Craig Jones says next NoGi Meta is Wrestling (Aggressive Butt Scooting)

[KikoJones]

In an interview on Flograppling, Craig Jones says the at one time once you got to the leg lock position, it was over but competitors are getting more difficult to finish. He says wrestling style off their butts will be the new NoGi Meta. They're going to be playing a more aggressive Sit Up guard.

Opinions?

 

[Balto]

I always tell good wrestlers to pull guard (especially in no gi). It's specifically to play sitting guard and go for scramble sweeps like that.

I agree with Craig. Those sweeps are easily available and right now I think there are a ton of opportunities.

 

[EGDM]

In an interview on Flograppling, Craig Jones says the at one time once you got to the leg lock position, it was over but competitors are getting more difficult to finish. He says wrestling style off their butts will be the new NoGi Meta. They're going to be playing a more aggressive Sit Up guard.

Opinions?

Makes sense to me. This could describe the bottom games of Lucas Lepri and Marcelo. Forward and side-angle sweeps vs heavy pressure, otherwise force them back and come up on singles.

 

[RJ Green]

paging Dr. @Dirty Holt

 

[DatCutman]

Makes sense. Sacrifices the mobility of being on the feet for the safety of not getting taken down yourself, AND the other guy has to engage your guard under most rule sets (as opposed to standing, where they can stall seemingly indefinitely).

Ultimately it's a byproduct of the fact that if I put you on your butt I get two points (be it from takedown, or sweep leading into a takedown), but if I put myself on my butt, there's no points.

Wonder if this will prompt a rule change eventually (either allowing the standing person to also pull guard within someone else's guard without giving up sweep points, or adding additional regulations re:guard pulling and/or points related therein).

 

[Balto]

AND the other guy has to engage your guard under most rule sets (as opposed to standing, where they can stall seemingly indefinitely).

I think that is pretty much why the strategy works.

If you are a good wrestler, a lot of opponents will pull guard or stall like crazy from the feet. If you pull guard first, they just lost the first option and the second one becomes much harder to do effectively (people will still try).

 

[Uchi Mata]

It makes sense mostly as a compliment to the leg lock game. What's the main problem for leg lockers? Getting people to commit enough weight forward that they can get under and elevate them. What's a good solution to that? When they commit weight backwards to avoid letting you come under, come up on a single or double. You can play back and forth between leg locks and wrestling until you get something. Being able to wrestle is super important too in terms of dealing with anti-leg lock, floating style guard passing that's coming into vogue because while that guard pass style will deny you inside space to enter for leg locks, it will often give you space to push the passer above your head and come up to your knees to the side.

An interesting corollary to wrestling coming back into vogue as part of the no-gi meta will be to see what that means for the modern front headlock game. Also, will funk get big? It's getting bigger in collegiate wrestling and is very amenable to sub grappling shot defense since you often don't have head, hands, and sometimes not hips when a guy is coming up on your from bottom guard.

 

[ijustwannasurf]

The best no gi players already play guard like they're wrestling. That mentality makes it much easier to exploit weaknesses at every angle.

Anecdote: I remember @Zankou, many moons ago, recommending to think of butterfly as wrestling from your butt. Best advice ever.

 

[Zankou]

Btw I will say that it’s not only super fun, it’s extremely demoralizing to your opponents to come out of sitting guard into a straight up massive double leg.

 

[rmongler]

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done.

 

[mataleaos]

The best no gi players already play guard like they're wrestling. That mentality makes it much easier to exploit weaknesses at every angle.

Anecdote: I remember @Zankou, many moons ago, recommending to think of butterfly as wrestling from your butt. Best advice ever.

All of this. Yeah I think it may have also been Zankou but he also described Marcelo's guard game as being seated wrestling. He was talking about how Marcelo would almost shoot into his guard pulls and would instantly be pressing forward for an arm drag, hook sweep, elevation onto the legs for an immediate sweep. It changed the way I viewed the guard for sure.

The big shift that I've seen in terms of guard play is that there was always a group that could get away with playing a heavy RDLR at the high level because there were less heel hooks being done and less no-gi comps in general. So people could bring more of an IBJJF style no-gi guard game into rules that allow all leg locks and still do somewhat well. Bruno Frazatto faced Justin Rader recently no-gi at F2W and Eddie Cummings was on commentary. Eddie studies tape fanatically and said he was very surprised to see Frazatto (a notoriously good Delariva style player) abandon the RDLR entirely for more of a seated guard during the match.

 

[Zankou]

I’ve long preached butterfly for many reasons, one being its high defensive strength against leglocks + ease of entrance into leglocks. Now that everybody and their pet goat has high powered leglocks, this is more useful than ever.

 

[DatCutman]

The big shift that I've seen in terms of guard play is that there was always a group that could get away with playing a heavy RDLR at the high level because there were less heel hooks being done and less no-gi comps in general. So people could bring more of an IBJJF style no-gi guard game into rules that allow all leg locks and still do somewhat well. Bruno Frazatto faced Justin Rader recently no-gi at F2W and Eddie Cummings was on commentary. Eddie studies tape fanatically and said he was very surprised to see Frazatto (a notoriously good Delariva style player) abandon the RDLR entirely for more of a seated guard during the match.

