BTG 157 - Dusting Off Old Moves

[Music] Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. On today's episode, I wanted to talk about something that has happened historically many times and I'm trying to do it right now, which is when everything is starting to trend towards newer techniques in the martial arts world, it can be a good idea to go back in time and pick up an old technique and reintroduce it. The technique that I have been reintroducing with great success is the classic kakatame neck crank. Uh which is more of a diaphragm compression but I learned as a neck crank. You are cranking the neck. So uh I see it as a neck crank. And what's interesting is that it's been very effective. I've tapped everybody that I've caught in it so far, including black belts uh on the first on on every attempt. So, right now I'm 100% for for set out neck cranks. Uh so, pretty stoked about that. And the way I'm setting it up is also different than I used to. Normally in the past I would pass or I would get a takedown like a head and arm throw and I would land in a sit out position already with the the headlock and then I would just go into it from there. Nowadays I'm doing it differently. I am starting from a side control where I have a cross face under hook. So like a good top side position, you know, just like I I did a squeeze pass and I moved into from half guard to side mount, but rather than staying there, I will then knee cut across the belly to the other side. And that gives me a great scoop because I already have the very deep cross around the head and I already have the other arm that the elbow that I need to control super deep. So when I go into the kakatame from there or the sit out now I'm in a very strong position and I've been able to finish my cranks there very easily. So uh I'm trying to find more ways to get into that position and I've been doing it I I hit one from half guard as well where I went from a half guard cross knee cut and uh was able to do that also. And uh basically because most people feel when you knee cut without the under hook on the far side uh that you're making a a mistake. So I think it works to my benefit because I tell people when you're in a set everyone thinks the most important thing is to hold the head up and it's not. The head is almost inconsequential in my opinion. The the main thing is controlling their elbow on the the side that you're on because the elbow is in is directly controlling the shoulder and that's the main thing you're trying to control. If his shoulder remains frozen to the mat, he will not be able to recover as far as escaping, getting back on top, and very difficult for them to take your back if that shoulder is pinned and you're not doing anything silly like getting your hips too high or whatnot. But I don't want to get too far into this rabbit hole about, you know, sit up neck cranks or cassat, you know, diaphragm compressions. Like the the point of it was that that's a very old technique. In fact, it was one of the first moves I learned how to do and I was decent at because I came from wrestling, right? So, it was an easy progression to go from that into uh from wrestling going into like a sit out position and just cranking on the head from a headlock. But I haven't done it in probably like 10 15 years at least. Probably more honestly probably 20. Why? I'm not really sure. I know around like the early 2000s I stopped using it a lot and I think it's because it's not a the coolest move to do in training and neck cranks in general are not fun to do to training partners because a lot of people will refuse to tap them tap to them and they end up getting hurt because people think neck cranks are unreal. They are very real. Am I the the the one that I'm talking about for Katama isn't so much I mean it does crank your neck but that's not why you're tapping. You're tapping because I'm getting my side of my lat and my torso just slamming into your diaphragm right in the solar plexus area and I'm pulling your head up. So now like you're fully compressed. You have no way to relieve the pressure. It becomes very hard to breathe. And it's one of those that if you're not used to, you might give up on early because this is one, this is a submission that you have to cook them in. Like you have to hold it for at least 10, 15 seconds. If you have them good, they might be tapping within the 10 seconds, but sometimes it might take 15 seconds, maybe even 20 before like the the effects really start to set in. But fortunately for you, it's an easy position to hold. You're not really squeezing anything too hard. you're just kind of holding and maintaining posture. But the point being that that one is not too heavy on the neck, although there is some neck compression. But other neck cranks that I've also was quite successful in was just like your classic figure four front rear naked choke if you will. Um I've caught black belts in that and tapped them, but like uh from my close guard, mind you. But what ends up happening, I the one I remember in particular, I got him, I cranked it, and I just heard his thing go before he tapped. I was like, "Oh, dear God." You know, like, he's not going to be looking left or right for, you know, at least a few days if he's young or a few weeks if he's older, you know. So, uh, and that's with a black belt. You can imagine with white belts and and just people are not too familiar with it. you don't feel a lot of pain. You just tightness and then things start to crack. And I felt like, well, you know, I know I could do this. I don't want to abuse this too much. And I just stopped doing it. And I think at the time I started advancing other parts of my game like I was getting good at doing ankle locks and you know that was novel in the early 2000s. But I let go of a part of a game that was very effective for neck cranks and in general just this kasakatame position. And I looked back and I remembered I think I did it by by chance recently and I was thinking why am I not still doing this? It still works. And then I started actively looking for it and I'm catching it like I said 100%. Success ratio currently. And mind you, by the way, if you're interested in the what I call that cross hip frame for mount, still 100% to this day. All right, it hasn't failed me once. It's incredible. Anyhow, if you have if you've been training in this sport for a long time, which I believe most of you that follow me are veterans, so to speak. You probably have parts of your game that you have parked on the shelf somewhere collecting a lot of dust and they may be the source of a hidden treasure. You might have something that is very effective that you just stopped using sometimes like in my case it was too effective and you just didn't want to abuse your training partners anymore. So you start or you you felt like okay I picked it up now I'm going to focus on something else but then you just totally forgot about it and now it's collecting dust and it's getting old. But what's great is that you can just grab that thing from the shelf, dust it off, and start using again. And with your