The seminar was held at Higher Jiu Jitsu in Woolloomooloo PCYC, hosted by Head Coach and new black belt, John Smallios. Thanks to John and the HJJ crew for their hospitality.
Thanks also to Michael Hoffman for graciously sharing with me some videos he took of the seminar, without which I would have been seriously struggling to write sections of this accurately.
Sweep Counter to Over/Under Pass
He is trying to pass your guard on his knees. Your R shin is across his torso. His R arm is inside and under your L leg. He wants to perform a version of an over/under pass.
Reach over and across his back with your L hand to grab his belt, pants or his lat near his L armpit. The gripping arm should cross his spine. At the same time come up on your R elbow and take your L foot back behind you so you can post and push with it.
You need to connect yourself to him.
Drive into him by pushing with your L foot and hips and R shin. You want him to react by pushing back into you – a use of the Professor’s “teeter totter” principle. Use the momentum, pull his belt over your head with your L arm, drive with your R leg and roll him over you and over his L shoulder onto his back. Keep a hold of him and follow him by rolling over your L shoulder, ending up on top in a sort of knee ride position. You may be able to grab the pants cuff on his L leg with your R hand as well to assist on rolling him over.
Once on top, experiment with having your R foot on the ground, with your R shin blocking his R hip and preventing his attempts to recover guard. You should turn your foot out in the direction of his thigh, so your shin and knee face the direction of the pressure he is likely to exert with his knee and thigh. If your shin is side on, his pressure can collapse your structure much more easily. If the shin faces the force directly, this is far more difficult for him. This turning the foot out is a standard defence to the de la Riva hook, but the principle applies in many other situations.
If he tries to push on your R knee from here, put your hand on his palm. There is no need to rush to try and get the kimura here. Take your time. To avoid him rolling you when you do go for the kimura, you should step over his head with your L foot. If you can pin his R arm with your R shin as well, this will help prevent him grabbing his other hand or turning to his L. As you apply the kimura you want to try and separate his two arms as much as possible.
Alternative Sweep/Reversal if he pushes on your knee
You are in the same starting position, him trying to pass your guard over/under. He may push on your R knee with his L hand. This is your cue to grip his L wrist with your R hand. He grabs you, grab him back. Take what he gives you. Just do that, be subtle, don’t rush for the Kimura or other submission. By locking your R arm straight and if necessarily reinforcing it with your L you can stop him passing pretty effectively.
If he wants to stay low and try to pass, let him come around to your R, reach over his R shoulder with your L arm and grab his belt, pants, lat, hip, whatever, like the previous technique. Use your feet to walk your head underneath him, as you push his sleeve with your R hand and pull his belt with the L, rolling him over the top of you to your L., his feet above your head as you roll. It is more about moving underneath him so he falls over the top of you then using strength to pull him over. You need to make your two bodies form a cylinder to roll him effectively. Per John Will, “two shapes roll – balls and cylinders”.
Keep rolling so you end up in north-south position, him preferably up on his R side. Your R hand on his wrist is already a good start to the kimura. Don’t pull on his arm in an attempt to force your L arm under it for the kimura, he will pinch his arm in tight to stop you. Instead, push his arm straight, down towards his feet. This will hopefully make him want to pull it back toward him. When he does, that is the time to get your L arm under his arm and get the kimura grip. Pin his R arm with your R shin and separate his arms while applying the kimura as before.
In Will-Machado BJJ we call this move the Stiff Arm Rolling Reversal.
Photo courtesy @svenmaltekoch @higherjiujitsu
Armlock Counter to Side Control Defence
You have side control on his R. His R elbow is in your R hip, his L forearm across your chest or throat, his R hand perhaps gripping your L shoulder or trap. Your L forearm is under his head/neck, your R arm on or under his L side.
He makes the error of making a big push with his L hand under your chin, significantly straightening his L arm.
Use your R arm to collect his L upper arm moving it across and between your bodies. Your L arm is held palm up to catch his L forearm from underneath.
Slide down on your R side, dropping your R elbow, trapping his L upper arm in your R armpit, do your best to turn him face down. Form a V shape with both your hands, and use them both to trap his forearm from underneath with both hands, one thumb on either side of his forearm.
Your hips should be off the mat, your weight distributed with your R shoulder on his L and just your toes on the ground, so as much weight as possible is on him. Ideally, he is face down with his L shoulder on the mat. From here, you should have plenty of time and space to adjust your position, and easily be able to find the correct angle to hyperextend his L elbow between your hands and R armpit, and get the tap.
This is actually a variation of a standing counter to a lapel grab taught by Grandmaster Helio Gracie as one of his fundamental techniques.
