This is my tally of guard passes from the highlight reel on the 2004 Mundials DVD. It’s rapid fire, switching from fight to fight quickly, so I didn’t write down who did what.
7-9 cross knee passes (depending on how you want to define it)
7 over-under passes
2 Sao Paulo passes to half guard performed by Roberto Godoi himself, ending in cross knee pass
2 leg facing half guard passes (like Marcelo does)
2 half guard passes with the underhook that ended in the cross knee
1 knee-pin/knee-through pass
1 stacking pass
1 smash pass
1 “step over and sit on it” pass to an x-guard position
1 bull fighter by dropping the shoulder into hips
There were a few misc. passes that didn’t fall into any specific classification, but they were usually something involving grabbing the knees and circling around the legs.
Not all cross knee passes or over-under passes were the same. They happen many different ways, and often in combination with each other, as well as other passes. Some started from standing, some from kneeling, some in open guard, some in half guard (and in Godoi’s case, even closed guard.)
Cross knee passes from standing often started with knee grips followed by a collar grip or underhook. If they started in half guard, they had the underhook and worked their trapped knee out until they could cross knee pass.
For the over-under, they grips were usually on the knees or sometimes the end of the pants, and/or an underhook to grab the belt/hips. This grip sometimes goes to the end of the pants.
Notice that very few passes go under the legs, like a stacking pass. Almost all go over or around, even if they use a grip that goes under the legs.
If I understood it correctly, the Pareto principle states that 80% of the jiu-jitsu techniques are owned by the wealthiest 20% of Italians…
I liked Jiu Jitsu Laboratory’s article overall, because it raises good points about how to make the most of your training. It is easy to go flying off in every direction, and sometimes you need to be brought back down to the ground.
Jiu Jitsu Lab shares my skepticism of the 80/20 “rule” truly being a rule. Like he pointed out, it’s overreaching to apply an economic ratio for Italian wealth to every other aspect of life, BJJ included. It may have been an accurate description of the situation at the time, but it’s not a scientific principle that can be applied to everything. Hey, maybe we can make up a 99/1 ratio thanks to the current Occupy movement! Someone get Malcolm Gladwell’s agent on the phone!
What is more valuable is the idea that a small percentage often has a greater effect than the majority. Applying this to BJJ, it encourages you to find those moves that give you most of your success and investing time and attention in them. No one is going to be able to make full use 100% of the techniques they learn. They are better off finding what works for them most of the time, and then finding what details in those moves they can further improve.
Jiu Jitsu Lab’s point about the definition of “the basics” being nebulous is a good one. Everyone “knows” what the basics are, but no one can completely agree on them. We all get that some moves are more important than others, and some are better to teach to beginners than others. Maybe they are what Helio laid out as his curriculum, or maybe they aren’t.
Let’s look a move that is taken for granted as a basic in all grappling arts: the bridge. As universal as it’s assumed to be, you can find different opinions on it.
At the Carlos Machado seminar I attended, he confessed he never used the upa escape from mount. He just didn’t like it and felt it was too much work. He did a mount escape that rolled the guy over, but it was based more on sideways hip movement (circling under them) and a little bump, but not truly bridging.
Rickson, per what I’ve been shown by a few of his students, does the complete opposite. He wants them bridging all the way off the top of their head like a wrestler. This is in line with his “connect your entire body to the movement” philosophy. (Personally, my back and neck aren’t strong enough to do this.)
Like Carlos, Michael Jen made similar statements about his personal grappling system not really using a true bridge. To quote him:
You can definitely become proficient without a strong bridge. You need to be able to do a general bridging motion as far as just lifting your hips. However, you do not need to have the power bridge to bail your opponent over in order to have an effective game.
In fact, my BJJ game does not rely on strong bridging ability. It hate bridging and avoid doing it if possible. I had a bulging disc in my low back and I really lack flexibility in my back as far as bridging. When I try to arch back, my wife teases me and calls it a “broken coffee table” rather than a bridge.
When it comes to my side mount escaping system, I never bridge my opponent over. I only use small bridging motions to create space or momentum.
…
Yeah, I do wish that I made a better bridge. That is just like how I wish I could put both of my feet behind my head. Though developing flexibility like that would be very beneficial, I prefer to spend my time developing technique that is less attribute oriented.
Roy Harris (another Joe Moreira black belt like Jen) is the complete opposite, claiming the upa is the most important fundamental move that he built his grappling around.
