to slightly to the side throwing the kick to generate more torque, throw the Thai kick.

“Side-kick” tiip, both offensive and defensive.  Defensively, throw this tiip as if you are throwing a Thai kick, but the leg comes out straight, turn your hips to allow the leg to extend further, foot at 45° from the ground.  Your weight stays over your foot.  For the offensive version, the leg comes up and you spring forward to deliver the kick.

Open mouth, insert foot

I seek simple solutions.  The more complicated we make processes the more they tend to develop errors and essentially not work.  This aspiration to simplicity typically makes me favor high percentage technique, I like attacking and defending in ways that work most of the time, no matter who I'm working with or how fatigued I am.  It has to work despite me, not because of me.  This makes me disregard or shelve technique that for me, nobody would ever let me set-up as the easiest and simplest ways of avoiding, in my mind, exist.  It makes my approach, my game, old school basic.  The only way I'm making a highlight real is if they catch me, people have seen my arsenal ad nauseum.  But it works, its teachable to anybody, and it reduces the chances of self inflicted injury, all of which I think are positives.  However, life is about challenging perspective, if you're not asking questions about why you might be wrong, you're assuming you're right, and there is a famous saying about assumptions and rear ends.

So today the class was taught oma plata off the defense of the cross body straight arm bar.  From your guard you attack with the straight arm bar, if they defend you can use the arm closest to their legs to pass their arm bent and inferiorly to set-up the oma plata.  Makes sense, high yield, and a valuable addition to any guard player's game.

The next technique was taking the back from the oma plata.  Here, in order to defend the oma plata your partner straightens their arm, bring it straight across your pelvis.  Most likely you've lost the position and they are going to limp arm out of the position.  If your lucky you can do the mao de vaca (cow hoof submission) or even an arm bar.   Instead, we gripped their far lapel with our near hand pulling it into their axilla.  Now you tilt their far side toward you and as you do swing your near leg over their head and back while bringing your near foot in as a hook, in other words taking the back.

I admit I shelved this technique almost immediately as being low percentage, with my luck they would be out of the poor position before I could even find their lapel.  Then after class, lo and behold I was rolling, had set-up an oma plata when my partner's arm plopped, magically, suddenly, across my pelvis.  Without skipping much of a beat I grabbed his far lapel, rolled him over and took his back.

Any technique, when it works, is a 100%, even if the sample size is only one.  A low percentage technique is only that because the situation where it works all the time is rare, not because the maneuver is intrinsically "bad".  A high percentage technique applied at the wrong time never works, it is still not relegated to the realm of "bad" technique.  If our goal is to elevate our skill, to craft the best game for us, the techniques whether high or low yield, must be arrayed in our arsenal to be used when the situation, the time, and the opponent is optimal for the application not by preconceived notions of what will and will not work.  Perhaps I, in my experienced wisdom, I should not be so quick to judge.

"A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week." -- George S. Patton

Planning is simultaneously important and futile.  Important because it is critical that we examine what we intend to do and make the best prediction as to how we might accomplish it, but futile because no matter what we won't see all the variables and the other guy (the competition) has a bad habit of not following the plan rendering it less than completely successful.  Victories are won by planning more times than they are by improvisation, but adherence to a failed plan in absence of free thought has also led to far more losses than improvisation ever has.  Plans are like cookies, they should be made, must be made, but should be discarded if they get burned or go bad.
Looking back at my competitive career, I have been a far more careful planner when it came to striking (muay thai and mixed-martial arts) than jiu-jitsu.  Perhaps this is an artifact of competing in many more sport jiu-jitsu tournaments than muay thai or mixed-martial arts.  Things that feel more routine require less planning.  However, at the higher levels of competition, every competitive edge and especially planning becomes more important.
An important aspect of being "game" is willingness to enter the fray or the joy of locking horns.  Too often, and I see this in myself, planning is a list of reactions to what the other guy does.  To quote Marcelo Garcia, "Play your game, don't worry about what the other guy does."  If something doesn't work you have a back-up to that, but don't wait for your opponent to do something before you.  This isn't an conversation, it is not even an argument, you are giving a lecture and maybe you will grant your opponent a few questions at the end after your presentation is complete,
To that end I have designed a first draft of a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu / Sport Jiu-Jitsu / Submission Wrestling Game Planning Worksheet.  It begins with a goal statement describing what tournament this is for.  It then has brief section on the stand-up phase and how you intend on getting the fight to the mats and where you would optimally like to be when that happens. You then describe how you would attack from your goal position followed by the position you think is the back-up or most likely position you would end up in when not in your best position.  Then you review what you would do if you screwed up, i.e. what happens if you make a mistake and end up in the position you hate most.  Here you describe how you would escape and get back to winning the fight.  Finally you should list two variants to attacks you described earlier in your plan as well as three things you need to improve on.

