I got back yesterday from a two day Marcelo Garcia seminar down at American Top Team in Hollywood, FL. It was a great experience, learned a ton of great techniques and had a lot of fun.

The theme for the whole seminar was giving Marcelo a chance to teach the material he uses in his everyday training but rarely gets to teach since most people only want him to do seminars on his signature moves. Marcelo said he was grateful to get to take a break from teaching the standard armdrags, RNC and x-guard. He said he never holds anything back, but there are aspects to his game that he doesn’t get to teach much since he’s still developing new material that people don’t know to ask to learn. This was especially true of the second day, which revolved entirely around omoplatas, which is a game few people realize he plays.

The first day focused on taking the back and finishing the RNC, which you’d expect from a Marcelo seminar. But what made this different than usual was that Leo Kirby, the host, asked Marcelo to go into aspects of his game that aren’t given as much fanfare, like the crucifix and the finer points of using his hooks and maintaining back control. Leo has been to four previous seminars and as many private lessons with Marcelo, and yet almost everything in this one was brand new to him.

Here are my notes so far. I know at least one person at the seminar was glad I was there so they wouldn’t have to take their own. “I’ll just read yours online.”

Pulling guard from clinch to butterfly guard sweep

You’re in the clinch with your right hand underhooking (palm on the back) and your left hand cupping the elbow. Your knees are slightly bent and your hips are a little bit back.

Pull them down and sit into butterfly guard and immediately try to sweep them to your left. Sit to the right and rock back on your left side. Lift your right hook as high as you can.

Ideally, they can’t post with their right arm since you’re holding the elbow and have their hand trapped in your armpit and they go right over.

But let’s learn how to do it when it’s not that easy. Instead of being swept, they’re able to post with their right arm and leg.

Keep your right hook up, lifting their left leg so it never touches the ground. Scoot your shoulders back and to the right to create space. Step on their right thigh with your left foot.

Lift their thigh with your left foot, taking their foot off the ground. Make sure your foot doesn’t slip off their thigh. Keep your left elbow pinched to your ribs to trap their hand.

With both their feet in the air and their arm trapped, they’ll fall over and you’ll come up into side control with an underhook on the far arm.

Taking the crucifix as they escape side control to RNC

When you have side control, you want to underhook their far arm. If they have the underhook, it’s easier for them to turn into you and come to their knees. But let’s say that happens…

You have side control on their right side (so their head is to your left). They underhook your right arm and bridge and come to their knees to try to get a single leg takedown.

Keep pressure on them with your chest as they turtle. As soon as you feel them grabbing your right leg, and before they can get a deep grip on it, kick it up and away. Your knee comes completely off the ground and your foot points to the ceiling.

When you feel their hands slip off your right leg and touch the floor, circle your knee over and drop it behind their arm (between their elbow and knee). Turn the corner and come to sideride and get the harness grip.

As always with the harness, the hand that goes under their far armpit covers the hand that goes across their chest/neck. This is because the hand of the arm that does the choking is the most important one, and they’ll be trying to grab it to defend.

Keep your chest pulled tightly to their back. Keep your knee deep behind their elbow so they can’t hide it.

Step over their left forearm with your left foot and drag your heel in to pull their arm into the crucifix. Triangle your legs on the side nearest to their legs (so your left ankle behind your right knee).

Grab their right wrist with your right hand. They now have no arms to defend their neck. Crawl your left hand up their shoulder and shake your forearm to dig under their neck. Keep getting deeper and deeper until you can’t go any further. The crook of your elbow shoulder be right below their chin and your hand on the back of their shoulder. Now take out your right hand and slide it behind their head for a RNC.

Lean forward and touch your head on the ground to the left, putting the weight of your chest on the back of their head. Finish the (very mean) RNC.

Sit into crucifix and armlocks

You have sideride but they are trying to bring their elbow around your knee and tuck it in. Sit though, sliding your knee deeper. Pull them back as you lean back and sit. This exposes their arm, so you can throw your left leg over it and get the crucifix. Triangle your legs per above.