Roy Harris once wrote an interesting article about how he doesn’t believe it’s possible to train without attributes, though he includes sensitivity and timing as attributes (which some debate.) Michael Jen, a peer of Harris’, makes similar points about how no one truly trains with zero strength and flexibility unless they are a corpse. The goal is, of course, to limit and reduce the amount of strength, flexibility and other physical factors as much as possible.
One definition for “the basics” that people aren’t always aware they are using is “those moves I learned first.” I actually have no problem with this approach as long it’s successful. It works if they were good moves and your instructor knew what he was doing. But it doesn’t answer why you learned them first. Did your instructor have a thoughtful reason, or was it just what he learned first too?
Leo Kirby, a brown belt under Marcelo, has a funny story about that. He had a white belt end up training with him at his “work on DVD moves” open mats because that the only time they could make it. He warned them that the techniques wouldn’t be “basic”, but they didn’t care. So they learned x-guard, armdrags, etc. from Marcelo DVDs. (Helio turns in his grave.) But later when Leo saw them in a normal class, they were doing x-guard fine against other beginners. That’s when he decided that “the basics” were just whatever you learned first.
A BJJ teacher once posted online about how he teaches the butterfly guard to beginners for their first trial class. This was controversial, but his argument was that it was less awkward than making them close guard on strangers, and it taught them to make space and safely stand up, which he felt was an important lesson especially if they never came to another class.
My perspective is that as long as a technique is built on the “true” basics of leverage, positioning, momentum, timing, balance (or off-balancing), etc. and it deals with situations that would realistically come up, then it is as basic as you want it to be. I’ve had white belts doing the reverse omoplata with no problems. They just need to understand how and when it works (and when it doesn’t work). Of course, just because they can do it, it doesn’t mean it’s the most important skill for them to be learning at the time.
Now to turn my logic on itself, I can’t teach “basic” concepts like momentum and leverage by standing in front of a class and saying “F = ma! M = Fd!” We’re not doing a physics class, we’re doing jiu-jitsu. Students need something to do, and that’s going to be practicing a technique (or at least a “movement” of some kind.) As an instructor, I can teach those techniques I feel best impart an understanding (or at least a practical application) of these concepts.
We can apply different reasoning to what makes certain moves “advanced” or “basic”. Let’s take Danaher’s rules for what he calls a basic technique:
the technique must work for anyone at any proficiency level
the technique must work for anyone who is competing at any weight class
the technique must work for any body type
Per those three points, the heelhook is a basic move, at least in an abstract sense. But at the same time, few instructors would recommend teaching heelhooks to beginners because “it’s a basic”. We understand it takes a sensitivity that beginners don’t have (unless we don’t care about injuries.) To qualify as basic or not, do we need to consider more attributes like balance, coordination and timing?
I consider standing up to break closed guard a “basic” technique because I learned it my first day (as many white belts at my gym have), but it took me almost two years to be able to perform it without getting swept for trying. This breaks Danaher’s first rule, but I bet he teaches a similar move anyway (or has a way of arguing that it doesn’t break his rule.)
We could also say that a basic move should be one that is going to be needed in more fights than a nonbasic move. But then we need to look at context. Are we talking about a street fight? White belts in sparring? Purple belts in a tournament? Black belts? MMA fight?
Headlock escapes are basic moves that are needed in street fights and white belt matches that are never needed in any of those other situations.
Can an advanced move still have “basics” to it? People will call x-guard advanced, but it’s really just about using butterfly hooks and shifting your hips under their base. Does that justify teaching it to beginners or not?
The traditional standard of teaching moves that work for a weaker, smaller person against a bigger, stronger opponent is one I agree is valuable. But what are its limits? How much smaller and weaker or bigger and stronger are we talking about? Everything breaks down at some point.
But maybe we just worry about this stuff too much as nerdy white guys. Most black belts don’t care about this. Maybe they can explain underlying theories, or maybe they can’t. They just teach what they know works, and no one can argue with results.
The influence of wrestling on BJJ is obvious. Single and double legs are the most common takedowns. If you count single legs that were initiated from guard (as seen in the best sweeps highlights), you can add at least 5 more to the count, and a few more double legs too. (This is not including the many sweeps that end by standing with a grip on the ankle or an underhook on the leg which aren’t exactly single legs.)
Some of the takedowns (especially singles and doubles) seemed too easy as the guy on the receiving end quickly resigned to pulling guard.
Singles and doubles were setup many different ways and varying distances. Some came from the gi clinch, usually with a snapdown and dropping to the legs. Others came from shooting from the outside. The experienced wrestlers like Drysdale used more dynamic movement and footwork to shoot in, similar to how armdrags are done.
