Flying Triangle With Inverted Armbar Option

Posted on April 11, 2013 by EthanPino

Why a Flying Triangle? Why not?!

Generally speaking, with regards to MMA, if a person can really mix it up in the ring they will stand a much better chance of coming out of the cage with their arm raised. A good fighter knows how to throw in strikes and moves that are unexpected and unpredictable. If you mix in different variations of punches, elbows, knees, thai kicks, teep kicks, spinning kicks, back hands, flying knees, superman punches, and the list goes on. It is far to hard to know what is coming next if your bag of tricks is over flowing.

The flying triangle is one of those moves that really agile and confident grapplers will use. It is a high risk high reward kind of move. If it goes wrong you open yourself up to getting power bombed or just knocked around. On the other hand if it works it can completely catch your opponent off guard and may even win you the match right there and then. It is also one of those moves that if you pull off and submit someone with, everyone will jump out of their seats and start running around doing the Harlem Shake.

The Triangle

In the video Len Sonia, the instructor, explains about the use of the knees before going into the triangle. The whole point of the knees is not just to inflict damage but it is to get your opponent’s mind thinking about the knees and not a possible submission. When you do make that initial jump up to get your legs around them you want to make sure that they do not stand to straight up and base their stance so they catch you and then slam you. You really want to pull them down as you jump up, get their weight off balance so when you wrap your legs around them you can continue to pull them downward.

Once you are on the ground you just need to follow the standard steps of sinking and locking in the triangle. Len uses a rubber guard in the video to hold his opponents head down. He grabs his own ankle and leg to hold him down while he adjusts. He mentions that he uses that under hook to shuck the arm across his body but what he does not explain is that he cuts his angle at the same time. That means he posted his back foot on his opponents hip and shifted his hips and shoulders to the side more. You have to do this to tighten the lock but as you do that the arm will be able to be move more easily.

The Armbar

The set up for the armbar is the same as the triangle but instead of landing on your back when you fall to the matt you shift your weight to the side so that you land on your shoulder. Landing on your shoulder cuts an angle or helps you cut an angle as you fall so that when you land you can land with his arm out straight. Also you will be able to apply more pressure if you are on your shoulder then on your back.

One thing to point out with the armbar is that as you are falling to the matt you want to slide down his arm a little bit. You need to let that under hook go because if you stay holding the under hook as you fall to the matt then they can wrap the arm under up. You want to have their arm in the lock before you hit the matt, they need to know that the armbar is happening before his knees hit the matt.

Posted in MMA, RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique, Submissions | Tagged armbar submission, flying armbar, flying triangle, mma moves, MMA submissions, MMA Techniques, triangle choke | Leave a comment

The Nuances OF Two Effective Open & Closed Guard Passes

Posted on April 5, 2013 by EthanPino

The Stack Pass for the open guard

One of Coach Dan Faggella‘s greatest assets in teaching BJJ is his incredible attention to finite details and pointing out certain nuances of every move. He is very good at explaining a move so that you can easily follow and practice them, but at the same time he will point out key details that most people may not teach. This is great especially for lower level guys training in BJJ and MMA.

The stack pass is a great little way to throw someone off balance and take control of a match right off quick. With every easy and basic pass there are still important details that you need to know, you can still easily mess it up. If you have never seen this pass before and do not know how to do it thats fine, the video still goes through the steps all the while coach is pointing out the key details.
The whole objective of this pass is to compress the person you are passing, you are stacking their weight and your weight onto their chest. It makes it very difficult for you to move to your side or away from the person when you have half your weight and all of their weight on you. One of the big nuances that Dan points out is that when you stack you want to stack towards the opposite ear of your opponent. This will help you to get their legs naturally out of your way while you keep your chest tight to their chest. If you stack them more towards their hip you can land off balance. Also pay attention to where his ands are through out the video. His hands when he starts the pass are essentially in the same place when he finishes it, the less steps you take the better.

