BTG 177 - Being on the Cutting Edge

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. We just had a UFC fight night with uh Mario Batista with Vinesius Olivera as the main event. There's some other good fights in there. Um, I'll start with the main event because that was the one that actually finished. There were a lot of fights that went to decision and they they were good fights, uh, but they were a bit on the longer side. Whereas the Batista Olivivera fight was decided early. It was a five rounder, finished in the second round. And again, spoiler alerts, Bautista gets a beautiful finish with a reneg choke off a Kimora trap. So, you know, I was excited about that. It started off at round one where they were exchanging some kicks. I think Oliver was getting the better of the calf kicks and then they got into a clinch and they stayed in the clinch for a really long time. Ultimately, Batista was able to score a takedown off a clinch, catching a knee and um when they moved into round two, well, I would say first he scored the takedown and Obero is very comfortable on being on his back. Never try to get up. The one thing I also thought was weird was that Bautista didn't seem to know what to do with an open guard. He was standing over uh Vanessius who was playing a very loose open guard and kind of threatening like he was going to throw an upkick and Bautista didn't seem to know how to get around it. He was like staying in front of him and he was trying to punch across which is not very effective and it puts you in a lot of danger because his legs are going to be much longer than your arms. So, you're very exposed. And to me, it's kind of crazy, especially with someone like Batista who's very technical, that doesn't have a simple solution for when the guy is flat on their back, legs straight up, grab the ankles, throw them to one side. For for jiu-jitsu, it's not the greatest option because, you know, there's a lot of space. But in MMA, it's a very powerful combination because I grab the ankles. I will, you know, try to fake them out. I pick a side. When I throw now, I'm going to throw, if I throw to my right, I'm going to drop a huge overhand right going to the head. This forces one of a few reactions. One, he has to block the punch. But by blocking the punch, he can't frame with his hands, and he's going to need that. I'm going to score an easy pass. Get right to side control. Two, he defends a pass by using his hands and his legs, but now he eats a huge overhand right. Not a great option for him. Option three, when I throw his angles to one side, he anticipates it and he rolls. That way, I know that he can do that. He exposes his back to me. Those are not the only options, but in my experience, those are the only three I've seen people try. So, it's pretty slam dunk for me in MMA. Pretty much all I do in training. Throw the ankle, big right hand. I'm usually getting a pass. Uh, and for someone that Batista's level just not to have anything there. He was just kind of stuck. He didn't want the stand up either, but he was just there and trying to punch through the legs. It's kind of crazy to me. U disappointed in that aspect. They go on to round two. Bautista takes him down immediately. Uh Oliver had a little more uh drive to get back up to his feet, but ultimately got taken down again. And this time he was confronted once against Mario with that guard. Didn't really know what to do with it, but finally made a decision. I'll switch it to a half guard. So he stuffed one of the legs, stepped into the half guard, got to his knees, and then he was able to work some nice passing. He did a shin pin staple, able to pass to side control, got into a crucifix, started dropping some elbows. Uh Venicius started to scramble to his side. Bautista switched to a step over kimora position. U Venicius tried to come to his force and then Batista jumped from the Kimura trip grip to the back and sunk a really deep renegot finish. It was a nice sequence. It went from uh halfguard staple pin crucifix kimora back tick rear naked choke. really nice technique sequence at the end there. So, I like that aspect of it. I was just surprised that he didn't have a good answer for open guard. I mean, that's such a common position. You should be really, in my opinion, a lot more versed in handling that. Like, that shouldn't have been as big as a problem as it was. Uh, but other than that, very clean. He the takedowns he scored were very nice and obviously that finishing sequence was money. Uh well done. Some earlier fights I saw that got me were one Yelton Ameda and I forget the name of his opponent. That was a very disappointing fight. Not a lot really going on. Yelton seemed a little scared to engage. He couldn't score takedowns. Uh, and he couldn't really strike effectively. His opponent, he was a striker. I think that I forget the the style. I forget, but it's a striker style, but he's from Dagistan, so he's like, "Of course, we wrestle, too." And clearly, he did because he didn't let any takedowns get anywhere near close and looked a lot more comfortable in his feet. also the bigger man by 20 plus pounds and he ended up winning a decision but neither looked great. Uh nothing really happened to be honest. It was just outpointed. Uh not a fun fight. The fight before that if I was G Masamoso with uh Farad Basharat and that's one I wanted to see because I know both of those guys. Uh Farad, you know, has trained in the stream a few times, so he's a really cool guy. Gene I never met, but I've seen him fight fights awesome. I figured that would be a very tough fight and it and it definitely [clears throat] was. Uh Farad got off first round one. He landed a really nice elbow that split Gan open and he was able to keep the lead, just outscoring him. His jab was landing really nice. The straight right was also landing really nice. Uh he was mixing me up with some kicks and he definitely took that first round. I think he may have scored taked down. No, I don't think maybe. I'm not sure. But it was mainly the striking that uh won that round for Farad. Round two was looking good as well for Farad in the beginning. He even stunned them with a a straight