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.
10 Second Review: Submit Everyone is a comprehensive guide to building a submission-driven game that showcases Camarillo’s talents as a grappler and a teacher. The quirky “military report” writing style may put you off (or you may not care), but the content and techniques are stellar. Camarillo’s material on the “kimura control” is worth the price alone. You can pick up a copy for around $20.
Full Review:
A month ago, Kevin Howell sent me a digital prerelease of Submit Everyone, his latest work with Dave Camarillo. Since then, I have been reading through it and trying out the material daily. Here’s my review.
SUBJECT CAMARILLO is operating in the spider guard with his foot on the right biceps of CONTACT DARCY, MATTHEW.
…
All the guerrilla has to do is simply follow the POE and he automatically arrives in an easily attackable position for his preferred fire team.
The writing can be a little confusing and contrived, though sometimes the pseudo-military terms do work, like calling a “go to” position for offense and defense a “fire base or HUB.” Once you get used to it (or if it never bothers you), the lessons underneath are valuable.
Whatever complaints I have about the writing style, they’re easily overlooked in favor of the excellent techniques and high quality photography. Camarillo and Howell put a lot of thought and care into the creation of his book. (As I said, I read a PDF copy, but I’m sure the real book is well made—big pages, glossy paper, crisp photos—like all Victory Belt publications.)
To start the book, Camarillo does a good job showing what he sees as the difference between a “submission focused” grappler and one that worries about points.
First, he shows a traditional way of maintaining position as someone escapes side control by turning to their knees, where he circles around and keeps them trapped under turtle. (It’s actually a pretty good technique, but not the lesson he wants to teach.)
Next, he shows his “guerrilla” approach, where rather than worrying about just staying in the standard safe positions, he’s quickly gripping to attack with chokes and armbars as he circles to the back.
That is a simple example, but it does show Camarillo’s style of jiu-jitsu well. He’s always looking to finish the fight from every position. That’s not to say he throws good positional control out the window. He does show when you’re better off securing a position on a defensive opponent. But on the whole, he wants to end the fight now instead of playing it too safe or waiting to see what happens.
Camarillo goes out of his way to show the influences judo, sambo and wrestling have on his jiu-jitsu. He demonstrates moves that blend each art to demonstrate how the mix can surprise someone who is only familiar with one art. Camarillo’s dynamic style shows even through the slideshow nature of step-by-step photos. This book would have made a great video.
He also addresses the endless “gi vs no-gi” debate with my favorite answer: “Shut up and do both.” His full reasoning is a bit better than that, but you get the idea.
A book like this is in danger of becoming just another “mixed bag of submissions”, but Camarillo does a good job of avoiding this by using his techniques to illustrate underlying concepts, putting them into combinations, or grouping them by shared positions.
The first part of the book shows a wide variety of basic submissions: chokes, armbars, triangles, omoplatas, kimuras and more. (No leglocks are shown.) He offers these as the core submission that you’ll likely build your personal game around.
He moves on to showing simple submission combos and chains, like how armbars and triangles go together, how collar chokes can give you armbars, or how a kimura can always lead to an armbar. These combinations get progressively deeper as the book continues. He shows attacks from many positions, like closed and open guards, including his “octopus guard” (different than Eduardo Telles’), side control, knee-on-belly mount and rear mount, and more.
By the end of the book, Camarillo dedicates himself to showing the depth of his armbar game. He does this to illustrate how he wants you to pick a single submission and make it your best attack by learning every entry and solutions to any roadblocks. This includes a bunch of good armbar defense breaks, similar to what Eddie Bravo shows from his “spider web” position (though I prefer Camarillo’s.)
Throughout the book, Camarillo stresses the importance of continuously attacking and never giving up ground or trading “one for one.” This involves using sweeps to off-balance for easier submissions, jumping into submissions while passing guard, turning your escapes into attacks, defending takedowns with submissions, keeping on submissions even during scrambles, attacking through submission defenses, and more.
My personal favorite moves are the ones that highlight Camarillo’s use of the kimura grip in combination with armbars, chokes and taking the back. In his Back Attacks DVD, Ryan Hall credits Camarillo with teaching him this approach, and anyone who tries it will see why it deserves the praise. I’d pick the book up just for this alone.
So who should get this book? Is it too advanced for a white belt? By its nature, any instructional about submissions is geared toward higher belts. Many of Camarillo’s moves are combinations that take a good sense of timing and full commitment (not the hallmarks of beginners). This isn’t a surprise coming from a guy who’s famous for his flying submissions. I wouldn’t recommend this book to white or blue belts who aren’t confident in their basics, but a competitive blue belt or any higher belts will find a lot of valuable material.
If you already own a copy, please leave a comment below to let me know how you liked it. Happy new year!
The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle is a book that examines “hotbeds” of talent around the world to figure out how they create so many skilled people. The author investigates highly successful places like a Russian tennis camp, Brazilian soccer clubs, outperforming academic programs, the Z-Boys skateboarders, and a prestigious music school, among others.
Given the diversity of fields he studied around the globe (sports, music, academics, etc.), Coyle tries to find common threads that tie them together. How do unrelated places with no knowledge of each other come up with similar training methods? Why do good teachers and coaches share common traits? Coyle finds his answer in neuroscience and its new discoveries about myelin.