The Right over Left closed guard pass

This specific pass is commonly known all through out the BJJ world, it is nothing new. On the other hand, just like the stack pass, if it is not done right this easy move turns into an easy mess and you lose. It is called the right over left pass because, as you can see in the video, coaches right knee and leg pass over his opponents left quad and leg. This move is used once you have broken the closed guard free and you are making a move for side control or another position.

People always go wrong with this pass right from the beginning. Usually as people pass or cut their knee through they stay up right and do not drop their chest down to their opponents, which is very important. The biggest things to make sure you focus on are making sure they can not get either of their knees back in your way. Make sure you are cupping the leg you are passing over and blocking their leg that is free. If you do those fell then the rest will be much easier.

Posted in BJJ Experts, Black Diamond MMA, RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique | Tagged bjj passes, closed guard, Dan Faggella, guard pass, open guard, right over left pass, stack pass | Leave a comment

No Gi Submissions When In The Closed Guard

Posted on April 2, 2013 by EthanPino

You can never have enough options to chose from to submit someone when in the closed guard.

In BJJ you do not have to worry about being on your back in someone’s closed guard as much as you do in MMA. Whether it is gi or no gi you can not strike in BJJ but MMA is a different story. The guy on bottom is looking for anyway possible to either get out of there or force the person on top to change their position. So it is pretty easy to see that the more options and submissions you have the better your chances will be if you are on your back. Some guys are good at throwing elbows at the person on top of them if their head is down low, others are good at sweeps, some are good at not getting on bottom to begin with, and there are the ones that will easily submit you.

I find that knowing that the guy who is under you can submit me at any point in time is a little bit more intimidating and becoming than the guy who could maybe hit me in the face during a fight. The key with MMA is that your submissions need to keep you safe during them, not open to strikes or other attacks, and they need to be easy and effective. Since you are fighting with gloves on it makes some moves really hard to perform. The simpler the better, the less of a chance something can go wrong.

Since being in closed guard limits you to only using the persons arms against them, generally don’t have access to their legs, I love to use armbars. The videos I will so you guys are simple and easy to do. Even if you can not successfully pull them off in a match it will seriously make them rethink and question their approach while in your closed guard.

Armbar Option #1

Now the position Jay Bell shows this from is one where your opponent is going to try to take control of your arms by holding your biceps. This leaves you full open and vulnerable to elbows and strikes. This first option is going to help you gain back some of that control over them that the closed guard offers, but yet lead them into an armbar. As with any submission these only work if they react and do what you want them to do. Every one is different and may not react the same. With this armbar you really need to maintain control of those arms. They have to be tight and when you bring your leg up to their shoulder, like Jay shows, you need to make sure that is tight. With that it has to be done quick. There are several submissions as well as armbars that you can take your time with and really work the person but with this one you need to not delay and dili dali around with it.

What I like about this set up is that chances are the person is going to be throwing an elbow or a strike so you can use their momentum to deflect their arm across your body into the armbar.

Armbar Option #2

This set up I like even better then the first option because you gain total control of both of their arms. Just like the first option you need to be quick with it or it is not going to work. Also you need to read what the person is doing. If they are trying to flatten you out you need to use their momentum and go into the armbar. If they are trying to push and go to the side you need to go with it and sweep them into mount, keeping that whizzer or under hook and then continue right into another armbar. All this will be foiled though if you do not hold on tight with that initial whizzer. If that loosens up while you are trying to grab the second arm they can pull free. Make sure you bring the arm to your hand not your hand to the second arm.

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique, Submissions | Tagged armbar submissions, closed guard, guard defense, guard submissions, MMA submissions, no-gi armbar, no-gi submissions | Leave a comment

Double Underhook Armbar From Side Control/Mount

Posted on March 15, 2013 by EthanPino

The continuation of the Armbars!

