Thursday, February 16, 2012

Rodolfo Vieira: Faixa Preta & Fundamentals


You hear a lot about Roger Gracie and (recently) Rodolfo Vieira in Roger's absence.
For more on Rodolfo and his relatively meteoric rise to the limelight in BJJ, click HERE.
And for a documentary on the man himself and his current trainingz, click HERE. 

I'm not saying Rodolfo doesn't deserve his current standing as the best in the world, but until Roger and he face off....well, we are all left wondering who is the best.

At any rate, what is of note regarding BOTH MEN is how the two guys, in general have relatively "basic" games.

Roger's mounted cross collar choke and top pressure and Rodolfo's takedowns and passing are deceptively basic.

I've included this recent qualifying match from the Abu Dhabi Pro Trials from Brazil (Gramado I believe) as proof of Rodolfo's deceptively basic yet crushingly effective game.


On the foot sweep:
His opponent has an inside grip which is typically the stronger grip in stand up, but as he goes for the foot sweep and Rodolfo is taller, this is actually his undoing as he comes down to his side

On the mat:
Rodolfo cracks open the remaining half-guard using his free foot and a pant leg grip at the knee and establishes side control.

Rodolfo nearly steps into mount, gets put into half-guard then slides into quarter guard/near mount.

Rodolfo gets the underhook, does what we call the Tripod at my gym, nearly achieves mount, gets back in quarter guard/near mount, then using the underhook does the cut thru/knee through pass into side control.
Moments later he briefly hits knee on belly, then slides into mount and hunts for the arm.

Rodolfo misses the arm, maintains top position, gets his underhook again, AGAIN hits the cut thru/knee through pass into side control then moments later is threatening knee mount again.

Rodolfo isolates the arm, presses the face down and does the step around armbar I'm pretty sure I learned my first week at Jiu-Jitsu.

The whole thing takes less than 3 minutes.
Pure domination using basic components/techniques of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Amazing.
Faixa Preta indeed.

I'll be working on my knee thru/cut through passes, establishing my underhook, and the step around armbar this week.

Happy Trainingz!

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