3. The single leg is the most important takedown in jiu-jitsu.
As a slight disclaimer, Marcelo never actually says the above, but it is evident in his game. Opportunities to execute single legs abound from all positions: from standing, from the butt scoot, from arm drags, from guard, and from guard pass counters. Marcelo uses the single leg constantly, and it ties in perfectly with his arm drag system, creating a hyper-aggressive path to the back or to the top. To be honest, I thought I would never learn to wrestle, but transplanting Marcelo’s system into my own style opened my game to new possibilities. Suddenly, I was confident enough to stand with wrestlers, and I was hunting arm drags and single legs from a variety of positions. If you have not begun to work on your single leg, you will after reading this book.
Judo also made its mark. The high number of seoi nage and fireman’s carries will be a surprise to some, since the usual theory is that they expose the back, but they worked for the guys who went for them with good timing and full commitment. (We don’t have a highlight reel of the ones that failed though.)
This was the second Mundials/World tournament by the Confederação Brasileira de Jiu-Jitsu (CBJJ), the Brazilian counterpart to North America’s IBJJF. I am still working to get my hands on the the first Mundials from 1996.
My notes may be a little off, since I watched about 6 hours of competition footage in one night, and my notes aren’t exact play-by-plays. Thankfully, I have found many of these matches on Youtube, so you can watch them yourself.
Robson Moura vs Armando Conde
Conde pulls guard, which Moura immediately passes around. Conde tries to turtle to escape side control and pulls butterfly guard. Moura hops over a hook sweep then quickly mounts for an armbar.
Rony Rustico vs Saulo Ribeiro
Rony pulls guard and ends up with half guard. Saulo sits back and low, underhooking the leg and works to a smash pass. Rony recovers to butterfly guard before points are scored. Saulo works to pass and gets the underhook on the leg again as Rony brings his knee across like z-guard. Saulo sprawls back and almost passes again, then switches to the cross knee pass. Rony defends by turtling and Saulo spins to his rear to sprawl on his hips. Saulo drags him over to nearly get side control, then almost takes the back when he resists, but ends up in mount, where he’s quickly put back in half guard. Rony goes for something like a helicopter sweep, but ends up just turtling. Saulo gets double lapel control, tries to take the back again, but like before, Rony turns to be mounted and quickly escapes to half guard.
Saulo wins on points.
Marco Aurelio vs Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro
Marco pulls closed guard right away. Shaolin stands to open guard, but Marco just hangs and keeps trying to pull him down. Shaolin pushes him down until Marco jumps to his feet and tries to rush into an outside trip takedown. This fails so he quickly pulls butterfly guard.
Shaolin nearly passes around the guard with grips on the knees, but Marco recovers butterfly guard and no points are scored. Marco grabs the pants at the knees. Shaolin pushes a knee down and jump directly into side control, but Marco turtles and pulls butterfly guard.
Marco gets a grip on a knee and a sleeve, pulls his feet out and shoots up for a triangle. Shaolin defends with his knee in combat base. Marco plays open guard with his knees on the hips until Shaolin grips the knees and stands. Marco goes to De la Riva, then inverts by spinning through the legs, but can’t come up into any real sweep, ending up in butterfly guard again.
Shaolin tries to pass with a cross grip on the pant leg. Marco turtles to defend, so Shaolin get a hook and take the back. He can only get one hook, so he triangles his legs on one leg.
Marco escapes by getting his back to the mat and removing the hooks as he turns in. Shaolin moves to side control before Marco escapes to open guard with a sleeve grip. Marco tries to get a triangle again, but Shaolin defends with his knee in combat base.
Marco gets DLR guard and tries to spin around to the back, but Shaolin sits on him and squares up again. Shaolin tries to pass with a cross grip on the pants again and Marco recovers back to butterfly guard.
Shaolin wins on points.
Fabio Gurgel vs Daniel Simoes
They grip fight for a little before Gurgel snaps down and drops into a single leg, then spins to the rear body lock as Simoes turtles.
Simoes rolls forward and goes to guard. Gurgel ties to pass over, but Simoes fights to his knees and stands.
More pushing each other around on the feet, getting into the BJJ stance of bent over head-to-head with butts out. Gurgel does a no commitment foot sweep and later tries for ouchi gari.
Simoes jumps to closed guard. Gurgel stands to open with a grip on one sleeve. When the guard opens, Gurgel succeeds with a cross knee pass with an underhook. Simoes bridges likes crazy to get back into half guard, but he’s crushed by Gurgel’s crossface and underhook.
Gurgel wins on points.