Keep pulling them and sitting until your back touches the ground. Don’t do this until you’ve got their arm trapped. They’ll fall back so they’re laying on your chest. Keep your harness grip tight so they don’t slide their back to the ground and start escaping.

Touch the toes of your right foot to the ground and open your left knee (the one closest to their head) as much as you can. Their wrist should be trapped under your calf or heel. Bridge, keeping your left knee pointing out, to elbow lock them.

If they turn their arm (like doing a thumbs down) to avoid the pressure, turn towards them, getting on your right side to find the proper angle again. Make sure their wrist didn’t slip out from behind your left heel. Bridge to armlock them again.

Crucifix to guillotine

They are turtled and you have the crucifix. They are defending their neck with their free hand so you can’t get the RNC.

Release the harness and turn towards them. Wrap their neck with your left arm, getting your wrist/forearm under their throat. Lean so your weight is on their head. Slide your right hand between their shoulder and your chest/stomach and grab your left wrist. Pull your left arm and punch it deeper, getting the crook of your elbow below their chin. Pull your elbows to your body.

Sit and throw your right leg as high over their back as possible (over their shoulder if you can). Torque your body towards their head and finish the guillotine choke.

Reverse omoplata

They are turtled and you have the crucifix. They cross their trapped arm back so it’s around your right leg, pointing towards their own knees.

Switch your triangle so it on the side closest to their head (right ankle behind left knee).

Release the harness and bring your right arm to the near side of their head and do a forward roll. Give your training partner a chance to roll too or you’ll hurt his shoulder.

As he lands on his back, sit up and reach across his body with your right arm.

Hold his chest down as you bring your right leg back and lift your hips for a shoulder lock.

Sideride to rear mount with arm trapped

You have sideride but are unable to get the crucifix since he’s grabbing your choking side arm with both hands and tucking his elbow.

Use your harness grip to pull him back at a diagonal. Don’t try to take him straight backwards, but back and towards you.

As he raises up, bring your left foot up and step on his left forearm with your heel. Kick it down to break his grip and trap it under your leg.

Keep pulling him back so he falls into rear mount. With your left leg pinning his arm, put your foot in his groin like a normal hook. Your top hook can go in like normal or do whatever else you feel like.

Grab his right wrist with your right hand to trap the other arm too. Walk your hand up his shoulder and dig and shake under his neck. Get your arm as deep as you possibly can before taking out your other arm and finishing the RNC.

Sideride to rear mount, cobra stretch to two hooks

You attempt the previous move but are unable to trap his arm. You are able to get the bottom hook in, but he touches his right knee to his elbow to block the top hook.

Get your bottom hook (left leg) really deep and cross your ankles behind him. Like this.

Stretch him out by bringing your legs back, bridging your hips in, arching your back and upper body. Keep your harness grip tight with your chest on his back.

With him stretched out, throw your right hook in.

Keeping him on the choking side

You have rear mount with the harness and both hooks. You want to keep them turned to the same side as the arm that will choke them, but they’ll usually try to prevent this.

Let’s say your right arm in the choking one. They bridge and get to the left side and drive their shoulders to the mat to try to escape. This stretches out your arms and breaks the harness grip.

Take your right hand and reach behind their head, grabbing your wrist with your left hand (which is still underhooking their armpit). This creates a frame behind their neck and locks their shoulder so they can’t continue the escape.

Take out your left hook and throw your right leg all the way over their stomach. Keeping your upper body grip, twist your body like you want to come up into mount. This creates a ton of pressure behind their neck and shoulders. Swing yourself behind them again and turn them to the right with the frame. This puts them back on to their right side, where you want them.

Release your special grip and go back to the harness.

Roll them belly down and mean RNC

You have rear mount. They are grabbing your arm with both hands and bridging on you, but not really trying to escape. They just want to stall out.

Bring your right hook out enough to put the sole of your foot on their thigh. Take out your left hook and post on the ground. Push on their leg with one foot and bridge with the other to roll them.