right, but at some point they got into a clinch. Uh, Jean put him on the fence, take him took him down a couple times, but with no real impact as far as like he Ferry was always on his fours and standing up. So, it wasn't consequential to take down himself, but it was control time and he was landing some short knees and short punches. So, he started to steal the round there. And he towards the end of the round there were some exchanges that I felt that Gene got the better of. So that was a close round, but I thought uh at least from my viewpoint that Jean did enough to win that round. So round three, it was a do or die round for both of them in my opinion. And again, another close round. There were moments that uh Gene looked like he was being a bit more aggressive, but I think Far was the one that was actually landing more effective strikes. He was touching him with that jab with a straight right. Uh he scored more takedowns that were definitive that would put Gene on his back versus when Gene would get a takedown, it was just to his knees and he would pop back up. Whereas Farad finished the round on top. So, I felt like his takedowns had more control and led into him being able to strike from top, whereas Jean was getting takedowns, but there was just more about control time versus actually being able to do something with it. And uh but again, another close one that went to a split decision and Farad ended up winning that one. You could definitely make the case either way and I I wouldn't be too surprised, but uh it was a good fight either way. Farad moves up to 15 and0 now undefeated. Good for him. Jean stock in my opinion doesn't really drop any. He showed that he was it was very tough. Hard guy to put away, hard guy to uh finish and he was toe-to-toe with him the whole time. So, uh and apparently they're both unranked, which is pretty wild. As good as both of them are, and like those are two guys that I feel are technically sound all over. They both can wrestle. They both can strike. They both can grapple. Good representatives of MMA. Like they're solid everywhere. So, surprising that they're unranked. I wonder what happens after this fight. Uh other than that, I didn't really catch other fights that like really stood out to me. Those were I know there was a Berald and I can't pronounce the other name. Orski, whatever. They had a good stand up striking match as like light heavyweights, I think. But, uh, other than that, those are the only matches I really paid attention to. I did see something funny with one of the guys from here in V, uh, Vegas. He was involved in, I guess, the first ever one versus one versus one versus one, a fourman freeforall grappling uh, match, if you will, where four people entered, one guy would leave. and they could all grapple each other at the same time apparently. So you would expect pandemonium and chaos. Now I knew one of the guys going in there which was Derek Rafield. He's a local here at the 10th planet Las Vegas. I known him since he I think he was a a teenager. Very tough scrappy kid. If you guys watched the PGF last season, he was one of the big stars of it. Uh going by the moniker Rodman, right? It's a rowdy dude. So, I was rooting for him and I I jumped in just as after it started. So, when I started watching it was a three-man division. Uh it was a three-man grappling match at this point and it looked like uh they were trying to double team on him for most of the match and he was engaged with one guy and the guy was trying to renea choke him Anaconda choke him but he was able to defend himself and at a certain point I guess the alliance flipped where it was Derek and the other guy he was going with double teaming the guy on the outside and they made quick work of him at that point. Derek was holding his legs and the other guy got a kimora. Uh well no he he looked like he was going for kimora but then he went to a tero plata and finished a trico plat and the moment the guy tapped Derek immediately jumped to the back got into a rea choke and finished him. the there's no honor among thieves there. [laughter] Like they he didn't give him a secondary reprieve, but it's a free-for-all match. That's what you're supposed to do. Uh, it's just weird how people have like verbal agreements there because you could see the guy with a taro plat. He was like looking back to see like like you know this guy going to try to submit me as I'm finishing his submission and he could see like Derek's just holding his legs. I'm waiting for you to finish this guy. So he's all right. He finished it, but I guess he didn't realize that Derek was going to immediately fly onto his back. And being in the Tariq Plat, he had no way to defend himself there. So, uh, pretty smart on Derek's part to let that play out. And I think he submitted the first guy, but unfortunately, I didn't see that part of it. But that's a funny, uh, little uh, game there of four-way grappling. I'm not sure that's going to be something that's very prominent, but you know, freak shows are good every so often. And other than that, I didn't tune into much else on combat sports. I did um work a bit more on things that I was talking about on the curriculum that you guys will get to see, I think. Uh well, I I did a breakdown on Saturday on the Polaris 35, which I highlighted that passing of Levi Jones Liry doing a great job of beating uh open guard, butterfly guard, using overunder, stack passing. Whereas in the squads division of that event, no one was really able to figure out how to pass and there's a lot of frustrating matches where there's no passing was happening from a similar position. And Levi was able to pass four times, pretty much the same position each time with relative ease. So, I if you haven't seen that, I would tell you to watch that because it was a for a guy that's known for just being a very good guard uh defender and Kg guard guy, his top game was pretty nasty. So, I'm not sure if he doesn't play it because he just doesn't have the wrestling game. But I think he should play his top game more, especially since if he does go on his back, he's still very good. Obviously, he's was extremely difficult guard to to