Marcio Feitosa vs Leo Vieira
Feitosa opens with a strong attempt at uchimata but Leo stays up.
Vieira pulls butterfly guard but ends up in half guard. Feitosa gets an underhook and sprawls low. Vieira goes for a sweep and moves to butterfly guard. Feitosa goes for an over-under pass that switches to a leg weave. Leo turtles, and Feitosa goes for a single, but Vieira jumps to closed guard.
Feitosa gets both lapels and stands with a wide base but never opens Vieira’s guard. This happens for the rest of the fight while Vieira goes for every kind of sweep and grip. He ties sit up sweeps, pendulum/flower sweeps, cross grips, guillotines, ezekiels, eventually just opening his guard and kicking all over and pushing off the ground over his head. Feitosa just keeps pinning him back down, dropping to his knees and sprawing back but never seems to try a real pass.
Feitosa wins on points. He runs and jumps into a section of the crowd full of Gracie Barra guys while the Alliance fans (I assume) are booing. After Feitosa gets his hand raised, Gurgel comes out and raises Vieira on to his shoulders to parade him around while Alliance fans cheer.
Soca vs Megaton
The video cuts to Soca in butterfly guard, switching to single leg guard as Megaton stands, then spinning under to get a shin sweep with a grip on the ankle and an underhook on the leg. He steps around Megaton’s guard right away.
Megaton returns to guard, but Soca does an over-under pass to side control.
Soca tries to jump to a near side armbar, but Megaton pulls out and scrambles to his feet. Soca pulls guard.
Megaton almost passes with the bullfighter, but Soca twists up into a single leg, then sits into single leg guard.
Megaton sits down with a loop choke grip and Soca spins around to escape. Soca gets his head out and ends up with butterfly guard.
They go out of bounds and are reset standing. Soca pulls butterfly guard. Megaton stands. Soca crosses the arm and grabs the belt, pulls Megaton down for a sweep, but ends up pulling closed guard.
Soca underhooks a leg and knocks Megaton back on his butt. Megaton sits with both legs forward for a while, but Soca is never able to get on top. Megaton gets his leg back and fixes his base and posture.
Megaton stands to open guard. Soca drops to single leg guard, then spins between the legs for a shin sweep. Megaton lands with butterfly guard, but Soca quickly passes. Megaton’s foot gets stuck in the back of the collar, which saves him for a second until the ref knocks it off, allowing Soca to finish the pass.
Soca immediately moves to north-south, then sits in to take the back. He gets hooks and grip fights with one-on-ones while trying to get the collar.
Megaton defends, and the video cuts to Soca moving to side control probably because Megaton got rid of his hooks.
Soca moves to north-south again, then 100 kilos and knee-on-belly as Megaton tries to escape. Megaton throws his legs up and does an upside down guard spin to recover guard as the whistle blows.
Soca wins on points.
Alexandre Paiva vs Nino Schembri
Nino jumps to half guard with an arm wrap. He tries to spin between the legs and do a stand-up sweep with the leg underhooked on his shoulder, but Paiva scrambles to stay on top. Nino does an upside down spin to DLR guard with a foot on the biceps. Paivo tries a fast, aggressive pass, but Nino’s legs open wide and he swings back to guard.
Nino ends up with Pavia low in his half guard, underhooking his leg. He bridges to recover butterfly guard but they go out of bounds.
Restarted standing. Nino jumps to closed guard, and Paiva stays standing. Nino drops to his feet for a takedown but no luck. He jumps guard again and gets DLR with an arm wrap on the other side. He switches to butterfly guard and rises into a single leg takedown. They scramble, and Pavia ends up on bottom, so he pulls half guard.
Nino does an over-under pass to 100 kilos. He faces the legs, picking them up and putting his knee up under the thigh. He switches to knee-on-belly when Pavia turns into him. Pavia escapes to open guard. Nino gets a combat base and they end up out of bounds. Time is called right after the reset.
Nino wins on points.
Roleta vs Anderson Xavier
Roleta pulls closed guard by jumping to it from a long distance. He gets a cross grip.
Xavier stands, and Roleta underhooks the leg and opens to cross guard, swinging his leg out wide. Xavier grabs the knee, and Roleta grabs the back of that arm and tries to snap it into an armbar. Xavier pulls his arm out, but Roleta uses his underhook of the leg to rise up into a sweep. Xavier tries to avoid it by going to all fours, with his hips high, so Roleta jumps on to his back. Xavier turns to be under mount.
From mount, Roleta reaches back to grab the knee and pick the leg off the ground. He uses this grip several times whenever he has mount.