We got armbars for days up in here. Luckily Phil Migliarese loves chokes and armbars as much as I do and I continue to find cool videos he has. Granted they are nothing to ground breaking but never the less they are great for MMA because you stay nice and cosy while you hurt people. This video is a continuation to the last post and video blog I put up with Rob Mudrak’s armbar. This variation of armbar is through the use of double underhooks where you actually have the option of using either of their arms. It uses similar setup and movements as Rob’s armbar and the finish is nearly the same.

And yes the obvious choice for a picture of an armbar is Ronda Rousey winning the main event in the last UFC paper view bout with in fact an armbar. She is not only gorgeous but she is phenomenal at winning by armbar submission leaving people calling her Ronda “Armbar Assassin” Rousey.

Double Underhook Armbar

Just like all the other armbars from that position you need to keep your weight on the person at all times. As you can see when he gets the double underhook he can really squish the person under you while rendering their arms kinda useless. The big difference with this move compared to the last one is how you keep the arm you are going to armbar. In the other video you scoop your hand under their arm and hold it tight to your chest. In this one it is a bit harder to keep that arm.

What he does not explain while he is doing demonstrating the move is keeping your chest tight to theirs while you are getting the underhooks. He is staying postured up for demonstration purposes but you dont want to while you are doing it. The reason being behind it is how can you keep their arm straight if you are postured up? You cant really. They are going to find a way of getting it back to their side. If you get the double underhook and you put your chest to their chest you can trap their shoulder and triceps tight against your collarbone. The back of their arm will be pinched between your head and shoulder that way when you do pass the arm over it stays straight the whole time.

When you pass the top leg over you need to immediately and and the same time pass the arm over and capture it. You have to keep the pressure on them and their arms straight so they can not get them free and counter your move.

Watch Ronda Rousey

Yes Ronda is a girl but she will rip the arms off of 75% of the guys in this world and I personally love watching her work an armbar. She is always drilling them from every position so she gets it down pat. You probably wont go right now and look her up so I did it for you, enjoy!

Posted in RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique, Submissions, UFC fighters | Tagged armbar submissions, Armbar Technique, MMA submissions, MMA Techniques, phil migliarese, ronda rousey, ufc submissions | Leave a comment

Great Chokes And Armbars For MMA Fighters

Posted on March 15, 2013 by EthanPino

Finding a Great submission to use in MMA is hard to come by!

Theoretically any submission you learn in Jiu Jitsu could be used in a MMA fight. The problem is that the majority of those submissions are not practical or safe for the person performing them. The reason being is that in Jiu Jitsu you don’t have to worry about striking where MMA you do so there for many great submissions wont work. Your going to catch a face full of fist, feet, elbow, or knee. Finding a good submission that keeps you and your body safe while implementing it is sometimes hard to come by.

While training I always come across situations that leave me wondering what I should do or what would be more effective. I continuously found my self landing in what you can call a side mount position. I was passing peoples guard but I would not be in traditional side control, I was more or less on them with one hip an my legs where out to the side. I would usually try to get their arm up next to their head and get a triangle choke but it doesn’t always work and then I would be stuck. Not only that but I found myself sprawling on people and ending in top turtle. From there I only knew a couple possible chokes or just try for back mount.

This video I found is of black belt Phil Migliarese and brown belt Rob Mudrak of NextGen MMA. This one video solved all of those problems I was having but the biggest thing was that it gave me some great submissions that are completely effective for an MMA fight which is key. The three moves that they show are an Anaconda Choke, a Brabo choke, and an Armbar from side mount.

Anaconda Choke

The Anaconda choke is a pretty successful choke to use one reason being is that most people are going to first think of defending a guillotine choke from that turtle position. The guillotine choke is a very popular choke and everyone trains to escape and reverse those chokes. What is good about this anaconda choke is that you do not have to get your arm solely around their neck and head and isolate it. Any submission you can use that doesn’t involve changing your grip or arm position is a good one to use.

