What I'm Reading, Who I'm Watching, Et Cetera....Guilherme Mendes' Passing & Michael Lieira Jr.

Been rewatching all of Guilherme Mendes' matches available online.
All of them.

I've been drilling guard passing nearly every day I've trained since switching teams.
I've also therefore been going back and picking up small details watching his guard passing style now that I drill more pieces of his style of guard passing.

I watch a lot of Gui Mendes because he finishes with my favorite submission: the cross collar/lapel choke/brabo/whatever from knee on belly.
I began passing and staying in knee on belly after I tore my ACL and returned to training earlier than recommended. I knew I couldn't go to full mount so I learned to sweep and come up and pass and float in knee on belly. The necessity taught me knee on belly and the position and then the submission came pretty naturally. 
It's interesting to go back and rewatch a competitor's style 6 months or so later or even with 3 more months of training under your belt.

I find that you tend to have a better sense of their mindset and approach to passing, sweeping, whatever, with each level up in your mat time bank account.

Some nuances I've noticed that perhaps I didn't early on. His gripping of the outside knee/pant leg and the other hand grips the lapel sets up his lapel grip/back step-kick out-whatever you call it pass.
The pant leg grip is a big thing with Rafa and Gui and in fact, I dare say Rafa uses it more than Gui.
That being said, I watch more of Gui's matches because he cuts through/knee slice passes to the knee on belly then cross collar/brabo choke the way that I prefer to finish.




Bernardo Faria recently commented on his blue belt half-guard game. That is, he's been working his half-guard game since blue belt.
It has won him two world championships and taken him through very tough, close matches with Buchecha and Rodolfo among a slew of other world class bad*&^ competitors.

I'm a big watcher of any move or position or sequence you see one person pull off time and again against people who know it is coming, or positions you see in several weight classes (deep half guard, or sit-up guard among others). 

I'm also struck by how little time they spend in things like spider guard or leg lasso. I can think of only a handful of matches where players successfully set up a spider hook or a leg lasso type position.
The spider hook was quickly cleared and the leg lasso was bypassed and turned into a leg drag style position on that side. 

Read this bio piece on Michael Lieira Jr., recently promoted Atos black belt.

It's a cool time to watch the newly minted black belts begin plying their wares as Cobrinha still competes, the Mendes bros are facing off with the Miyaos, and Gianni Grippo has come along as well. 

Black Belt Guard Passing: Lucas Lepri vs Vitor Oliveira @ IBJJF Atlanta Open

Oliveira first faces Lupri's DLR guard which quickly changes direction and becomes deep half, a quick restart later, Oliveira is forced to jump out/disengage quickly to avoid Lepri's spiderweb of various guards.

At this point Oliveira has underhook the leg, with a knee through position, and also briefly tried a leg lace/leg weave but Lepri's guard is so active, you can tell that Oliveira has not really begun a strong guard pass minues a brief knee through and instant of having the underhook.

At 2:17 he's working a stack/pressure position threatening an over/under style pass or to circle to his left and stack pass, but Lepri adroitly frames/boxes him out the moment Oliveira dove for double under grips.

Lepri fights up to sit-up guard after losing and underhook he briefly had.
Oliveira pressures back into a position you commonly see Augusto Tanquinho Mendes adopt/knee straight in the middle, basically on the groin with the shin.

Lepri lifts with his left shin as Oliveira cuts across with a knee through but likely not enough pressure, allowing Lepri to get to a single leg/stand up.

They struggle a bit on the feet and by 4:44 Lepri has again pulled guard and immediately gone to DLR guard.
Lepri does a quicker version of the sit-up guard to single leg he did previously and again they're on their feet.
By 6:58 Lepri has done an almost identical sit-up guard transition but then spins to x-guard and sweeps after a restart.
Lepri immediately begins applying a ton of pressure to the right leg, rather than address the DLR hook on his own right leg. Lepri is head down, tight and deep in this position.
Lepri again pulls guard after Oliveira makes space and gets to his feet during a knee through position.
At 12:08 Oliveira goes fancy pants and tries some step over, fancy footwork stuff, and ultimately gets some advantages by getting heavy on the legs and running them. I believe he also got points for a takedown as Lepri was pulling guard (not sure though, the refs hand went up).

Guard Pass in Action: Francisco Iturralde - Black Belt Guard Passing

Other than sweeping from deep half guard, guard passing is my other current obsession in BJJ.


 

Monday = Leg Weave/Terrere/Knee Shield Guard Pass - BJJNews

I saw this over at BJJNews.com (you should have gone to their page first this morning while sipping coffee in your cubicle).