Xavier tries to bridge him over and is almost successful switching to the hip escape, but Roleta keeps his legs smashed. When Xavier turns and ties to pull his legs free, but he almost gives up his back, and instead allows Roleta to advance to mount again.
Xavier tries to bridge again, but even when it looks close, Roleta nearly takes his back with two hooks instead.
Xavier finally succeeds with an upa escape that rolls Roleta to closed guard. Xavier does what would later be describes as the Tozi or Sao Paulo pass, getting an underhook and sprawling out. Roleta takes the overhook and spins out to a pendulum sweep position, but never gets anything. Roleta opens his guard and Xavier grabs double under pass grips as the whistle blows.
Roleta wins on points.
Leo Vieira vs Renato “Charuto” Verissimo
Leo really wants to pull guard, and drops to his butt then stands up to do it again with better grip. He gets double sleeve control with both feet on the hips, then sits to butterfly guard when Renato backs away. Leo pulls to closed guard.
Renato stands to open guard, but Leo just hangs on him. He finally drops down to DLR where tries to backspin to the outside, but Renato stays on top in the scramble. Leo gets butterfly guard, goes to DLR with the intention of doing the same backspin but never getting very far. He sits up to single leg guard and passes the near hand between the legs. He spins between the legs, rocking back and forth as Renato balance, then spins back out to the single leg takedown.
Renato lands with guard and Leo throws him up on his shoulders, forcing him to turtle. Leo jumps for the back, and Renato forward rolls to nearly go between Leo’s legs. Leo keeps trying take his back and Renato keeps going to upside down positions where he ties to roll under.
Renato recovers back to guard, but in a split second, Leo cartwheels completely over and puts him in side control with a deep underhook. This seems to short circuit Renato’s brain because he keeps triangling his legs for no reason while pinned.
Leo steps over the head and sits on it while focusing on Renato’s underhooked arm. Renato bridges out, but Leo is on the rear of turtle again. Leo gets a hook and hangs on his back for a while, but Renato removes it and fights to stand up.
After a break to retie their belts, Leo pulls butterfly guard. Renato grabs a loop choke grip and the knee then front flips. He’s laying with the choke while Leo kicks his legs to break the grips and get out. They scramble and Leo ends up on top of turtle and nearly takes Renato’s back again. While they are laying in a strange position, Renato back flips over to escape and gets a front headlock. Leo ties a double to sitout to single leg, but they go out of bounds and are restarted standing.
Leo pulls butterfly guard, then switches to DLR and succeeds with a backspin sweep. As Renato tries to get to his knees and stand, Leo cartwheels over him and lands behind him with hip control. Renato rolls to a sort of upside down guard that Leo stacks.
Leo wins on points.
Gordo vs Mario Sperry
Before the fight, the ref pulls them in close to give a serious talk, during which Mario blows each nostril and wipes with his sleeve.
Gordo pulls half guard, but Mario immediately gets the underhook. He passes to quarter guard. Gordo gets an underhook, and Mario tries to whizzer and get a collar choke.
The video cuts to Gordo coming on top after a sweep. He goes straight into a smash pass, then leaps to the opposite side. Mario recovers butterfly guard with an overhook before any points are scored.
Gordo flattens him out and works for sprawling over-under passes. Even with the leg underhooked, Mario just twists belly down and ties to turn to his knees, which keeps making Gordo back off the pass. Mario gets half butterfly guard. Gordo tries to pass again, but Mario grips his outside knee and twists up to sweep him. Gordo falls to butterfly guard.
The video cuts to Gordo with closed guard before going to half guard. Mario gets an underhook and succeeds with a cross knee pass.
Mario wins on points.
Egan Inoue vs Filipe Lira
Filipe pulls butterfly guard and goes straight into an overhead sweep that almost lands him in mount, then rear mount, but Egan scrambles out to his feet.
Egan gets a takedown and Filipe gets guard. Filipe fights for a sweep that turns into a takedown that runs them out of bounds, but Egan falls hard on his shoulder. There is a pause while Egan looks to be in a lot of pain and people are checking him out. It looks like they reset a dislocated shoulder, but the angle is unclear and people block the camera.
Whatever happened, Egan returns and they restart standing. Egan immediately shots in for a single leg and duck under, but doesn’t get it. He tries a sacrifice throw where he lays down to blocks the foot with his thigh, but it fails and he gets his back taken. He stands up with Filipe hanging on his back and jiggles him until he jumps off.
Filipe pulls butterfly again and goes for the same overhead sweep, but it fails and Egan quickly does a bullfighter pass to knee-on-belly, then drops to side control. Filipe gets half guard, but Egan has an underhook and passes.