When you are in top turtle the best position for your arms to be in are one over and under their arm and one over and under their their neck, creating a “seatbelt” with your arms. This is exactly the position your need to be in for this choke and thats why it can work so well. People think you are just in typical position for being on top. The other thing that makes this choke hard to escape or reverse, besides the fact it is hard to see coming, is that you role the person onto their back. Yes you are somewhat on your back, more so your side, but it is very hard to counter a choke when you are flat on your back and not facing the choker.

Brabo Choke variation from the Anaconda

The Brabo choke is just another variation of the anaconda choke. If for some reason you can not role the person onto their side or the anaconda is just not going to work then you can try the Brabo. This needs to be done quickly with not to much delay, if the anaconda does not work they are going to be trying desperately to change their position to avoid another choke. When you role on to your hip and you clamp that grip around their neck you may have to hold that for a second or two.

Really hold them tight and make sure you have them under control and they are not flailing to get out before your punch that arm through to lock in the choke. If you punch the arm through and your holding the head to soon they may be able to force their way out. Remember that you can literally hang your weight right on their neck which is going to ware them out. What is good to is that as you are tightening the choke by walking your hips towards them they are probably going to try to grab your leg to pull them selves closer to you to try to break the choke. What they do not know is that is the worse thing for them.

Armbar from side mount

This armbar from the side mount is very similar to the armbar that you would do if you were in mount and the person shrimped to their side. In this case you are basically going to be sitting on their face the whole time. If you want to be really mean you can “accidentally” hit the person in the head with a knee when you are shifting your hips and weight to the persons head. There is not much I can add for instructions to this video because Rob does a great job of explaining it. The best thing I can say is that be kinda mean with it and sit all your weight on the person. To many times people will put to much weight on their knees and feet which alleviates pressure off of your competition. You do not want that. Sit on their face, make it hard for them to breath, and when you lay back for the arm bar they are going to be relieved they have a reason to tap so they can breath once again!

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique, Submissions | Tagged anaconda choke, Armbar Technique, brabo choke, mma chokes, MMA submissions, phil migliarese, turtle chokes | Leave a comment

Elevator Sweep And A Cool Finish To A Collar Choke

Posted on March 12, 2013 by EthanPino

Finishing a collar choke from back position

The first part of this video is nothing to ground braking but is simply just another way to finish a collar choke from back mount if they are giving you a hard time.

Phil Migliarese is the black belt in the video demonstrating one of the ways in which he will finish a collar choke when his opponent is fighting the choking hand. All though it is a simple move it was one that I was not familiar with. As you see in the video he chooses to use his foot to push the attacking hand off of his choking arm and then hold it with his leg. Ironically this is also a good move to use when paired up with the triangle choke from back mount. That was in a previous blog I just had.

The Elevator Sweep

This particular elevator sweep is Jeff Reese‘s variation and it is done from the closed guard position. What is great about this sweep as well as with a lot of sweeps is that a majority of the sweep is leading the other person into a trap. What I mean by that is you are doing certain things that the majority of the people will have to do just what you want them to do to get out of it. When they do you are ready for it and you pounce.
In the case of this sweep you are using two of the steps to set yourself and them up for the sweep. The first setup is breaking your guard and grabbing that under hook and seatbelt grip and going back to guard. Next you want them to pop there head out so you can put pressure on their shoulder and on their neck. You want the pressure on the shoulder to encourage them to step that leg up to alleviate the pressure. All of that is just so you can sneak your foot under their knee and raise their center of gravity. It its nearly impossible to get the sweep if they do not step their foot up.

Couple Details

He does not emphasize these details but there are a couple of good ones to pay attention too. The first one is that right before you drop your heel before the sweep you want to make sure that your heel is blocking their leg from being able to base out. If they are able to step that leg out they can counter the sweep. Just like the bump sweep from being on bottom in mount you must block that foot.