Follow them over and quickly throw your hooks in before they go totally belly down.

They’re now face down, but they still have your arms trapped.

Put your toes on the ground so your heels lift their thighs and legs entirely off the ground. Explosively drive your hips into them and arch your back up as you rip your arms out. Maintain this pressure on their back. Don’t lessen it by posting on the ground with your hands.

Grab their forehead with one arm and pull it up to expose their neck. The pressure of your hips in his spine makes it easy to lift their head. Drive your other arm across their neck. Get a gable grip and bring your elbow behind their back. Get the crook of your elbow in the middle of their throat and finish with a harsh Dan Severn RNC.

As you’ll find repeated by anyone who has trained with Marcelo, he stresses very heavily the importance of imposing your game, fighting on your terms and always initiating the action. The lessons from the seminar where to built around aggressively and purposefully engaging the opponent, starting with pulling guard (day 1) or going for the takedown (day 2).

1) Single leg from clinch

You and your opponent are standing mostly upright. He may have a neck grip but don’t worry about it much. Focus on keeping elbow control, pummeling to grip his elbows if he tries to dominately grip yours.

One time when you feel him pull back to try to free his elbow, drop down and hug his leg. So if he pulled back to his left, take his right leg. Go to your left knee and keep your right leg up. Hug his leg extremely tightly, grabbing your opposite elbows/triceps if possible.

There should be absolutely no space around the leg like there would be if you just used a gable grip. Make sure your head is inside (so you don’t get crucifix or guillotined), with your forehead pressed firmly into his side. Keep a strong neck and good posture so they can’t bend you over by pushing on the back of your head. Marcelo said that hugging the leg extremely tightly like this is important when submission are in the game, which is why he does it differently than in wrestling.

With the leg trapped, stand up. Your leg that is to their rear, the left, swings back and you turn to the left. Then you sprawl, dropping your chest and hips all at once, bringing them to the ground. You only need to go to your knees, not completely straighten your legs.

From here, start passing however you want, probably hopping over the leg to side control.

2) Shaking the single leg to rear bodylock

Marcelo admitted that he’s no stellar wrestler and that as a jiu-jitsu guy he’s going to have trouble taking down experienced wrestlers. He’ll get the single leg and they’ll be able to hop around on one foot and keep their balance. This is what he does in those cases.

Hugging the leg and standing with good base, he’ll turn hard to one side and make them hop backwards. Then he’ll turn hard to the other side and make them hop forwards. He is standing in relatively the same spot and turning at the waist to swing them around; he’s not trying to run around them. If he was, they’d just stand in one place and not have to hop around on one foot.

While he’s shaking them back and forth, he’ll feel for when they go off balance. This can be when they’re moving in either direction. When they do, he’ll release the leg and quickly grab around the waist and spin to their back. He gets directly behind them, so his head is not still on their side where it can be grabbed. His arms hug tighly by the hips, and he puts his head to one side of their back.

He stands on his toes so he can stay light on his feet. He doesn’t bring his hips too close or put his leg where they can grab and kneebar it. He also doesn’t put his hips too far away where he’ll lose balance. Find a nice spot in between.

I was making the mistake of putting one of my arms deeper than the other, and he told me not to do this since guys can trap it and toss you over his hips.

3) Jumping to the back from rear bodylock

When the opponent is about the same size as you, you can release the bodylock and throw on a harness as you jump and put both hooks in. This is as simple as it sounds. Basically just jump up on his back. Make sure you grab your hand with the arm that’s under the armpit and that you get your chest in the middle of his shoulders, not too high or too low.

4) Forcing the fall from standing rear mount

So you’re now hanging from rear mount with them standing. Let’s say they are grabbing your wrists to defend the choke and have straightened their back so they are upright. When they stand like this, you have to expend a lot of energy to keep your harness tight enough to not fall off, so you don’t want to hang out here long.