Egan wins on points.
Amaury Bitetti vs Fabio Gurgel
Gurgel jumps to closed guard. Amaury wants to get control of a sleeve, and Gurgel can tells, so he keeps putting his hands over his head. This repeats for a while. Gurgel eventually tries to climb his guard, and Amaury stands.
Gurgel opens to double sleeve grips and feet on the hips. Amaury tries a standing pass, so Gurgel switches to sitting butterfly guard. Amaury cartwheels to pass, but Gurgel keeps guard. After Amaury ties to pass again, Gurgel gets to his knees for a double leg but gets sprawled on for a while until they both stand.
Gurgel jumps guard. When Amaury stands, he opens his guard and drops to a double ankle sweep that almost works, but they both end up standing.
Circling each other. Gurgel ties for a single but fails. More downs, then jumps to guard again.
We picked a DVD at random and it was Mundials 2004, Disc 1. It contains the final match of each weight class and the absolute. If this seem scrambled, it’s because I’m mostly going off memory (and a few scribbled notes) of close to 4 hours of fights.
Galo – Gabriel Moraes vs Gerenias Maia
Unfortunately, I don’t know who is who since they didn’t line the names up with the fighters due to a strange camera angle. We’ll just say blue gi and white gi.
After a guard pull by white gi, blue gi passes the single leg guard (sitting up on one leg) by stepping around the outside, though white scrambles back to guard before points are scored. Here is Rodolfo Vieira teaching the same pass:
Blue gi passes by getting a leg lace (threaded between the legs) with a grip on the pants of the bottom leg. Then something funny happens. White is struggling to escape side control, and blue quickly backs off to standing and lets white get up. Blue immediately pulls deep half guard sweep, gets an underhook on the leg by the head, wedges his knee in and gets a sweep.
Blue gi ends up standing in open guard, gets grips on the knee and passes over the leg. White turtles, so blue spins to the back but never gets hooks.
Blue wins on points.
Pluma – Bibiano Fernandes vs Fernando Vieira
Bibiano shoots for a single, but quickly drops into half guard instead. He sits into single leg guard when Vieira stays standing, then stands up into the single leg takedown after all.
Vieira lands with guard. Bibi almost passes with an over-under pass by switching his “under” hand (the one that’s usually below the hips to grab the belt) to the end of the pants to stretch it away. (Pe de Pano did this too in the 2003 Pan Ams I watched last week.)
Bibi tries passing by switching back and forth between grips on the knees and double under pass grips. He never gets there.
They end up one their feet and there is a hilarious double guard pull. I don’t remember much else but some scrambling and Fernando Vieira is somehow marked down as the ultimate winner by points.
Pena – Mario Reis vs Fredson Paixao
At this point I think I just started taking notes of the most interesting moments, so forgive me if I don’t remember every second of the match. This match is going to seem especially disjointed because the ref restarted it a lot and interfered with the flow of positions by resetting them in different positions. This gets bad enough that at one points a fighter just stares at him incredulously and the ref yells at the crowd for booing him.
Fredson gets closed guard. When Mario stands, Fredson gets the “underhook” on the opposite ankle (so his right arm reaches all the way across to the outside of Mario’s right leg). He arches to sweep Mario, but can’t, so he opens his guard and drops to reverse DLR guard.
Later, Mario is standing above Fredson’s open guard. When Fredson sits up, Mario snaps him down by the collar (so his face nearly meets his feet) and spins behind to get back control, bypassing all normal guard passing.
Fredson gets back to guard. Mario goes for a cross knee pass, then does a backstep pass while standing. Then he just keeps squatting over him. This goes on for an unusual amount of time.
Mario eventually passes to reverse kesa gatame. Fredson is trying to catch his legs. Mario hooks the near leg from below with his near leg, giving him a clear path to mount.
Scramble to half guard that ends in a single leg that goes out of bounds. Weird reset back in sitting single leg guard. Backroll sweep that turns into a scramble to the back that never earns points.
Mario wins on points.
Leve – Daniel Moraes vs Rodrigo Magalhaes
This match was so boring. Most of it has them standing head to head, grabbing the gis, bent over at the waist with their asses back. It’s the kind of BJJ match that makes judoka and wrestlers scream. Even watching it in fast forward, it just looks like they are standing in front of each other and barely shuffling their feet up and down. I think the ref issued 2-3 warning for stalling, and I thought he was going to double DQ them. What’s funny is when he’d break them up to issue the warning, they’d start posturing like they were about to launch into battle and kill each other, but then they’d just glom on and do nothing again.