Another detail is that when you go to sweep the person you really want to bump your hips up and through them. This adds a great deal of force to the sweep while also starting your weight and momentum in the right direction. Also the leg that you place under the leg that they stepped up you want to kick it up as you sweep, just like you would in a butter fly sweep. You can look up the butter fly sweep in one of my previous blogs I posted.

What is great about this sweep is that you can pretend to go for it just to get the person to step their leg up in which then you can attack their leg. Sometimes it works well to fake a move to get their mind heading in a direction to defend it and then simply change your attack in the middle of it. It keeps them guessing and confused.

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique, Submissions | Tagged bjj submissions, bjj sweeps, closed guard sweep, collar choke, elevator sweep, ribjj sweeps | Leave a comment

X-Guard Sweeps Landing Into Knee Bars

Posted on March 12, 2013 by EthanPino

2 X-Guard sweeps that are going to land you both in a knee on belly position

Coach Dan Faggella, of Black Diamond MMA RI, is all about his “Money Moves.” This is a term that around the gym is known as a move that works well for you but other people may find it unusual or it just doesn’t work for them. We have to sweeps that use the X-Guard orientation to land you in a knee on belly position where you can fall right into a knee bar. The X-Guard is a very common and known position so when someone uses it in the upper levels of Jiu Jitsu people will think nothing of it. On the other hand if you are fairly new to Jiu Jitsu than this could become a money move for you. Some people do not like the idea of floating people above them and being under someone. The X-gurard works great because you take full control of your opponents weight and even with them right over the top of you they feel weightless.

Position 1: Closed Guard

Nate Chubay is the instructor in this video and he is one of the guys at the gym that loves to use the X-Guard. As he demonstrates it from the closed guard there are a couple of details that you should know that he doesn’t mention in the video. The first detail is that when you have to have access to the persons leg. When you do and you get the under hook you need to keep it tight and close so they can not get that leg free. Ideally the foot will be next to your head and your arm will be wrapped around the leg, like a knee bar.
The second detail is how to get out from under them. He shows and tells you where to position your feet. Notice that Nate’s right foot locks in right behind the knee of his opponent. He lays the shine of his left leg across the other guys hips and locks it there by wrapping his foot around the hip. The reason these are so important is because the top leg that is across the hips helps Nate lift his opponent up will the bottom leg is used to throw him off balance. As Nate holds onto the leg with the under hook he kicks the leg out that is behind the left knee of his opponent. This causes him to fall further off balance, as he does Nate can either stand up or come to his knees and go into knee on belly.

Postion 2: Half Guard

The second sweep Nate shows is from half guard. A couple details to pay attention to is first the under hook with the arm. It makes it much easier to finish the move if you have that under hook. If you instead use the traditional way of sticking your forearm under their chin and push up but they can start to play with that arm and ruin what you are trying to do. It is also important to create some space for two reasons. One is that you need to be able to get your foot on the inside of their knee to use as leverage. Second you will need the space so that you can reach under them and get that under hook on the other leg like he did in the closed guard sweep.

Just like in the closed guard sweep you are going to want to kick that leg out that your foot is hooked on. You want to spread their base out so that you can reposition their weight and get on top.

The X-Guard works well in both of these situations and they are what we like to call a 1 calorie move. They do a lot but they take almost no effort. With the x-guard you can full suspend someone in the air and keep them off of you. I love it and hope you guys will try this out in your game too.

Posted in Black Diamond MMA, RI Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Submissions | Tagged black diamond, closed guard sweep, guard sweeps, half guard sweeps, knee bar, submissions, x-guard | Leave a comment

Triangle Choke From Seated Back Mount

Posted on March 7, 2013 by EthanPino

Setting it up and knowing when to use it

The triangle choke from back mount is handy submission to know and have in your repertoire of moves. This one particular choke is good to use when things start to go south with a rear naked choke attempt. As with any rear naked choke in the seated position you want to have you heel hooks locked, your hips aligned with their hips, and your chest tight up against their back. Now say you are going for a rear naked choke and you just cant get your arm under their chin, your fighting with the grips, or worse they slid there hips out and drop down to low for the choke to work. This is where you can use the triangle choke. This is one of those “Money Moves” that are not commonly used or tried but can really catch an opponent off guard.