Below, a few images from Royce and Charles Gracie’s 2002 book on Self Defence demonstrating variations of the standing technique.
Spider Guard Defence and Passing
For good control in spider guard, needs your arms bent and your hands neutral or facing towards you. Trying to grab his pants from the front and somehow peel his feet out of your biceps has limited value
Instead, take your hands behind his calves, grab his pants there and straighten your arms. His feet now have no purchase on your arms. While you are close to him, keeping good posture with your hips forward will stop him getting a purchase with a foot on your hips. You could walk over him and stack him from here.
Instead, keep the grip on his pants and move backwards a fair way, fully straightening his legs. Now lift his legs, and move back toward him and slightly to your L, ideally keeping his hips slightly off the mat to limit his ability to move, getting your R foot in his R hip and R knee in front of his R thigh. Turn your R foot out so as to stop any chance he might have of collapsing your R knee, as described above.
As you try to drop your level and go chest to chest, he may try to block your L hip with his R hand. You need to reorient your hips to get past this arm, but you may injure his wrist if you hip switch to your R and try to crush his arm. Instead, turn the other way and change your shape so the hand in the hip is no longer effective. You need to “surf” your way past his blocks and resistance to reach a pinning position.
Countering and Passing the Lasso Guard
He gets a Lasso guard on you, his L leg wrapped around your R arm, his other foot in your hip. or bicep.
Stand up if you aren’t there already. Put your hands behind his legs as for spider guard, if practical depending on the positions of his feet. Back away from him and drop into a crouch, still being mindful of good posture. You want to keep your elbows close to your hips and trap the heel of his L foot (the lasso foot) on top of your thigh while pushing his L toes to the outside, so you are in effect executing an outside toe hold on his L foot.
He can escape this by turning to his L. As he does this, keep hold of his foot and keep his knee bent, further rotating him onto his L side. If his knee is bent and foot rotated in this manner, he will be unable to turn back towards you. Change levels and move towards consolidating a good back control position, perhaps with a seat belt control or collar grips. Have your left knee and foot placed so that, if he turns face down as if to go to his knees, you can slip the L foot and knee under his hip and hook your L foot over the front of his L thigh. You could now triangle your L foot in the crook of your R knee and slip your R shoelaces under his L ankle or shin to control his leg with a type of lockdown.
You may need to adjust your position here – drive with your R foot on the mat to bring him higher up your body, push on his R hip with your R foot to push him down. You might need some practice to get the position right.
Once you have the lockdown, drive your hips into him and start working on a rear naked choke. You may need to handfight per John Danaher. It would seem that a Twister from here was also possible.
This type of leg control from the back is probably far more effective and more difficult to escape from, than the IBJJF regulation back control with two hooks in.
If you do want the two hooks in and the four points, it is tempting to try and just swing your R leg over the top of his and into back control. But this is fairly easy for him to block with his R knee.
Instead bring your R knee up toward your shoulder and put your heel in his hip, right on top of the pelvic bone (the iliac crest, for anatomy snobs). now stomp your foot down over his hip as if starting a motorcycle. This is far more difficult to defend against.
The outside toe hold is illegal at all levels in IBJJF competition, and I pondered whether the first part of the lasso defence might get you DQed. My understanding of the spirit (though not letter) of the rules is that pressure from what would be possibly illegal techniques if finished will get you DQ’ed, but if your opponent can move to relieve the pressure the move is still legal, even if said pressure puts him in a very bad position.
So, a face lock over the jaw is legal, provided you allow space for the opponent to free his jaw, even though this move then puts him straight into a rear naked choke. (A face lock over the eyes, nose, or mouth will get you penalised as you are not allowed to touch your opponent inside the triangle formed by eyes, nose and mouth. Pushing on the jaw is legal.)
The lasso counter then should be legal. Though if you try it and an overzealous referee disqualifies you as a result, don’t come to me and say I didn’t warn you of the possibility.
Photo courtesy @svenmaltekoch @higherjiujitsu
Forearm Choke Variation from Side Control
You have side control on his R. to set up this choke, you want to move to north-south. If you just try to move there, he can block your R hip with his R elbow or arm and spin with you fairly easily.
Put your L elbow next to his L ear and your R hand near his L hip. Use your L elbow to control his skeleton, holding his head in place. Start moving clockwise to north-south, stepping your L knee over his head and R arm to get to north south.
Move slightly back anticlockwise , move forward and turn slightly onto your R side. Trap his L elbow with your R ea, Your R shoulder can control his R hip. You may be able to snag his R arm with your L leg to some degree.You are looking to come far enough to north south, for the proper angle to enable you to slide your R hand, palm facing up, and slide four fingers inside the back of his collar next to his R ear, as deep and far toward the label at the back as you can. This will be a difficult angle of entry for him to defend against compared to many. Because your weight is forward and you are up on your feet, you should be able to pull the back of his collar out and manipulate it with both hands to get that R hand in as deep as possible.