To take them down, simply stretch your hooks and arch your back, pulling their chest, forcing them off balance. This is basically the same as you’d do to break someone down when you’ve got rear mount on the ground. As they start falling backwards, twist to the right so they fall to their side, and so you are able to roll out of the fall more (not landing flat on your back).

People were worried about “But what if he leans forward so you can’t force him back?” Marcelo said that it doesn’t matter at that point since then he’s carrying your weight and you’re not wasting energy. This came with a great demo of Marcelo doing a bellyspin on someone’s back to show that he doesn’t need any grips at that point to stay on.

5) Rear bodylock to the Ricco Toppler

You’ll recognize this from Marcelo’s match with Ricco. He said he does this when the person is too tall for him to just jump up on their back. He said he might do that if they are tired and he thinks he can be fast enough, but this is the standard move.

From the rear bearhug, keep your grip tight and scoot your hip back then jump up and plant both of your feet in the back of their knees. Straighten your legs and pull back to make them fall backwards.

Make sure you get your foot in the middle of the bend of the knee, not to the side, or it will slide off or you’ll kick and hurt their knee.

As they fall, keep tension in your stomach so you don’t fall to your back. You want to end sitting up. Keep your feet on the back of their knees, stretching their legs away. If you let your legs go wide and lose contact, or if you fall backwards, they’ll have a better chance of scrambling or rolling out.

Release the bodylock and take the harness. Now put your hooks in. Marcelo made a point of following that order, since he said that putting the hooks in without the upper body control still gave them a chance to escape.

6) Armdrag to the back

You’re standing but this time your efforts to control the elbows are met with them hunching over and keeping their hips back.

Your left hand grabs the wrist and pull it to your right, passing it to your right hand which cups the back of the triceps. This crosses their arm in front of their body. He locks down this grip so his shoulder is against theirs, but he keeps his hips out from them.

As you do this, your left foot steps outside of their right foot, and your right foot steps so the ball of your foot lines up with theirs.

Then you fall back, pulling them down with all of your body weight, landing on your back. As they come down to all fours, you need to come up and grab their back. To do this, you can’t let go of anything or post on the mat. Just lift your left leg, then swing it down, give you the momentum to come up.

Get to your right knee (which is hopefully hooking inside) and get the harness as fast as you can, left arm under the armpit, right arm over, left hand grabs right.

Glue your chest to their back then fall to the right, pulling them in rear mount.

7) Armdrag to leaping on to the back

This one requires incredible timing and the ability to generate momentum through movement. I had trouble with it, but I have seen Marcelo get it in competition so I don’t doubt its effectiveness.

You try the armdrag as before, but they don’t come down to their hands and knees. They don’t even take a forward step, which would mean they lost their balance, if just slightly. They just stand their like a rock.

So once you drop down and see this happen, immediately bring your feet to your butt, give their arm another big tug and leap up to your feet, landing on their back with the harness.

Marcelo made it a big point that you not do this if they take even one step forward to catch their balance. If they did that, he would just keep trying to armdrag down to their knees. This move is for when they just base perfectly and you can use this rigidness to launch yourself on to their back.

8) Countering them running away on all fours

So you armdrag and they fall to all to hands and knees, but to escape, they try to quickly crawl forward across the mat. If you tried to come up and grab their back they would escape since their upper body is out of reach.

So as they start scrambling away, twist at the hips and go to your belly down. Grab and hug their near thigh as soon as you can. Come to your knees and try to stand as fast as you can.

If they stand too, take them down with the single leg.

If you get up before they can stand, you can let go of the leg and grab the bodylock around their waste too, then jump to the harness.

If you’re really fast and catch them real early before they can get up, you can release the single leg and jump straight to the harness.

I attended the Marcelo Garcia seminar at St. Augustine Combat Club this weekend of August 26-27, 2006. It was 3 hours per day, with gi on Saturday and no-gi on Sunday.