Chess Puzzles

My father was an accomplished chess player who tried to instill this in his son.  Chess puzzles are the 2-, 3-, and 4- move combinations that should cleanly end in checkmate.  The comparison between combat sports, particularly sport jiu-jitsu, is often made.  The cerebral aspects of strategy certainly exist in both games, however in combat sports size, strength, speed, and athleticism can, and does, beat technique, skill, and tactics.  While the proper game will win chess, the proper game in fighting does not always end in victory.  The pieces and board of chess are equal the difference is only in the intellectual skills of the players.  Being mat smart is certainly an asset but does not guarantee victory.

However as a I play these puzzles I notice certain parallels between the mat and the board, between pieces and positions, in essence strategy can transcend the game:

• Winning is based on a foundation of position - All chess puzzles are based on an end-game with pieces distributed in specific positions.  The a priori placement of the pieces predicate certain moves for victory.  In order to solve the puzzle some of these pieces may not change position but without their current placement, movement of other pieces would not insure victory.  In combat sports the relation of your body to your opponent makes certain attacks and counterattacks possible.  You cannot execute an attack without position, submission and placement are equal, the felling blow and footwork need each other.  Even if your legs and hips don't perform the motion of a kimura that your hands and arms do, the placement of your lower half is paramount for the submission.

• Attack with intent, intending to defend is initiating defeat - The old adage that the best defense is a good offense holds true.  If you attack with the intent to finish, i.e. checkmate, you will placing your opponent in check for two reasons.  First, by forcing them to defend "check" they will change the configuration of the board to prevent losing now but increase the chance of defeat later. Second, they cannot finish you, if they are one the defensive.

• Play one move ahead, allow one escape - We are told to think several moves in advance, which is extremely difficult given the number of permutations in what our opponent can do.  We can limit the number of moves we need to think in advance, by being one move ahead.  By being one move ahead you have already limited the number of options your opponent has available, making your calculations simpler.  When closing the noose of the endgame, we allow only one escape, this is the epitome of a chess puzzle, if the moves are done appropriately your opponent is not initiating moves nor even reacting, they are behaving in a predetermined way due to the rules of the game and what you did.  Your fighting should be the same, be that move ahead and recognize the hole for them to go through should your attack not finish the fight.

• Victory can be solved by brute force or elegance - Sometimes the endgame is a series of captured pieces as we zero in on our opponent's king, this is brute force, literally battering our way through our opponent's defenses.  Alternatively the endgame can be elegant, placing pieces in jeopardy even as other pieces close in on your opponent's king.  The epitome of good gamesmanship the elegant solution is not better than the forceful one, both are needed, in different games to win.

• You cannot win without risking losing - When completing the endgame pieces will be exposed to capture or you might be one move away from being checkmated, however as long as they are in checkmate none of this matters.  Woulda, coulda, shoulda, does not stack up well against done.  Often times when we fight, we worry more about losing than we do about winning, and this can be a detriment to performance.  To inflict harm, to attack, means exposing yourself to the same.  Your game needs to be strong enough to be aware of this and transcend it.