new knowledge and experience, you're likely to find new applications and perhaps better uh ways of utilizing that technique or position or guard pass or sweep or whatever it is to enhance your your game. Even when we look at the leg lock game right now, people just started going I I've talked about this for weeks now about the AIO locks being crazy, but the starting position was the straight ankle locks which are also doing quite well now. Like people are getting straight ankle locks quite a bit besides the locks because they're using the straight ankle lock to threaten uh the lock and vice versa. And straight ankle locks are old, right? That's they're very very old techniques, but people are applying them a little differently. Not and I'm not talking about the yoga lock. Even the classic straight ankle lock. Do you see now there's a lot more twisting with the straight ankle locks. uh rather than focusing on this extension here like doing a guilty motion the old school way. You'll see a lot of people are starting to twist with the straight ankle lock which gets a little bit of a tow hold type pressure getting some knee torsion in there and the ankle. It it doesn't feel great like it's also quite effective. So it it adds a little flare to something old, right? And this they're not necessarily reinventing the wheel, but they're learning a new way how to use the wheel and that in itself is novel and it makes it very good. So if you are wanting to be the guy that's on the cutting edge and I do, right? But I look at certain things, I'm like, you know, I love this leg lock game as far as like that's how my early success was a big part was credited in a big part to ankle locks and heel hooks and knee bars. But the modern game, not as friendly to me because I'm not that flexible and my knees don't have that much room to move around and I see the leg lock shootouts. I don't like them. I don't want to be a part of them. So, I'm probably not going to steer in that direction, right? So I I I I think to myself, how else can I be on the cutting edge here without doing what everyone else is doing right now? Because that is being very well explored. So I don't feel like I'm going to make a lot of headway in there and I don't feel like I have the particular assets that will make me very effective in those positions. And that's how I came about. Well, I you know I stumbled upon you know the kasakatame headlock position you know with a neck crank and then I started thinking other things that I can do of that spirit you know and then obviously neck cranks in general can be done as well. So now I have different things that I can play with. I'm sure my training partners won't like him, but uh th those I have found somewhere to be very effective. And I'm just bringing back something that I stopped doing and I'm going to start redoing. And there's nothing stopping you from doing the same. Just think back to when you first started doing jiu-jitsu or grappling or MMA or whatever and things that you were pretty effective at and stopped doing and then ask yourself why did I stop doing it and what's preventing me from reintroducing this technique and getting good success from it. That's my my tip. I think uh there's a lot to be explored there. And don't just think of one aspect of the game. Like in this case, I was thinking about a submission, right? But I could be thinking about a guard pass, a sweep, uh I could be thinking about takedowns, escapes, right? uh any of these things that were very useful for you in the past and you've given them time to collect dust and particularly when you notice no one else is doing them either. All right. The the last person I can recall of note that used a kiss of Katama neck crank was Josh Barnett on Dean Listister and obviously that was a big scalp to get Dean is notoriously difficult to tap and Josh was able to catch him but I haven't heard of anybody else doing it since then I think well there's one guy the he was on the reality show, the Sultan of Strangles, I think he called him. Uh I think his Instagram handle is cool rack or something like that and I know he was big on those and he did catch a few of those on that show. Um but other than those two people, I can't think of another person that's gone for it. So it's curious to me, right? But that's a reason why I'm like, okay, well there's a lot uh to be ventured there. I believe and I I posted a video of me teaching it maybe a few weeks ago. So, it's something that I haven't been doing this for a very long time now. It's just been maybe honestly just like a few weeks, maybe a month at most. But I'm catching people with it every training session multiple times uh and different people. So, I feel pretty pretty good about that. And I'm, as I'm talking to you, I'm thinking about other aspects cuz that was a submission aspect. And now I'm thinking, what are some takedowns that I used to do that I was really good at that I'm not doing now? What are some uh sweeps or guard passes I I used to do that I'm not really doing now? and with the additional filter that no one else is doing either. All right. Um because I used to do lots of knee cut passes. That was almost the only pass I did back in the day. I still use it now, but not that often. Um I find in higher level guys, it's just harder to do. You need a good setup. When I have a good setup, I hit it. Generally, if you've seen me teach before, if someone sits up from a butterfly guard, I'm going to go for it. I'm going to get underhook knee on the chest. Bam. And that and that's usually a money one for me. But outside of that, I'm if I'm going for it, it's probably because I'm trying to do something else. And that's going to be my step one to get the knee shield to come out. And then I'm going to play off of that. But besides that, a lot of people are using it. So, I'm like, "Okay, that's not something that particularly novel." Um, but I already have a few things in mind. I'll keep them to myself for the time being, and when I start using them, when they start working again, I'll I'll make sure to share them with you and tell you. But, uh, we'll keep it short today. There's no UFC this weekend. uh you know and I I talked about that on Friday. So, not much to watch on big uh organization MMA, but there was a lot of MMA going down yesterday. There's a lot of grappling going down yesterday. I didn't I watched some of the grappling. I think there was a EBI try out or a 10th Planet DS. I saw some of that, but the 10th Planet Duel is a little crazy. a lot of buggy chokes I was saying. But yeah, we'll we'll keep it short today. Uh I'll leave you with that nugget in a homework assignment. Look into the into your past and think of stuff that you used to do quite often that you stopped doing and you were really good at and start trying to bring it in. Particularly if it's something that no one's doing anymore. Like people have forgotten about that because chances are you're going to have a lot of success because you're going to be reintroducing something that people think doesn't work anymore or some people have never even seen.