Bernardo Faria Talks 10,000 Hours and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers

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I picked up the sweep to over/under pass from Bernardo Faria when I was a blue belt. Coming off of ACL surgery, and drilled it for weeks and weeks and weeks on end. I managed to win a number of divisions at blue belt with the exact same gameplan: pull half-guard,

"“In my opinion, to know a lot of techniques is not the hardest part. Everyone can know a lot of techniques if you really study Jiu-Jitsu. But I think the hardest part is knowing a technique so well that you are able to use in any situation at any time. Like Malcolm Gladwell explains in his book Outliers regarding the ten thousand hours needed to find success, the hardest part is to spend the ten thousand hours on something. As long as you spend a lot of time on one thing then you can become an expert on that one thing. I think what many people do is they change a lot and they don’t focus on one game.
So I think that’s what I’ve done. I have probably spent ten thousand hours doing half guard. ”"

Bernardo Faria: Graciemag Spotlight

Because I've watched pretty much every match of him available on the internet.....

Bernardo Faria spotlight over at Graciemag:
"

Black belt Bernardo Faria has a few reasons to be proud after the 2013 Worlds , which ended last Sunday.

He was the only man to defeat Leandro Lo, in the quarterfinals of the open, with a sweep.

It was he who, at the end of the day, came closest to beating Marcus Buchecha Almeida, before getting swept with but seconds left in the absolute semis (in his weight class, Buchecha had been even in advantages with Alexander Trans, but was never behind).

He nabbed his second super-heavyweight world title (2012/2013) in an exhilarating final versus João Gabriel Rocha, certainly one of the sport’s biggest hopes going forward.

Bernardo Faria was the king of the sweep from half-guard at the Worlds, a technique some have dubbed “dental floss sweep,” because he holds the lapel and rubs it on his opponents’ legs like floss on gums.

With this near-unstoppable sweep and some dangerous submissions, the Alliance fighter got the best of Lucas Sachs and Luiz Fernando Panza and arrived at the final opposite João Gabriel. "

Takeaways from Rodolfo Viera, Bernardo Faria, and the Euro 2012 Final

Kid Peligro posted a link to Rodolfo Viera (GF Team) and Bernardo Faria (Alliance) in the final of the Euro 2012.

A quick summary of the takeaways:
Faria initially tries a slingshot/armdrag  which misses and he then resorts to pulling half-guard or single leg attempts for most of the match.

Rodolfo points out Faria repeatedly hiking up/pulling up his sleeves to prevent Rodolfo from getting a sleeve grip and the refs call Faria on it.

A good bit of the match is Faria’s single leg/leg grab being stuffed by good balance and takedown defense by Rodolfo. On the way out of bounds, Rodolfo hits at least 1 uchimata turnover/counter to the single leg and what may be a haraigoshi or an uchimata (can’t tell due to the camera’s angle) again later against Faria holding the grip as they move toward the edge.

Incidentally, this grip on the leg, which Faria hangs on for waaaaay too long is how we teach kids to do uchimata to get the motion correct.

It’s a gimmie when you see someone hang onto the leg like that. I often hit this, or grip the far arm and hit a kimura turnover as a counter to the single leg. I've done this in Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, Wrestling, NoGi, and the like. It's an effective counter everyone should practice.

At one point, Rodolfo loses position to a single/double leg transition (a similar takedown Claudio Calasans scored on Rodolfo in the Abu Dhabi Pro in one of the few moments Rodolfo’s looked human as of late).

At any rate, Rodolfo eventually settles into a half-guard position and without the underhook he clamps down on the belt then tries to cut through and pass. This fails, and he ends up back in half-guard or quarter guard…gets the underhook….and makes his way to mount.

At that level, it’s interesting to see how fundamentals are still every bit as important.

Happy Trainingz!