Rodrigo finals goes for a snapdown to shoot, but Daniel reacts by throwing him bodily to the floor with an underhook. I think Daniel tries to pass guard but they end up on their feet where Daniel fails another attempt at muscling the throw. Honestly, at this point I was more interested in the pidgeon I had noticed making a nest in the rafters of the gymnasium.
Daniel wins on points.
Medio – Marcelo Garcia vs Cassio Werneck
Marcelo gets pulled into guard IIRC. He starts passing half guard with an underhook and heavy hips. He switches to his textbook “face the legs” pass when he runs into resistance. He gets his foot out after a few minutes of trying and immediately circles to north-south then the far side.
As he circles back to the original side, Casio tries to get to his knees, but Marcelo still has the arm blocked by his body, giving him a clear path to take the back. They roll out of bounds while Marcelo is getting his grips for a choke, and they are restarted standing in the middle.
Nothing else really happens and Marcelo wins on points.
Media Pesado – Braulio Estima vs Jacare
Braulio walks out alone and gets his hand raised because Jacare’s arm was broken in the Absolute match with Roger.
Pesado – Xande Ribeiro vs Jefferson Moura
Jefferson pulls a loose guard that Xandre immediately passes around. Jefferson manages to recover to half guard. He spends a lot of time trying to get a waiter sweep to work, but Xande has good base and prevents it, even with Jeferson almost all the way out the back door.
Xande wins on points.
Super Pesado – Roger Gracie vs Comprido
Comprido goes for a weak single leg, and Roger gets a whizzer and just slams his hips forward like he wants to run forward into mount. In the scramble, Roger is able to spin to the back. Comprido gets flattened out belly down with his legs totally straight. He eventually turns to be under mount where Roger attacks with collar chokes. The camera angle makes it hard to tell what happens, but Comprido gives up his back again and the fight ends. I’m guessing he got choked and tapped.
Pesadissimo – Terere vs Werdum
Terere is doing his crazy Terere thing by fighting three weight classes up. Werdum is gigantic compared to him.
Before the match, there’s a delay, so Terere does this strange little dance of shuffling around and shaking his arms and wringing his hands. Werdum kinda dances around with him. Voodoo.
Terere runs around a lot but Werdum mostly throws him around and squashes him when they really engage. They go crazy. At one point, Werdum gets side control as they go out of bounds. The ref tries to pause it, and Werdum pushes Terere down into side control again, so Terere shoves him the face.
On time when they are coming back inbounds while standing, Werdum bum rushes Terere and the ref has to break it up for a proper restart.
Later, Terere circles behind the referee to put him in the way.
Werdum eventually wins on points, and then they are hugging and raising each other’s hands, and Werdum carries Terere around the ring.
Absolute – Roger Gracie vs Jacare
This is the famous match where Roger loses on points after breaking Jacare’s arm. You can watch it here:
Highlights: Roger goes for an armbar from guard that gets his guard passed and his back taken. He escapes and ends up in 50/50 guard of all places. He gets back to closed guard where this time the armbar works and breaks Jacare’s arm. Jacare spends the rest of the fight running out of bounds to avoid the takedown so he wins on points.
Each week of 2012, I’m watching a disc from my giant stack of BJJ tournament DVDs. This pile contains Mundials 1999-2005, Pan Ams 2001-2005, CBJJO Worlds, Marc Laimon’s banned Mundials and ADCC Remixes, dozens of Brazilian state championships, as well as special events like Rickson’s invitational and the So Cal Pro Am. I also have binder full of Grapplers Quests and ADCCs. (I will get more recent tournaments too.)
My goal is to work through years of Pan Ams, Mundials, ADCCs, and a bunch of random Brazilian state championships (and whatever else I have around). I’ll be taking notes on my observations.
Pan Ams 2003
This first week we watched bjjtapes.com’s DVD of the 2003 Pan Ams. Pe de Pano wins the black belt absolute, so I will write up my notes on him first.
PDP is gigantic. Only Werdum made him look normal sized, so Werdum is a hulk too.
PDP takes people down with drop seoi-nage, a surprise considering how he’s famous for being a giant guard monster. Of course, he also just pulls guard sometimes.
He steps on the hip and sits down to pull open guard. Sometimes this goes to closed guard, but he usually ends up in half guard as things progress.
From whatever guard he’s in (open or half), he fights to sit up on their leg (single leg guard) and pass their far sleeve between their legs and trap it. Then he steps on the far knee and pulls the collar for the sweep. (I can find a video if you don’t know what I’m talking about.) Eduardo once told me that if PDP gets this sweep, that means he wins the match. He just did his favorite move on you and now everything is how he wants it.
