Aesopian

Leo and John have some new insight into and a slick sweep that build on the game taught to them by Robson Moura.

From Leo:

I watched my instructor, Edson Diniz, play this game last night. I didn’t even know that he could.

One of the things I noticed is that the elevator sweep from here is much easier than from the normal butterfly guard. Here is why: When you have both hooks in you have to fall to your side. A common mistake most people make is that they fall to their back, then try to roll the person over. When I teach an elevator sweep from regular butterfly guard I tell them that they need to put their ear on the mat, this corrects this error much of the time, but not always. But if you have an underhook and the other leg is on the outside of his leg as you lift with the inside hook you are already on your side. Note the first picture here. My right leg is already turned sideways to the mat. In other words you really can’t do the sweep wrong. The common error that most people make is corrected with the foot position prior to the sweep. Edson did something else that was really cool that Robson didn’t do. When he had the underhook (the 4th picture here) and the guy had a whizzer on his arm and tried to force him to his back he reached under his whizzered arm with his right hand and grabbed the guy’s belt. He then spun under the arm and came up to get side ride position and take the back. It was a great move and when I practiced it it was pretty easy to do.

I was showing this to John this weekend and he showed me something he has been having success with from Robson Moura’s game so we did a quick clip on it. The spin under really isn’t as hard to get as it might look.

Here’s the clip:

Eduardo, my instructor, teaches a takedown that this sweep reminds me of. I actually played around with doing the takedown from butterfly guard as a sweep.

I got my hands on the photos he took of it for a Grappling Magazine piece he was in, so here it is:

It’s going to be hard to understand the speed and momentum of this move from pictures alone, so just try to understand that you need to use a lot of both to get your opponent to flip over like shown. This a fast move and you don’t stop moving until it’s done.

You need to start by getting this grip from standing. When he grabs your lapel with his right hand, cross grip his sleeve and reach under it with your left hand to grab his lapel.

Drop down and spin under their arm, like you’re doing a barrel roll.

Keep spinning and rolling on your back, trying to do a full rotation. The momentum and grip on their arm and lapel will force them to flip forward.

Keep spinning and rolling as they flip over.

You should be rolling belly down as they land on their back.

Come to your knees. You’ve still got control of his arm and lapel from the start of the move. From here you’ll need to drive into him and establish side control.

Over on the Straight Blast Gym forum, Mike Sweeney was asking Leo Kirby about the “Marceloplata”, the way Marcelo Garcia finishes the omoplata. Leo shot footage of how it was taught to him. Since I’ve got several requests for this, I’m putting it up in the journal.

From guard, it’s a strong way to counter when they grab your bottom leg to stop you from spinning out for the normal omoplata.

From the mount, it’s just awesomeness.

From guard

From mount

Marcelo teaches this in much greater detail on his third set.

Better yet, Marcelo is doing an entire day of omoplatas at his seminar in Hollywood, FL on March 4th. Find out more here.

As the new year approached, I made a list of resolutions for my jiu-jitsu training with “Get better at no-gi” and “Beef up my no-gi chokes” at the top. This has been changing the direction of my training, which you’ll see in later articles and tutorials.

I was fortunate enough to talk to Jeff Rockwell about my new goals. It turns out his main game revolves around no-gi chokes. After some badgering, he went out of his way to film a tutorial of them for me, and he’s happy for me to share them on my journal too.

Below you’ll find 17 minutes of instruction on no-gi chokes by Jeff, as well as a highlight reel of him competing, where he gets half of the chokes he shows.

No-gi Chokes – Part One

The papercutter/baseball bat choke, the brabo, two arm triangle finishes, and two Monty Python guillotine setups with one recounter.

Part Two

Two drop guillotine variations, foot drag method of taking the back, and finishing the guillotine from the mount.

Rockwell Submission League ‘06 Highlight

SBG Submission League Highlight, Spring 2006, 175lb. Advanced Division, Beaverton, OR.

Jeff is my hero.