Best grappling in a HW MMA match, ever

This is Big Nog and Josh Barnett at the Pride Absolute Grand Prix. This probably the best grappling ever displayed in a HW MMA match. Barnett and Nog are two of the best and their grappling styles (BJJ for NOG and CSW for Barnett) are just different enough to make it exciting.

Daily Submission

Yesterday we worked on a few different things. We learned an Octopus guard like move from half guard. I really like Octopus guard and I have a feeling it will start to show up more and more in my game. I also learned a sweep from half butterfly guard which is kind of cool. Essentially it is exactly the same as a typical butterfly sweep but you do it from half butterfly. Half Butterfly is simple when you take the outside leg from half guard and hook it inside his leg like a butterfly hook. I found that I could do it easy with my right leg then my left. I think this has to do with my left knee still being weak from the injury. Finally, Adam showed the Electric Chair sweep, or as he calls it the hog tie. Why the Hog tie? Apparently, he was witness to an argument between Marc Laimon and Eddie Bravo as to who invented it. He chose a side and it wasn't Eddie's. In my opinion none of them invented it. The lockdown is old school judo, Eddie himself says he learned it from Judo Gene Lebell. Other than the lockdown it is simply a half guard rollover sweep into a groin stretch or banana split. To prevent confusion I am going to simply call it varredura da separação de banana which is Portuguese for Banana Split Sweep (at least according to Babelfish). Or whatever I feel like calling it an that particular moment.

During free roll, I worked my sitting guard and my turtle guard a lot. My background is wrestling and judo. When I scramble I tend to turn to my stomach and get to my knees. Unlike most pure BJJ guys, I haven't developed that natural roll to guard. I am not sure I want to. In the gym or a tournament pulling guard is fine but my main focus is outside the gym. Ideally, I want to be able to secure that leg and transition to a takedown. I working at hit those faster. Since, I turtle anyway and feel comfortable there, I figured why fight it. I have been watch some video of Eduardo Telles who is a turtle guard master (he is also the Octopus Guard guy) as well as a lot of wrestling videos from that position. I am going to really work it for awhile.

The first time I transitioned to turtle, I did it when he started to pass my guard. I let him and just turned into him and came to my knees. I had a deep cross grip on his lapel and as I rolled I ended up throwing him over my shoulder like a seoi nage. I use a lot of judo like throws from turtle. I also hit my armspin about 4 times in a row. It was nice to work it against a guy who knew it was coming. I gained some confidence to continue with the sit out even if it feels like it isn't there. I have also been finishing better lately. A lot of it has come down to just smoother transistions and little things like a tighter squeeze with my knees.

Afflication- Holy Crap

Fedor is the baddest man on the planet, plain and simple. He destroyed Tim Sylvia in 36 seconds. I did not see that coming at all. Tim Sylvia is a top 5 HW and Fedor made him look like a punk. Also Arlovski and Barnett looked awesome. The Pitbull's striking was great, working Freddy Roach seems to have payed off. The rumor is that he will make his pro boxing debut soon. I predict he will be successful. Barnett scored a awesome Knockout over Pedro Rizzo. Barnett was having trouble early on but as he usually does he managed to pull out the decisive win.

Now on to the things that sucked. Megadeath. I was not a fan in the 80's and they haven't been relevant in almost 20 years. Why bring them out now? I guess they were really aiming at the 34 in the 18-34 demographic. And what was with Micheal Buffer stopping to annouce all the "celebrities"? Who cares if the deal or no deal girls are at the event?


But with Fedor, Barnett, Arlovski, even Rizzo, Rothwell and Sylvia Affliction has all but a couple of the top HW in the game. If Randy Couture can sort out his legal problems with Zuffa it just adds to the great HW division in MMA.

Daily submission

Yesterday, we went back to the basics a bit. We worked on re guarding from side control, the mount and turtled. With the exception of the re guard from the mount, they all involved some sort of roll. I am not so good with the rolls. I can roll forward back or even on an angle but alot of these involved a roll with a spin, while spreading the legs to catch the guy in your guard. I still need a lot of work on this type of thing. If I roll or otherwise scramble, I tend to square up to the guy and go for the single or double. I turtle a lot as well. That is the wrestling and judo background, I feel comfortable there. Unfortunately, against really good jiu jitsu players, it is a bad place to spend much time. However, I do have a couple of go to moves from here. I use an armspin, peterson roll, granby rolls and a few others. I will try to find some video to post or maybe make it up myself if I have to.

Daily Submission

I played with octopus guard for the first time yesterday. I liked it. We just touched on it but I saw some real potential to compliment my present game. We used it to take the back and as a set up to a hip bump. It is still new to me but I will definitely have to explore it more. Here is a video of Eduardo Telles (who coined the term Octopus Guard) explaining the concept.