You now need to get your L hand in the opposite collar next to his L ear. Your head is already trapping his L arm so he cannot use it to stop you., moving back toward side control slightly, so that you can now get your L thumb into his collar on the other side of his neck, and put your L fist with the collar in it on the mat. Your L knee crosses in front of his face and blocks the R side of his head on the mat, preventing him from moving his head back beneath you. Pull up with your R hand as you drive your L elbow to the mat for a very powerful choke. If you come up on your R foot, you can use the inside of your R knee pushing on your R elbow to drive the forearm into his neck at the perfect angle, and can also indirectly affect the positioning of your L elbow.
Note that one possible escape he has for this choke is to walk his feet to his L, this moving his head underneath your chest and neutralising the choke. You have prevented this by preemptively placing your L knee next to his R ear before you apply the choke, thus preventing any effort he may make to spin beneath you.
This choke will be way easier if his collars are loose and open. You can effect this by opening his collars up before you set up the choke, and dragging the back of his gi out from underneath him by pulling on the collar behind his head, even posting on your L leg and driving with it for extra power to pull his collars out.
The collar is not stuck to his neck, and part of performing effective collar chokes is being able to open and manipulate his collar, and get angles on entry for your hands, so you can get your hands in really deep.
Conversely, if you feel at risk of collar grabs or chokes, you can tighten your collars around your neck by grabbing both with the hand on the same side of the collar, fingers inside pulling down, thumbs out and thumbs pushing down on the collars to keep them really tight.
The rest of the seminar from here was demonstrated by Pedro Sauer – we did not drill these techniques.
Professor Pedro showed how to do this when underneath mount … though he will be happy to let you put the first hand in. He showed that when he does that, you should control the wrist and also grab behind the elbow of the hand that goes in. If you do not grab behind the elbow, he can posture up and drag his hand out.
If you do grab the elbow, his attempts to pull his arm out will result in him bringing your whole upper body with up with your arm. You can then block his foot on the same side as the arm and bridge and roll him to that side. He trying to pull his arm out from these grips will actually assist your escape/reversal.
Countering the Step Over from Side Control to Mount
He has side control on your R. From here, he may want switch base toward your feet, and then step his R leg over you to get mount.
Alternatively, he may want to get his R leg under you R leg and over your L to go to ashi garami or leg drag configurations. There are more options from here as well, like stepping over just his L leg and going to the Truck and/or a Twister (the switch base position is pretty similar to Eddie Bravo’s Twister Side Control – you can look at his materials for plenty of options from there).
You should not be lying flat. Instead, get your L foot out to the L side, post on it and angle your lower leg so you L hip is off the ground (a position known to some as the “kickstand”). You can use your active R leg to block his R hip- turn your foot out so the shin faces the pressure, same as above, though the next part may render this somewhat redundant. The L leg and foot can also be used to drive to your R, same as the other foot.
As soon as he switches base, grab his R hip with your R hand. This will allow him to lift his leg to step over, but, crucially, will prevent him from lifting his hips and getting face down on top of you.
As he steps over, you can bridge back into him, pushing his head and shoulders with your L arm, and pulling his hip with your R hand, and roll over him and your R shoulder to the top position.
The timing is crucial – if you bridge too early he is insufficiently committed and will be able to counter the bridge by bringing his R foot back behind him. Instead, you must wait until his foot hits the floor on your L side, and then immediately bridge into and roll him. No doubt you will need to experiment with this, as the Professor encouraged us to do with everything he showed us.
Armbar from Closed Guard
The major problems people have with this is either the opponent is easily able to pull their arm out while you are throwing the leg over, or you get stacked within an inch of your life.
If you have closed guard on him and have him held down on your chest with your arms around his neck, he will eventually be able to put his hands on you and posture up.
Instead, trap his R arm with his wrist under your L armpit and your L elbow and hand controlling his elbow and upper arm. Allow him to posture up a bit, but make sure you are still controlling his R arm. when you get the chance, open your legs, quickly get the crook of your L knee over his R shoulder and close the guard again, ankles crossed around the back of his neck. Slight inward pressure with your L thigh on his R arm will assist in keeping his arm trapped. His R wrist should still be under your L armpit. Slide your torso over to your R and bear down hard with your R leg on his L shoulder to break his posture down and over to his R (push with the back of the thigh, and ‘bite’ down with the heel. Keep control of his R wrist and bring it in front of you. From here you have an easy angle to slide your left knee across his face and onto the L side of his head and neck. Heels down, knees squeezed, push his head away and down with your legs. You can finish the armbar fairly easily from here.