Things to keep in mind while executing the submission

This move can be performed in Gi or in no Gi like in MMA. It tends to be a bit harder to execute in the no gi. It is harder to hold on to the person because they are all sweaty and slippery. In the Gi you can really make it uncomfortable for them the whole time.
The first thing to keep in mind is that if you are not careful this move can go horribly wrong really quickly. Since you have to take you hands off of your opponent during certain steps of the choke you have to make sure that you have done all of the other steps correctly. For instance if you do not tightly secure the left hand (in the video) the move wont work or you will have to start over.

Because this move is a choke with your legs it will seem a little strange to keep moving your hips and base away from your opponent. The good thing is though the further away your hips are the tighter you can make it, this is goes against most tradition theology of BJJ. Normally every thing needs to be close and compact to be tight. This on the other hand has to be compact but you dont have to be as close.

Once you have the figure four lock around there neck and arm dont worry about them trying to drop down or turn into you to escape it, it wont help, it will only make it worse for them. I have tried it and it failed miserably.

What if it does fail?

If this submission where to not go as planed and you knew it wasn’t going to work there is a back up plan. If you are at the point where your trying to lock your legs and really start to apply pressure but its not working, just take the arm and arm bar them. This submission leaves you pretty well set up for an arm bar. The arm is isolated and your legs are on both sides of the arm, all you would have to do is push the head and swing the far leg over.

I hope you guys enjoyed this video and hopefully it gave you another good option for a submission.

Posted in Black Diamond MMA, RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique, Submissions, Uncategorized | Tagged arm triangle, back choke, back submission, blackdiamond mma, josh colacone, triangle choke, triangle submission | Leave a comment

Turning Deep Half Guard Into Three Strong Submissions

Posted on March 5, 2013 by EthanPino

Being in half guard has never been to good of a position to be in till now!

When I first started rolling I constantly found myself on my back and giving up side control or catching them in half guard. Needless to say I got comfortable on my back and getting caught in that position. Being on your back and having someone caught in half guard is not the worst position to be in and there are still things you can do from that position. A lot of the time people get there and panic because the other person is on top and you start to think they are just going to man handle you. You have to remember that you can still make it very uncomfortable for them to be there.

The whole point of being in half guard is so that they can not fully get into guard or maybe evan mount. Being that you have someone stuck in that position with you means they are worrying about their leg that is stuck and how do they get it out and not lose their position or gains. Personally I like this video of black belt Samy Aljamal. He teaches a good way to go from half guard/deep half guard to ultimately end up with a choice of submission.

Submission 1

The first submission Samy shows is from the mounted position. Its pretty simple for it is just a standard collar choke. He starts it off by turing the sweep into side control and from their gaining mount. In a real brief description the collar choke is where you would take you right hand and slide it up the right side of their collar, then reach across their throat with your left hand, lean over them and squeeze. It is very effective if you get it for those of you who know.

The only thing I do not like about this video is his the way he passes into mount. Personally I would rather under hook their leg, hold their shoulders down by the collar or by reaching under and cupping their neck, then smudging across their body and legs and land in mount. I would rather not switch my base and then reach out grab his knees and try to hold them down to get across. It wont work that way with someone who is half way knowledgable.

Submission 2

This submission is called a Bow and Arrow choke. I like this submission because it works as a good alternative incase the first choke fails, which more than likely will happen. You already have the gi tight to their neck, but here they shrimp or turn to the side in which you slide your knee up to their head like you would to take back control. Also from that position you could very easily take back control if you would rather do that instead.