Submission Series results

So I competed in my first BJJ tournament today. Submission Series was a submission only event meaning that no points were given for position only advantages for sub attempts. I competed in both the Gi and no-gi events. I had some weight issues though. Because of how I understood the tournament to be run, I chose weights I knew I would have no problem making. I fought 194 gi and 200 no-gi. They ran the no-gi event first and I weighed in at 187, 13 pounds below the limit. I fought a guy considerablly larger then me. I stepped on the mat and prepared to work my wrestling to my advantage. I did get a chance though because the dude sat down on his ass and refused to stand up. I made my disgust of his buttscoot strategy known by stepping back, shaking my head and then jump right into a cartwheel guard pass. It didn't really work. I worked in his guard for a bit then he attacked with a triangle which I defended. He switched to a omaplata and I spun out of it to side control. We wrestled around abit, with me trying to pass his guard and sometimes ending up standing with him sliding around on his butt. He locked in another triangle, which was tighter. I picked him up until he let it go. Shortly after that I passed to half guard then took mount. I worked a few ezikal choke attempts which were unsuccessful then tried to set up a kimura variant from the mount I like but time ran out. Here is where it is weird. In a regular match I would have score 3 points for side mount x 2 and 5 points for mount giving me 11 points and a win but due to the nature of the tounament he scored 2 submission advantages for the trianlges to my nothing. He won on those advantages. As I said before, I lost due to the nature of the event because of my style, so be it. Because there were only 2 of us, I got a silver out of the deal. I don't really care but it worked for team points.

I had a bit of a wait for the gi event which was nice because I was tired. I fought 194 for gi so I was still light but not as much. The first guy I fought, bent over and pushed hard so I threw him with a tomoe nage and rolled to mount. I played around in mount for a bit but got rolled. The rest of the fight, I attempted collar chokes (and came close to finishing a couple of times) as well as attempting a few armbars which didn't come close at all. He kept trying a sliding choke from inside my guard so his arm was there a lot just not enough for me to get it. I won't lie by the end I was tired and my grip was shot so I sneeked a peek at the clock and rode out the last 20 seconds. I won 3 advantages to none. My grip was so shot by the end I could barely hold my water bottle.

The next guy I fought was way bigger. I think he was one of the guys that came in a few pounds over (they were pretty lenient). I attempted a few foot sweeps but nothing came of them. He was bent over alot as well but since I had just thrown his team mate with tomoe nage, I didn't want to chance it again. He was stiff arming me, so I figured flying armbar? Why not, I have never practiced it before but who cares. I didn't catch it but I did turn it in to a sweep as we came down. I got mount for a bit but got rolled again ( I got to work on that). He used that same choke from inside my guard that his teammate used but this guy was bigger so it was a little more effective and I had to open my guard. We scrambled and I ended up turtling. He grabbed a a body lock and I used a sit out into an omaplata/kimura type lock. He rolled, we scrambled and I ended up turtled again. He attempted an anaconda but nothing came of it. We stayed there for a while because I was gassed to be honest and he got back mount for a while before I regained guard. I attempted an armbar and that pretty much finished it. I lost 0-0 with a ref decision. I had a shot at fighting for 3rd but I forfeited to a teammate for reasons I will get into later.

The major problem I had with this type of tournament was that some of the score seemed very arbitrary. Even worse was the "decision" if it finished 0-0. For example in my first match, he had two triangles and one could argue an omaplata but scored 2 not three points. I had 2 ezkial chokes but scored 0. Another example is why I forfeit my 3rd place match. The fight before mine, a teammate of mine dominated this guy from start to finish. The only offense the other guy offered was a weak attempt at a triangle that just got his guard passed. The match ended 0-0 and the other guy was awarded the win. My coaches were pretty furious. The ref came over and explained that position meant nothing only submission attempts. So up comes my fight where I had 3 attempts to his 1 but he wins. Why? I think position. Now, I don't feel I won my fight so that is cool but according to the instruction the ref gave I should have. So either I or my teammate got screwed. Because I felt it was him (and I was really tired to boot) I forfeited the match to him. This is actually pretty common in BJJ.

Daily Submission

So I am heading to my first BJJ tournament tomorrow. I will be competing in the -194 White belt division and the under 200 intermediate no-gi division. I weigh about 190 so I will be fighting a little overweight. One thing that bugs me is the lack of parity between the two divisions. If I cut down to the next closed no-gi division (-184) I would still be 3 pounds over the next lowest GI division. Combine that with the fact that weigh-ins will happen immediately prior to stepping on the mat, I decided against trying to cut weight. Testing myself against bigger guys will be better for my jiu-jitsu anyway.

As I have written before, this concept of submissions being the only thing that counts will be difficult for me but I have made my decision not to alter my style at all and let the chips fall where they may. I am comfortable with that decision.

To help make sure I am focused for the event I caught the lunch and evening BJJ classes on Wednesday. We focused on a number of variations of the baseball choke. Adam taught three variations with the gi and I think I found a way to make it work no-gi as well. During the evening class, I finally tapped someone with an omaplata. I typically use it as a sweep but mainly because it is hard to finish. My omaplata is really coming along. I even "swept" Adam with it. Yes, I know he was going easy on me and yes I ended up in a worse spot then before after I swept him but I will take anything I can get against Adam. Any time I manage to take advantage of the openings he leaves for me, I take it as improvement.

So hopefully everything goes well at this tournament. As long as I don't get hurt and I perform up to my personal best, I will be happy. I am bringing the video camera so I hope to post some video of the event.