You should keep your hips at an obtuse angle (greater than 90 degrees) and keep bearing down on him, breaking his posture, with the weight of your legs. If he tries to come forward and stack, you should be able to slide your shoulders back to prevent the stack. This concept is known as “heavylegs” in some Jiu Jitsu circles and is very useful in many aspects of guard work.
Connecting your legs to you choking arms can help control the opponent’s arms and movement, get the right angles, and nullify many standard defences to the choke, grabbing elbows, etc.
Scarf Hold Defence
He gets scarf hold /kesa gatame (“headlock control” in Machado parlance) on your R side.
The Professor likes to use the “teeter totter” concept to gain momentum for the bridge and roll escape from here.
Swing both your legs up and lift your hips, then as they come back down to to the bridge and roll. You want to try and put his head on the ground on the L side of your head. Bring him upward as you bridge, so you take him over the very top of your chest
He also demonstrated how you can try and get more on your L side, and drive your L shoulder into the back of his shoulder, which will make the scarf hold much less efficient and more uncomfortable for him. This same idea will work well against a person attempting a standing side headlock on you.
Other Ideas
Counter the kimura trap
The video shows one entry to the kimura trap position. Many people will pass your open guard from standing from grabbing your arm, and jumping into a forward roll over the top of you, to end up in the position. You can also get here from breaking a rear waist grip, turning toward him and trapping the arm, then throwing him over your head with a sumi gaeshi to end up in the position. Kazushi Sakuraba broke Renzo Gracie’s arm when the latter declined to tap in a Pride match after a beautiful execution of this move.
This is a very slick attack in the right hands, which leads to top kimura submissions or entries to back attacks and rear triangles.
In the position above, he will have the kimura control with his R hand grabbing your L wrist, and his L hand grabbing his own R wrist.
The Professor suggests stripping his R hand grip with your L, then wrapping his R arm with both of yours turning to your L to get on top of him in side control. Guys that are good at the Kimura trap will definitely have preventative measures against this, so you would want to drill this one a fair bit, I suggest.
(No disrespect to the Professor, but if you search for “kimura trap escape” on Youtube, you’ll find some pretty good ideas from Gustavo Gasperin and Marcelo Garcia)
Darce Choke
Once you have the Darce secured, you need to drive in with the pelvis to secure the tap.
You defend against the Darce by keeping the underhooked arm against your rib cage. To use skeletal structure rather than muscle to do this, put the hand of the underhooked arm on his hip.
General Approach to and Philosophy of Rolling and Training
You need to play, be loose, to stay relaxed. Do not be “square” with your body tense. Meet their pressure halfway, not 100%.
To let them try everything on you in rolling so you will not be surprised by anything.
Try to do Jiu Jitsu using your bones and skeletal alignment rather than muscular force whenever possible. Block the movement of his skeleton rather than oppose his musculature.
In guard, try to restrict the movements of both his hands and his hips.
Be aware of him touching your face for self defence awareness.
You should never have to say sorry in class, because you should never injure a training partner.
Be the partner everyone wants to train with. When the instructor calls for the class to partner up, be the person that everyone wants to partner up with.
From earlier seminars and FB discussions with other students:
- He’s very much about using frames and levers instead of muscular power, putting your opponent in positions of mechanical disadvantage without compromising your own structure or wearing yourself out, treating his defensive (and attacking) moves not as threats but opportunities for you to exploit, letting him start something but not meeting him finish, not pushing against obstacles but looking for alternative pathways, etc. And the use of a playful mentality to experiment and recognise those opportunities. All the coral belts I’ve trained with seem to operate at a different level than everyone else.
- You just want to keep making yourself comfortable and the other person uncomfortable, then eventually, you are so comfortable and they are so uncomfortable, that they stop
Abu Dhabi Stories
Professor Pedro told us a few stories about the early days while he was in the UAE helping set up the Abu Dhabi Combat Club (ADCC).
How the Sheikh came in to train Jiu Jitsu with two decoys who looked extremely similar to him.
How one of the Gracies (Relson?), without preamble, threw the Sheik to start a lesson and broke the Sheikh’s thumb. The whole room went dead quiet, while various outcomes were contemplated, some perhaps extremely bad for the Brazilian guests. The sheikh said “It’s OK”,did the entire lesson with his broken thumb, and no more was said about the incident.
Professor Sauer was actually about to leave Abu Dhabi for the US on September 11, 2001. While being driven to the airport he received a phone call from the Sheikh, saying, “Tell the driver to turn around and take you back to your hotel. America is under attack.” He though the Sheikh was joking, but he obviously wasn’t. He was unable to return to the US until two weeks later.