I had the flu and a fever for the entire week leading up to the seminar, but I started anti-biotics on Friday and felt well enough to attempt the seminar, since I’d already paid $140 for it. But I was really, really exhausted the entire time and didn’t spar with anyone (including Marcelo) since I didn’t want to shock my system.

Marcelo opened the seminar by telling how he thinks Americans may worry that they aren’t getting the best training if they can’t train with a black belt, but he said that they shouldn’t worry. When he started BJJ, he used to have to drive hours to train with a blue belt, and he still valued the training he got.

He started us with some light warm ups and stretches. Twisting at the hips and swinging your arms; hands on hips, gyrate like your doing an invisible hula hoop; feet shoulder-width apart, touch the ground; sit with knees up, twist legs so knees touch the floor; sit and hug your knees and rock front to back; rock back and touch a knee on the mat over your head, alternate side; belly down, push straight off the ground, lift hips, stretch stomach; lay flat, arm out, opposite foot crosses back and touches hand; lay on your back, flip and lower head; turn head left and right; circle head left and right.

On to the techniques.

1) Pulling guard

From standing, grab their right wrist with your left hand and pass it to your right hand. Twist their sleeve with your fingers as you grab it. This gives you a joystick grip on the gi and a cupping grip under their wrist.

Step on their right hip with your left foot and sit down, keeping space by pushing their hip. Turn your hips and “hang” your right leg in the air away from them.

Don’t let them grab your lapels or your belt by keeping their grips away from it. You can brace your elbows on your hips to create a frame that doesn’t let them come nearer.

If they grab your pants with their free hand, bring your right foot to their left biceps and shove it back as your turn your hips to the left and kick your leg to break the grip. Your right foot now goes to their left hip and your left leg hands out away from them.

Now, if they grab your right leg with their free hand, you bring your left foot back and step on their chest, then stretch them away as you turn your hips to the right and kick your right leg out to break the grip.

2) Tripod sweep

Starting with the same guard pull, you will land on your back within reach of their right ankle. Your left hand releases it cupping grip on the arm (but your right hand keeps the pistol grip) and you grab behind their ankle.

Pull their heel to you as you scoot your hips under them and turn your hips to the right slightly, then bring your left knee behind their knee. This was a unique knee placement since it felt less like spider guard and more like De la Riva or x-guard, since you are coming under them and lifting their leg with your knee and by their heel, but you were still pushing on their hip with your foot and pulling their sleeve.

With your hips somewhat suspended by the foot on the hip, the knee under their knee and their heel lifted, bring your right leg behind their free leg and chop it out as your shove their hips back and pull their heel to you.

When they fall backwards, pull your hook off them before you try to get up. If you try to magically float over them during the sweep you’ll end up in a scramble. Come up into combat base and begin passing.

3) Hilarious sweep

You’re setting up the last sweep and get to the point of being under their knee with your knee and lifting their ankle. They counter by grabbing your right leg by the pants so you can’t bring it down and chop out their base. But you’ve still got enough slack with their grip to put your right hook under their left thigh.

Your left hand, which is cupping their heel, lifts their foot as passes it over your body, so it is now standing outside your right arm. You open your right elbow, blocking the back of their calf so they can’t bring their foot back. And you are still holding their sleeve, so their arm is now being hilariously pulled between their legs.

Your left foot comes off their hip and hook their far leg, a la x-guard.

This position probably makes no sense in text. So here’s a picture:

Rock up and reach into their armpit with your left hand and grab their biceps. Or if you can’t reach that high, just grab the top of their thigh.

Now rock back, pulling them down, as your lift them with both leg and try to roll backwards over your shoulder. Don’t just roll to the side. As they come down, get to your knees and immediately take side control before they can recover.

4) Hilarious sweep to single leg

You are going through the steps of the last sweep, but as you pass their leg over, they turn to their right and escape your hooks, freeing them to try to turn into you and take side control.

As they step around and turn into you, twist your hips to roll belly down. Hug their right leg with your left arm as you stand, lifting their leg. Both of your arms are lifting under their leg, and your right hand is still holding their sleeve. Take your left hand and reach through their armpit to grab their biceps. Circle and pull back to take them down and come into side control.