Interesting; is the conclusion that RDLR is inherently unsafe in the heel hooking meta? Or that it's less advantageous than butterfly due to the ability to get into the SLX/reverse X games for leg lock entries?

I wonder if and how that will change, if and when 50/50 rises back to prominence as a leg locking platform. I find it much, much easier to get into 50/50 from RDLR than Butterfly, though maybe I also just suck. After all, Tex Johnson forcibly entered 50/50 against Felipa Pena's will from butterfly, so maybe it's just the best all around.

 

[tekkenfan]

tbh idk if most of the bjj community today who wear skinny jeans are gonna have the ability to wrestle well from sitting up thats why they really go hard on open guard and leg locks cause they dont have to be aggressive

 

[ChainFlow]

Interesting; is the conclusion that RDLR is inherently unsafe in the heel hooking meta? Or that it's less advantageous than butterfly due to the ability to get into the SLX/reverse X games for leg lock entries?

I wonder if and how that will change, if and when 50/50 rises back to prominence as a leg locking platform. I find it much, much easier to get into 50/50 from RDLR than Butterfly, though maybe I also just suck. After all, Tex Johnson forcibly entered 50/50 against Felipa Pena's will from butterfly, so maybe it's just the best all around.

Butterfly and RDLR tie together. If someone is excellent at forcing the inside space versus your butterfly guard, RDLR is the best option for a leglocker. Observe Jon Calestine’s game and Craig Jones.

Alternatively, just be so damn good at getting the inside space that you’re never forced to concede more than shin-to-shin (Eddie Cummings style).

 

[Dirty Holt]

This is all I do. People kind of scratch their head when I tell them I pull guard as fast as I can after wrestling for 25 years. The guy on bottom has such a huge advantage with the scoring, it would be completely dumb to let a guy get bottom and try to pass rather than just pull and wrestle off your ass.

 

[kenetics]

In an interview on Flograppling, Craig Jones says the at one time once you got to the leg lock position, it was over but competitors are getting more difficult to finish. He says wrestling style off their butts will be the new NoGi Meta. They're going to be playing a more aggressive Sit Up guard.

Opinions?

Meta? Lot of fan boys using these terms these days.. smh lol.

 

[mataleaos]

Interesting; is the conclusion that RDLR is inherently unsafe in the heel hooking meta? Or that it's less advantageous than butterfly due to the ability to get into the SLX/reverse X games for leg lock entries?

I wonder if and how that will change, if and when 50/50 rises back to prominence as a leg locking platform. I find it much, much easier to get into 50/50 from RDLR than Butterfly, though maybe I also just suck. After all, Tex Johnson forcibly entered 50/50 against Felipa Pena's will from butterfly, so maybe it's just the best all around.

FWIW this is just my 2 cents and I could be way off. And my bad on the late reply.

I don't think it's inherently unsafe. In fact I think RDLR arguably (if you already know the position and are familiar with it) has more offensive options than ever before. If I had to build a person from the ground up and have them succeed where heel hooks were legal I would probably advise them to work the butterfly/SLX/X game first. I think in learning RDLR in the open foot lock environment you're going to end up tapping more and having more of a learning curve.

I guess the law of averages would say the more times you get heel hooked the more chances there are to get hurt, therefor maybe it is objectively more "unsafe" to use your word. To me though I just think "steeper learning curve" and less "unsafe."

There are times where it makes a lot of since to play RDLR or similar variant and I don't see it going away. I hope the 50/50 comes back into fashion. I imagine it will. Everything goes in cycles like that. I have always loved 50/50 (and even though I would rather take the saddle most times) I think people were too fast to write off the 50/50 once the modern saddle game came to prominence.

 

[mataleaos]

Meta? Lot of fan boys using these terms these days.. smh lol.

I'll give you that it's a buzzword that's only been around for a few years. But honestly I don't think there was even a way to talk about that stuff until what I would call the post BJJ Scout era. BJJ Scout was the first person I saw using the term on their youtube videos. In recent years people like Keenan and Craig have adopted the term and I think it has its uses. Although I also think that many people place way too much emphasis on what the current meta is. Unless you are a high level competitor/coach I think it can be a bad idea to base your training off whatever it currently is. I also think there's arguably no point in even paying attention to it unless you just enjoy the nerdery of it.

 

[kenetics]

I'll give you that it's a buzzword that's only been around for a few years. But honestly I don't think there was even a way to talk about that stuff until what I would call the post BJJ Scout era. BJJ Scout was the first person I saw using the term on their youtube videos. In recent years people like Keenan and Craig have adopted the term and I think it has its uses. Although I also think that many people place way too much emphasis on what the current meta is. Unless you are a high level competitor/coach I think it can be a bad idea to base your training off whatever it currently is. I also think there's arguably no point in even paying attention to it unless you just enjoy the nerdery of it.

Agree. I've been training bjj since 99. There are alot of fan boys who mimic others all the time. I'm sure most a probably new to bjj. It's just cringy.

We all know wresting is important to help compliment bjj. It's not rocket science lol.