Balto's US Grappling Video

[ShanghaiBJJ]

Good match man. That other guy was very solid, very precise in what he was doing IMO.

A few pointers that I can think of:

- As others have said, you need to break at least one grip against spider guard, especially the leg lasso side. I think I only saw you circling your hand ONCE to try to break the grip. IMO you shouldn't try to pass, unless you have broken the grip on his leg lasso control side. Think Judo grip fighting.... RIP it out.

- Also you posture was a little bent over at the beginning (of course this is also his doing/goal). Just rewatch the vid and focus on the relation of your head and your hips. Against spider, I always try to get my hips under me/ under my head before passing.

- If he rolls out of the omoplata, or I sweep him with it intentionally, I try to do 4 things: 1) immediately pull up hard on the ELBOW 2) Fold my leg under his shoulder (Demian Maia teaches that in this position) 3) Sit back a bit on his chest for pressure 4) Watch out for his legs to not get entangled

Notes

- Good job competing as much as you do

- I hate that 1st sweep he did to you with a passion, X-guard while you other leg is still in the middle... my coach does it a lot too...

- Love the way your instructor coaches.... I bet it really pushes you in a match. Great guy!

Cheers and keep fighting

B

 

[Balto]

...

 

[Balto]

Good match man. That other guy was very solid, very precise in what he was doing IMO.

A few pointers that I can think of:

- As others have said, you need to break at least one grip against spider guard, especially the leg lasso side. I think I only saw you circling your hand ONCE to try to break the grip. IMO you shouldn't try to pass, unless you have broken the grip on his leg lasso control side. Think Judo grip fighting.... RIP it out.

- Also you posture was a little bent over at the beginning (of course this is also his doing/goal). Just rewatch the vid and focus on the relation of your head and your hips. Against spider, I always try to get my hips under me/ under my head before passing.

- If he rolls out of the omoplata, or I sweep him with it intentionally, I try to do 4 things: 1) immediately pull up hard on the ELBOW 2) Fold my leg under his shoulder (Demian Maia teaches that in this position) 3) Sit back a bit on his chest for pressure 4) Watch out for his legs to not get entangled

Notes

- Good job competing as much as you do

- I hate that 1st sweep he did to you with a passion, X-guard while you other leg is still in the middle... my coach does it a lot too...

- Love the way your instructor coaches.... I bet it really pushes you in a match. Great guy!

Cheers and keep fighting

B

Thanks for the tips man. That is definitely some good advice.

I was actually working a little bit on your second pointer during class today. During that match I tried to hip in a few times, but he was doing a good job of breaking my posture and made that hard. Today I tried dealing with that by going for the bull pass first to try and clear his legs. If I was able to clear the legs I would just step around, but most of the time his legs would still control me. What the bull pass did though was force him to change his pressure slightly to defend, which gave me an opportunity to then immediately hip back in pop his legs off. Chaining the two together seemed to be much more effective than either one in isolation like I was trying in the video.

I like the tips on finishing the omoplata sweep too. That is also something that I need to work on. I was trying too hard to prevent him from rolling when I really should have just finished the sweep or switched into an armbar or something.

 

[DarceBrabo]

My opponent definitely made a mistake by trying to get his top hook first. He would have probably had more success starting with the bottom one.

There is always some risk to turtling because you expose your back, but I always do so in a tournament setting because giving up the pass points is very bad. If my opponent takes my back he could potentially score 4 which is even worse, but I think people take my back off the turtle less than 50% of the time.

So although there are definitely risks to turtling against passes, I think ultimately it works out to be better than conceding the pass over the course of many matches.

Here comes the craziness, as a Guard player, I actually like turtling as well (i'm a HUGE fan of the running escape). A good friend once told me that people who play a particular guard fairly well, also are fairly good at passing that particular guard, because they know all of the inherent weaknesses. So believe me brother, I am in no way against turtling.

You fought a good match, and the entire match was very technical, with no grrr, or crazy spaz athleticism. Its matches like this that I like to watch.

 

[Jimmy Cerra]

Good match Balto. Here's a good spider guard pass.


Or:


I like this pass too:

 

[ShanghaiBJJ]

Good match Balto. Here's a good spider guard pass.

Haha, you just gotta love Sperry...

"There is no man, no Schwarzenegger, No Conan, to hold this grip."

 

[Q mystic]

What time on the video was it?

I'm not sure I understand your meaning, but if I can look at the video too it should be clear to me.

At 12 seconds initially. Many after that too. I assume you cant grab the back of the head?

At 12 you should pull his head in, step over with your left foot, to block it and sit on his face while with your lreft arm reach under and grab his belt(contain) as you sprwal out on him and with yourt right take up his other arm..

When there, like you were(paused at 00:12 - 00:14), you HAVE to have that stuff. He made a huge mistake. That was an excellent opportunity.


Also, you keep going right down the pipe traditionally. You should work more fleet of feet to move around him and it will help open him up too.

Good stuff I mean Balto but you should work one or two very hard unothodox moves that you might like and during the game smash him with them. If it dont work he opens his defence for plenty anyway.

EZ to talk like this I know but just ideas. Good fight.

 

[gatorman1122]

Dont worry about the loss too much. If it makes you feel any better, the dude you lost to just placed 3rd place at the recent Pan Ams tourney.

 

[Ryukyu Damashi]

I actually have much less trouble passing de la riva than spider. the bicep control frustrates me to know end - but thats also probably because i play some dlr but i dont really use the foot on the biceps control.

That's funny because I pass the spider guard much easier than DLR.