Here’s Coyle’s basic premise:
Performing a skill uses circuits of neurons in your brain.
A fatty coating of myelin builds up around our nerves’ axons, the long “wire” that connects them to other neurons.
Researchers ignored myelin for a long time as “just an insulator,” but now they understand that it strengthens and speeds up nerve signals. Today, it’s viewed as the neurological basis of acquired skills.
When a neuron fires, it attracts cells called a oligodendrocytes that add new layers of myelin. Repeated firings—like in practice—cause more myelin growth. More myelin means more skill.
If we know what causes myelin growth, we can focus on practices and teaching methods that promote its fastest growth.
In the Scientific American article “White Matter Matters,” myelin is explained like this:
White matter, long thought to be passive tissue, actively affects how the brain learns and dysfunctions.
Although gray matter (composed of neurons) does the brain’s thinking and calculating, white matter (composed of myelin-coated axons) controls the signals that neurons share, coordinating how well brain regions work together.
Coyle breaks the “talent code” into three key factors that he believes encourage myelin development:
Deep practice — how to acquire skill by building the most myelin
Ignition — what motivates deep practice and what he calls “primal cues”
Master coaching — how teachers encourage deep practice and ignition
The myelin theory is appealing, because rather than chalking talent up to genetics, nationality, luck, fate, or magic, it lets you point at something that everyone has in their heads and say “That’s what does it.” Coyle doesn’t discount those other factors, but he is enamored with the theory that myelin underlies all of it. Throughout the book, he explains everything through a lens of myelin growth.
The trouble is that myelin research is relatively new (which Coyle admits), and myelin’s role in learning is not yet fully understood. Myelin is likely a large component to the neurological basis of learning and improving skills, but to state that “myelin equals skill” is an oversimplification that ignores other complex processes in the brain.
In trying to make talent and greatness attainable to anyone, Coyle leaves some holes in his theories unexplained. The most obvious is why two kids with the same passion could receive the same instruction but only one really achieves greatness. Coaches and teachers do value hard work over natural genius (a point Coyle makes), but they also know that each student has different aptitudes, and not everyone is destined to be great.
Coyle’s theories don’t make clear distinctions between acquiring a talent, popularity and commercially successful, or achieving true greatness. He points to the pop singing coach that produced Jessica Simpson as an example of a “master coach,” but her process is to copy other successful pop singers. This also ignores the business side of engineering a pop sensation through marketing and publicity.
In a later chapter about master coaches, Coyle tells the story of how the Oakland Raiders turned to retired college football coach Tom Martinez to help them decide between drafting JaMarcus Russell or Calvin Johnson. Martinez is portrayed as a sagely coach with a special knack for spotting talent (which he may be), but unfortunately he recommended Russell, who is now considered one of the biggest draft busts ever. The Raiders fought to get his $9.55 million salary back after dropping him, and Russell was arrested for drug possession. To be fair, Coyle couldn’t have known this would happen when he was writing the book.
Coyle tries to downplay the role of genetics in determining natural talent, but by basing skill development on a physiological process (myelin growth), he opens the door to genes influencing it. This is never addressed.
While The Talent Code isn’t overtly a self help book or a “get good quick” scheme, its marketing promises self-improvement with slogans like “Greatness isn’t born. It’s grown. Here’s how.” If you go into the book expecting step-by-step plans and detailed programs for how to learn, you’ll be disappointed.
To his credit, Coyle does stress that talent is a results of many hours of hard practice. Using myelin development as his underlying reason, Coyle points to frustrating training as the most valuable kind because it triggers repeated and urgent neuron firings. He also cites the popular idea that it takes 10,000 hours of practice (or about a decade) to achieve mastery. (This number is debatable too.)
Overall, The Talent Code is a pleasant work of pop psychology that highlights many interesting people and places, attempting to make sense of a complex topic in the same style as a Malcolm Gladwell book. It avoids becoming just another syrupy self-help book by stressing the importance of hard work and dedication, but it doesn’t bring too many new insights to the table. Its message can be summarized like this: “Get someone passionate about something and make them practice for years under an experienced coach and they’ll get good (unless they don’t.)”
Here’s a quick list of “take away lessons” you could get from it:
The elite got that way through many thousands of hours of diligent practice.
High repetition is necessary to gain competency in a skill.
You learn the most by pushing yourself to the edge of your ability and paying attention to your mistakes so you can fix them.
The learning process is often frustrating and you can’t always tell when you’re improving until you’re put to the test later.
A good curriculum “chunks” skills together so they are easier to learn, and the chunks get bigger as the student becomes able to handle the earlier ones.
Students should spend a lot of time watching masters practice and perform.
Coaches and teachers value hard work and persistence over “natural genius.”
A good coach establishes an emotional connection with his students so he know when to be nice and when to push hard.
You can focus on specific skills by doing drills that isolate it for repeated trial-and-error.
Those who achieve greatness often started with a humble instructor who fostered a love for the subject.
Those who see themselves doing an activity for a long time find more time to practice (and therefore get better) than those who only set short term goals.
Kids who feel talent can be gained through hard work have better problem-solving skills and more determination than kids who believe their intelligence or skill is inherited and unchangeable.
“Having fun” isn’t the primary goal of people who want to get good, though they find what they do pleasurable on some level (or at least necessary) and push through all the difficulties and challenges.