5) Pulling guard to armdrag

Standing again. Pull guard like in the first move. Only this time, once you go down, they start trying to back up and pull their arm out.

When they pull back the first time, sit up and put your left foot way to the outside and your right foot kinda close to your butt.

When they pull again, go up a little, then escape your hips far to the left, then fall back and pull them down into the mat by their arm.

As they come to hands and knees, post your right hand on the mat to lift yourself up, and reach over their back and under their armpit with your left hand. Then release your grip on their sleeve and bring your hands together, grabbing your right hand with your left (the one under the armpit always grabs).

Marcelo made a big point about posting with the hand and never the elbow when getting up to take the back. He said that you’re cutting out parts of the best technique, since you can’t keep your full weight on the grip if you’re only getting to your elbow. He also said you need to lift your hips off the ground so that weight is also in the posting arm, not just laying on the ground.

Once you’ve got the harness, fall to the right and put your hooks in. If it all worked out well during the move, your right hook may already be in. If they fall past it and it’s not, that’s fine, since you’ll be able to put it in when you roll to the right.

6) Hook sweep

You pull guard again, only this time they go to their knees and are able to grab your lapel. Sit up and put both feet on their hips (this means taking out your butterfly hooks if you put them in instinctually). Straight your leg to push them back and break their grip off your lapel.

Now pull their arm across your body as you put your hooks in and reach of their back with your left hand. Grab their belt as far to the opposite side as possible. Do not reach over their shoulder, but around their waist. Your elbow should be low on their side even though your reach around behind them.

When they try to pull their right arm out to uncross it, bring your head in and put it under theirs, coming to the inside. Rock back, lifting them with your left hook and pushing off the mat with your right foot.

As they flip over you, keep ahold of their belt and sleeve so they can’t easily run away. While you’re still laying on your back, turn your head and press it against their shoulder/chest to prevent them from turning away. Roll to your knees and come into side control.

7) Stuffed hook sweep to taking the back

While setting up the previous sweep, they drive their weight into you and start trying to pass to your right side. Their weight is now to the opposite side of the sweep. But try to do it anyway, just enough to lift their one side, then take your butterfly hook out and put your other leg in its place.

Post your right hand on the mat as you rock up and take the harness. Take the back like in the earlier move.

8) Straight elbow lock from crucifix on knees

Starting from sideride with the harness, try to rock them to the right to take their back. But they post with their right hand to base out. Drive your left knee up under their armpit and elbow, then step over their forearm with your right foot and hook their arm with your heel. Drag their arm back and take the crucifix from knees.

Triangle your legs so your right ankle is behind your left knee. You want to put the triangle on the same side as their legs.

To do the elbow lock, open your knees wide and drop your hips. You need to make sure you don’t move your hips away while you’re doing this or their arm with slip out. You also need to get a feel for where and how to keep their wrist trapped against your shin.

9) Straight elbow lock from crucifix on back

You’ve got sideride on their right side, but they trap your left arm and roll over their left shoulder to take your over.

As you come over, trap their arm with your legs for the crucifix, digging your heel into their elbow/forearm if needed.

Triangle your legs around the arm, with the triangle on the same side as the legs. Arch your hips and stretch your legs back for the elbow lock.

10) Mean RNC

You have sideride again, and they do you a favor by grab your right leg, putting themselves in the crucifix. But then they join their hands and actually get a strong enough grip that you’re not going to be able to do any of the other armlocks. So just triangle their arm anyway and do this instead:

They are turtled tightly with their chin tucked to defend the choke. Your left hand comes out from under their armpit and grabs their forehead, pulling their head back. Your right hand chops up into their neck, if just enough to get the “blade of your thumb” under their jaw. Your right hand grabs their far shoulder, and you walk it up with this grip to get it deeper and deeper.

Once you’ve got it high and deep enough on their neck, grab your left biceps with your right hand, then put your left hand behind their head if possible. Then the key to finishing here is to drive your weight into them like you want to put your head on the mat.