When he tries to work toward this move from half guard by getting the underhook, but he gets flattened out (or when they try to do the cross knee/knee cutter pass to push him down), he makes sure he has the low underhook around the back of their thigh. Then he twists up to his knees and does a simple single leg takedown/sweep, often with their far sleeve gripped between the legs (like he needed for the other sweep).
Most guys manage to at least recover guard as they are swept, but PDP moves right into over-under passes by sprawling out and driving forward. To end the pass, he often reaches his “under” hand to the end of the pants and stretches the leg away.
Once past the guard, he uses reverse scarf hold to secure the position before popping up to knee-on-belly. This is where he dominates them. He’ll switch from side to side, windshield wippering his feed over their hips. He’ll go back and forth between knee-on-belly and reverse knee-on-belly (or more accurately, sternum and chest.) He’ll also spin around above the head, often using reverse knee-on-belly first (so it’s just normal knee-on-belly after the spin.)
At first, I thought his constant switching was wasted motion. Sometimes he gets his ankle caught in half guard, but he smashes out of that. But he is a million pounds of knee pressure, and he does get reactions out of it. He taps Todd Margolis with knee-on-belly by itself.
That fight started with Todd working hard for low double leg takedowns on the ankles, with PDP just becoming a giant circus tent over him when he sprawled. They are scrambling a lot, Todd looks like he’s getting tired, and PDP (IIRC) gets a throw. He goes to knee-on-belly and pulls hard on the collar. Todd pushes on the knee for a second, it doesn’t move an inch, then he taps out.
In other fights, when they try to turn toward him and get the knee off, he spins around for the spinning armback (with the underhook) and/or takes the back. If he doesn’t get the armbar right away, he gets back control (harness or lapel control) and threatens collar chokes, armbars and even triangles.
In a fight against a very soft and pasty white guy, PDP sweeps and gets knee-on-belly, then gets the crucifix when they big guy flounders up to his knees. PDP finishes with a reverse omoplata.
Other Matches
The first match on the DVD has Werdum (I think) going for a loose De la Riva guard and getting his ankle busted by a rolling toehold. I saw two fighters get caught in toe holds and ankle locks that wore ankle braces in later matches.
Kenny Florian fights as a brown belt, but the match wasn’t too exciting, except for a very well timed collar drag/snapdown that unfortunately wasn’t finishes as they ran out of bounds.
Travis Lutter fought as a black belt, but I don’t remember anything exciting.
David Jacobs fought but spent most of the time trying to get double under passes to work that never seemed to get there.
Leticia Ribeiro has a good fight against an Asian black belt.
Marcio Feitosa fought, but I don’t remember anything but some grinding matches that end in points.
In the background of a boring match, I saw a black belt win with a loop choke from butterfly guard that ends with him spinning himself under side control (how I like to do it!)
Rener Gracie fought a few times. He is fun to watch because when he’s not going for leglocks, he’s doing Helio’s self defense BJJ. I believe it was Fabio Leopoldo that he beat by jumping to closed guard, attacking with a basic cross collar choke, then going to the triangle when Fabio reached in to defend his neck. He twisted to his belly and did a push up to roll into a mounted triangle.
Rener fought Gordo (the half guard creator) in a bizarre match. Rener jumps to closed guard and spends the first 2 minutes trying to do the basic cross collar choke. Gorgo does the basic thrusting collar choke defense. Rener climbs to a triangle. Gorgo defends by pulling the knee down and sprawing. For 7 minutes. Rener is pulling on everything as hard as he can, and even gets his foot hooked under Gordo’s chest. Gordo finally gets out then somehow manages to pass guard before the timer rings. Eduardo said Gordo told him he couldn’t feel half his body afterward.
Braulio Estima wins the brown belt absolute. Three matches stand out.
In one, he pulls guard and does a helicopter armbar from De la Riva by almost sweeping the guy straight over his head. This was slick.
He gets a nearside armbar from knee-on-belly that looked slick, but watching it in slow motion, his opponent practically gives it to him by turning away slowly (maybe he was trying to do a running escape?)
The last match is against this spazzy brown belt who is waving his hands like crazy and ducking and weaving and running circles around the mat when they start. Braulio just stares at him, then grabs an ankle pick. The guy puts both hands on the floor with his ass up, and Braulio hops on to his back with two hooks and rolls into a basic collar choke for the tap. Spazzy brown belt lays on the floor in shame for a minute and doesn’t want to hang out for the hand raising.