To do that you would have to reach under his head with, in this case your left hand, and grab his top hand. Then reach your other hand under his triceps and grab your own wrist with a kimura lock. From there squeegee your foot, of the leg that his behind his head, up against his back and sit on your but and your there. There is an entire post I put up earlier on on how to do this, its titled Turning Mount into Back control.

Submission 3

This is an arm bar submission. To me personally I feel like more often than not you will have to use this one. Chances are if the person has some knowledge in bjj they are not going to let the first two happen. Usually you need to try a couple moves to really set up and gain a submission. There are black belts that will know 7 or 8 consecutive sweeps and submissions that they run through daily. They know that they are going to have to counter counters and that they probably wont get the first thing they try.

The arm bar works well because if you have been on top trying to choke them for the past minute they are probably still thinking about that, not their arm. Hope you guys got something out of this, I know it helped to give me more options and thats all I look at doing for you. Anything helps!

Posted in Jiu Jitsu, RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique, Submissions, Uncategorized | Tagged arm bar, bjj counters, bjj submissions, collar choke, deep half-guard, half-gurad submissions, mount submissions | Leave a comment

BJ Penn’s Counter To Rodrigo Gracie Butterfly Sweep

Posted on February 23, 2013 by EthanPino

Frist off what is the Rodrigo Gracie Butterfly Sweep?

For those of you who have never heard of Rodrigo Gracie he is the grandson to one of the founding fathers of Gracie Jiu Jitsu. He is the son of one of the grandmasters, Reylson Gracie. He is phenomenal when it comes to the subject matter of Jiu Jitsu. There are always different names for certain moves but this guard sweep from my experience is usually referred to as the Rodrigo Gracie Butterfly Sweep. Danny Ives, who I just recently blogged about, learned this from Rodrigo and he still refers to it as his sweep.

This sweep is pretty commonly known in the jiu jitsu world and I personally think every one should know how to use it or know when it is going to be used on you. Danny Ives just did a seminar at Black Diamond MMA Rhode Island and in that seminar he had us drill this move along with several variations and scenarios mixed in with it. The video he is teaching it to his gi class but it works just the same in no-gi grappling or in mma. The other great thing that I like about this sweep is that it does work on someone who is a little bit bigger than you. Obviously if they have you by 70 lbs or better and they are 5 inches taller then yeah it may not work. Generally speaking it works on a wide range of people. So here is the sweep.

BJ Penn’s Clutch reversal to the Sweep

So the whole time I was drilling this sweep with Danny Ives and the other students I kept wondering what is really the best way to escape this sweep once it is being engaged. Later after the seminar I was in an mma class and my coach and good friend Josh Labossiere was teaching this sweep to the mma class. He in turn had the person on top who was being swept plant the foot on the same side as we were being swept to in order to try to stop the sweep. In turn the person on bottom was getting practice kicking that leg out that the person on top posted up so that they could finish the sweep.

That right there was one way the person on top could counter, they could post that leg up. Problem was it was a counter that could be countered right away and you still got swept. Then I came across this video here of Jeff Joslin, pro UFC fighter, who took bunch of BJ Penn’s matches and broke down his guard passes for us. One of these just so happened to be a counter BJ Penn used to stop the Gracie Sweep. This video made my day and I do not know why. It is not a hard move but it is just cool and I had not thought of doing it before.

There you guys go I hoped you like it as much as I did. If you guys want to see more videos of what we do here at Black Diamond MMA check us out blackdiamondmma.com or check out your youtube account at black diamond mma rhode island.

Also check out our 30 Day FREE Trial here at Team Black Diamond, and also get a Free MMA DVD just for trying a Free Class or Private Lesson. Nothing to Sign or Buy, Call:

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Posted in BJJ Experts, Black Diamond MMA, RI Mixed Martial Arts Technique | Tagged BJ Penn pass, BJJ Techniques, butterfly sweep, counter sweep, Gracie Sweep, guard pass, MMA Techniques | Leave a comment