Oh, the gym was hot as balls. Like tortuously hot. I thought I must still just have a fever and was worried I was going to pass out, but everyone I asked also thought they were going to die too.

No-gi notes coming up next.

Here are my notes from the seminar:

Eddie said that flexibility is important for rubber guard but doesn’t see it being any more demanding than many other places in BJJ. “A kickboxer who can’t do head kicks either gets out of kickboxing or works on his flexibility.” That said, Eddie could bring his foot to his opposite shoulder at will.

DRILL DRILL DRILL until you hit the Magic Number and the Man Inside You never forgets. Resist the urge to just roll and do the fun stuff. Find someone who will put in drilling with you, an hour at a time.

Leg curls, leg curls, leg curls. Squeeze squeeze squeeze. The strength and endurance to keep this pressure from guard takes time to develop.

He thinks the double wrist contol guard and hail mary triangles are the main thing used in MMA right now and he doesn’t see them working much. He dreams of a day where Pride commentators say “He’s going for Chill Dog!”

You need to get as many weapons in your arsenal as possible. Thinks going back and forth between basic and fancy moves is part of expanding your game, but that basics are the core. It all ties back into putting in the drilling and hitting the Magic Number. You should be trying to achieve proficiency is all areas.

Basic Rubber Guard Gameplan

1. Sit up and break posture. Hold them down.
2. Get to mission control as fast as possible.
3. Assess the situation: Are his hands on the floor or on your chest?
4. If they put their hand on the floor, just go to New York or Chill Dog immediately. They’re also probably a big noob.
5. If they put their hands on your chest and try to keep in tight, work at crossing their elbow to the top of your stomach, using The Pump.

Breaking posture is an art in itself and should be trained. Become known for “stalling” in guard if you’re learning to break posture and control them. That means it’s working.

This has to do with gaining control before getting submissions. He talked about how you should get ride time in on twister side control before even worrying about the twister. Just use it to mount at first, which is how he teaches it to his students.

Went off on a tangent and showed the grabbing your foot to pass it over and take mount, his favorite and “the best” way to mount. He admired BJ Penn doing it on Renzo without even touching his foot.

He addressed the two most common problems and criticisms of rubber guard:

Defending being stacked: Your free foot on hip. If you can’t get your foot on the hip, you are underneath them too much and need to get your hips higher.

Defending them passing over the free leg: Keep knees squeezed tight and calves clamped down. Leg curls are an important exercise to developing this skill.

He said that these are the two most basic things that people don’t do right when they try rubber guard after just seeing it in pictures and don’t get to feel the pressure of it when done right. This ties back into the importance of being able to maintain constant pressure with leg curls and squeezing knees. He made fun of the people who say “dis shit don’t work” after trying it once.

“The Hook” is extremely important for attacking the arm. Your arm goes deep, elbow to elbow, and you try to grab your opposite hip. Used from all over the place (guard, spider web, etc.) Can grab it from twister side control when they roll away. Can get it from mount when they try to swim their arm out of Gangsta mount.

Gangsta mount: Feet on hips, head/chest low, drive knee high to one side, reach behind head with same side arm, fight their wrist with the other. Can go to triangles, spider web, etc. from here.

Mission control: Hook behind ankle with wrist, not just hands/finger. You should be able to make a fist. Gable grip for Retard Control. Cross ankles for Crackhead Control.

Chill Dog: Switching Mission Control grip to other side of the head. Your forearm is pressing against their neck. Called such because if they know you want the omoplata they will hold your other leg to keep you from turning out, so you just need to “chill, dog” and wait for it.

Kung Fu Move: From Chill Dog, pull your foot in front of face. Circle your elbow around your foot, toes straight, forearm and shin parallel, palm strike your ankle (finger/thumbs together). This is what turns you out and pushes them away.