I've mentioned it on here quite a bit as part of how I pass guard, and here is Kurt Osiander showing it, one of my favorite/delightfully simple guard passes.

BJJ Scout: Rodolfo Vieira Guard Passing Breakdown

BJJ Scout has been putting out that hot fire as of late.

Go check it out over at their site, and peruse the other great stuff:
 

BJJ Scout elucidates the point that much of Rodolfo's passing comes from encroaching up the opponent's body and then cross-facing which opens up a variety of passes.
It's interesting in so far as they passing Rodolfo does is nothing spectacularly complex, but is clearly solid in its fundamentals as he has a very direct path and however the opponent reacts, he then responds and continues his progress to the pass.

 

Bernardo Faria Double Underhook Pass

If you read this blog, and particularly my posts regarding my most recent tournaments and what I've been working on, this one mentioning Bernardo Faria should come as no surprise.

I've modeled the beginnings of my deep half guard game on him, and appropriately enough, this video shows a pass from a position he ends up in not only from the guard pull, but often after his favorite deep half sweep.

I find myself here for the same reason he does, it comes naturally as a follow-up to the type of deep half sweep for which he is known and to which many high level guys still find themselves unable to prevent (or it sets up Faria's modified double leg/dental floss grip I believe it's called takedown).

At any rate, here it is:

BJJ Scout Breaks Down Leandro Lo vs Clark Gracie from Copa Podio

To call what follows a beatdown doesn't do it justice.

Leandro Lo came up in the primarily Brazilian Competition scene due to cost and securing a Visa to travel.

Doesn't seem to have impeded his development of a black belt level guard pass-destroy system though.

BJJ Scout has a breakdown provided here:


l vs c bkdn from alex bonedcouche on Vimeo.

Leg Lasso Defeat Wednesday with JT Torres

As of late, I've found some training partners countering my over/under passing after I sweep from deep half with getting a leg lasso (ala yesterday and today, I'm addressing the leg lasso with posts by the Brothers Mendes and now JT Torres).

Technique Tuesday: Leg Lasso Defeat(?) with the Bros. Mendes

 

 

Top Game/Pressure: Gui Mendes vs Henrique Rezende

Crazy pressure and insistence from the top in passing and maintaining position:

Training Log, Pan Ams Training, & Stuff I've Been Using in Rolling Lately

1.
1) I keep a training log.
2) I try to update it while eating dinner/before bed after each night of training. I don't do this religiously, but I try to update it no later than 24 hours after the rollsies on the mat (this is the best grappling related habit I ever started. I have nearly 2 years worth of data/trends recorded).
3) I track not only submissions but sweeps, what I get submitted by, and some other particulars like "head and arm control with gable grip" and notes like "conceded the underhook and got swept" as reminders to monitor my fundamentals like "knee elbow - combat base when breaking the guard" etc.
4) At any rate, each week or 2 weeks I look back at the trends.
    - am I finishing by armbars rather than triangles? am I finishing by armbars from the guard or from top position?
   - how often am I getting to the back?
   - am I working my guard passing like I should?
   - what takedowns have I been landing?
   - AND MOST IMPORTANTLY - AM I DOING THE THINGS I HAVE SET AS GOALS WHILE TRAINING/ROLLING?

**I used to put down 3-4 things I wanted to hit on the mats each night.
I can only speak for myself, but this is too much to effectively incorporate while rolling. I've found much better progress by setting goals like "get the kimura grip and sweep from however many positions as possible" and then the following week setting a goal like "get the kimura grip and sweep or transition to armbar". By setting a basic goal to attempt, then adding one component after a week I've made considerable progress in placing elements/tactics/grips into my game like the above mentioned "kimura grip to transition and/or armbar" (the kimura series mentioned above I started after attending a Dave Camarillo seminar - who btw, gives AMAZING seminars on not only a set of techniques but the theory and rationale behind them).

2. 
For the Pan Ams, I set forth some basic goals for my training:
Because I'm a Judo black belt, the ideal match for me is grip fight to takedown/opponent pulls guard b/c he feels uncomfortable in the grip fighting phase, pass guard, transition into dominant position, possibly finish if available - *preferrably collar choke from mount

As a result, my training has been broken into a general gameplan I drill during my 6 minute timed rounds:
1) grip fight, takedown, attack/pass the guard into dominant position (it later became clear I most often attained mount rather than the back).
2) on a daily basis, virtually all of my rolls I am aggressive in guard passing and fight for top position


3.
Things I've been using in Rolling Lately ---->
Terrere/Gerson Sanginitto Guard Pass


Tripod/head & arm control to knee cut through pass


Arm across/calf roll sweep and/or back take

(not a fan of the set-up, but this shows the sweep)


Happy Trainingz!