Jiu-claw: Omoplata position, lay flat, left hand hugs behind both legs, right hand pushes wrist in. Don’t put your arm between their legs or you’ll be put in an omoplata too. Lockdown the leg, right ankle over left ankle, knees squeezed tight, straighten legs down hard. Their right elbow should be on top of your right thigh. Your left leg pressures down on their shoulder while your right thigh lifts their elbow.

Rubber Guard Strategy

Switching sides: Part of the strategy of rubber guard is switching to the other side when they are defending one side too much. Showed doing Mission Control and trying to Zombie on one side which they defend, but switching to New York/Chill Dog on the other side when they put that hand on the mat.

Catching it in the scramble: If he’s losing mount or getting taken down, he’ll start setting up rubber guard, especially overhooking or New York, Chill Dog, etc. during the scramble, before they are thinking to defend.

Basic armbar from rubber guard

1. Sit up, head/neck control (i.e. Gable grip behind head), break posture.
2. His hands are on your chest. Your right hand pulls down on the back of his head to keep his posture broken. Leg curls for pressure.
3. Left hand pushes their elbow into your solar plexu, not down towards you hips. Leg curls.
4. Left leg steps on their hip then you lock your guard over their shoulder, trapping it. Left knee should be touching their head. Do leg curls and squeeze your knees together. Your hips should be off the mat by now, like you’re hanging from their shoulders.
5. They defend the imminent armbar by doing a RNC grip to keep their arm from being straightened. Left hand digs through their arms, getting the bend of your elbow against the inside of their right elbow. Reach deep for your opposite hip.
6. Right hand hooks under their leg, pull your head to their knee, turn your hips. Leg curls.
7. Pass left leg over face. Do not cross your ankles, keep pressure on their neck. Leg curls.
8. Toss them with your legs, swinging your leg off their face, and lifting their knee, kinda like a pendulum sweep. Shot put the knee at the end of the sweep to clear it.
9. Spider web: Cross right foot over left, leg curls. Right hand hugs near leg, left hand keeps a deep hook.
10. Biceps crush, armbar, etc. from here.

He really did say “leg curls” after all major steps.

Omoplata from rubber guard

1. Break posture and all that.
2. Right hand hooks left foot for Mission Control. Do this as fast as possible. Right foot on hip, knee squeezed in tight.
3. Do the Zombie: Punch your left hand under their elbow, stretch arm high, hug your knee for New York.
4. Let go of Mission Control, bring your arm to the other side and regrip for Chill Dog. Do not take your other grip off your knee.
5. You can do Invisible Collar here or…
6. Kung fu move to bring foot in front of face and spin out.
7. Ju Claw to omoplata.

To finish the omoplata, he showed sitting up and hugging the back then getting a harness. But he feels the omoplata is most often used as a sweep, which he does next.

They can defend Chill Dog by driving their head to your left shoulder, but that’s another story.

When you have the Jiu-claw, they can escape the omoplata by rolling forward, posturing back or rolling under. Here is how to get a sweep off them rolling foward…

Jiu-claw to omoplata sweep

1. Start in Jiu-claw.
2. Lockdown on their arm, pressuring their shoulder down to the floor as you turn on your right side and pull them on top of you.
3. This prompts them to try to roll forward. Control the legs and slow them as they go.
4. Open your legs and spread them like twister side control.
5. Right hand shot puts the knee as your left elbow circles around.
6. Come to twister side control.

If they try to roll under, he’ll bail and slide right into twister side control on the other side as they go under him.

The Pump

1. Break posture.
2. Misson control.
3. Their hands are on your chest, elbows in to defend the Zombie. Cross your ankles for Crackhead Control.
4. Pump your legs up and down while you push their elbow into the middle of your stomach.
5. They start defending the armbar. Dig your left arm deep for the hook.
6. Right hand comes out of Mission Control and hooks under their leg. Pull head to knee, turn hips, leg curls.
7. Pass leg over face. Leg curls.
8. Sweep to spider web.

If they try to defend The Pump by pushing their elbows out, go back to the Zombie, using them in combination.