work with, but when you have that type of guard passing, man, it to me, it behooves you to use it. So, uh I've been working on that. I was actually able to reproduce uh one of his passes in training right afterwards. And then I've been working on hitting choy bars, which is going to be what I'm focusing on this month. I didn't get too much traction in it yet, but uh [laughter] the month is young, so I still have a lot more to work on. One thing I will say, and I'll show some videos on it afterwards. That's interesting. There was a bit of a controversy on social media or they've been for some time with Craig Jones and of course Gordon Ryan. You know, they always get into it with each other. I I don't even know who's starting it with who anymore. This time it seemed to be Gordon picking on uh Craig because Craig released a new course, Octopus Guard 2.0, you know, which for me is reverse seat belt. And in Gordon, I know in his system they call it over wrap or over back. One of I've heard him say both, so I'm not sure which one, but he's used that to quite good effect. And I highlighted in fact in his match, his third match with Philip Penna, he swept in twice with uh Octopus, reversible belt, overback, whatever, cat dog, whatever you want to call it. But he went on to say that it's a garbage uh thing, at least from what I understood. Or maybe he was saying whatever Craig was teaching was garbage, doesn't work, it's fake techniques. And he would do breakdowns u showing how you see this would never work. Now, I'm not trying to insert myself into their beef or pick a side. I'm just talking from a technical standpoint, and if you've been watching, you probably know to me it works. I've done it with black belts, world class guys. I haven't really had like, does it work 100% of the time? No. Like, you know, the few times I got stuck and like had to switch to something else, but it works more often than not. And there's one technique like he I think he's done three quoteunquote breakdowns of like teaser techniques that Craig has shown on the social media saying they don't work and each one of them were kind of like a primitive version of in my opinion or like a poorly executed version of a octopus guard technique that yeah if you did it like that it wouldn't work but to me it wasn't denouncement of the position. It's like if you're doing it in a bad spot, it's not going to work. Much like I'm not going to be able to, you know, land a good anaconda. The guy's elbows are flared out and saying anacondas are garbage. I'm like, well, I have to pick the right situation for it. The one that really uh got my attention was Craig was showing a counter to a dart stroke or front headlock using the octopus and he shows how he's able to reverse and sweep. And it's funny because I do the same thing and I've been doing this now at least for like three, four, five, six months. I've been doing it quite a bit now because I've been doing a lot more wrestling situationals from Fred Headlocks and I just saw it coming a lot and off the headlock man I think I've only missed one of these which just ended up with me, you know, defending a headlock not getting in bad spot really. The other ones are sweeps right into side control or back take. And for Gordon to go in there and say, "Oh, this doesn't work at all. It's fake." I'm like, "Man, I know from personal experience it works quite well." Now, this is where I feel like he was being disingenuous. He starts it off with a fully locked anaconda or he has like a fully tucked in paper cutter and then he's like, "Oh, he has the partner go, oh, try to get out of this using the octopus." I'm like, "Yeah, like of course it's not going to work in my opinion. That's not going to work there." Uh, simply because you're already kneede to me at least. And I'll teach it and put it on the website. I use that when a guy has a front headlock and really hasn't locked anything in yet. Like he's sprawled me out, has a front headlock, but he hasn't like set up anything. So, he's kind of like weighing his options like am I going to attack with a darts and a combat guillotine? I'm going to try to take the back and I'm hand fighting meanwhile. So, his hands are not cinched around my neck. I got some grips here. And essentially all you're doing is your arm that's inside the headlock is going to punch through as the same side leg kicks straight out. And then you're going to scoop and throw yourself deep into an octopus as you thread your arm through his head lock. And this tends to throw them way out forward. And since you have your other leg sweeping out their leg, they lose their base. And then my free hand scoops the leg. I'm able to get a high crutch single and turn them to their side. Sometimes they move a little bit and then it becomes a back chase. I've done this a lot. In fact, on training Friday, I did this at least two or three times and people can know it's coming and they still have a hard time doing it. Uh hard time dealing with it. So to me very effective and I teach this now and uh when the way I saw Craig doing it was very similar to how I do it. When I saw Gordon teaching it, he was teaching it off a very different situation. The legs were not set up the same way. Like so maybe he I I don't know what he was looking at. At least the video that I was shown like he they I forget I think it was a grappling scenarios they had like the side by side what Craig was doing which Gordon was doing and they weren't in apples to apples they were very different positions. So yeah what Gordon was doing I would agree it wouldn't work there but that wasn't what was being shown by Craig in my opinion which was closer to what I it wasn't even what I was doing to be honest but it's very close to what I was doing. So, uh, and I I was seeing what he was doing and it I I would agree with Craig, his would work. You know, it it wouldn't work, at least in my opinion. Like I said to someone, I wouldn't do this if someone has a fully locked down choke. I feel like that's not really going to be helpful there. But when you're hand fighting and they still haven't really set anything up yet, I usually find a moment where they're maybe trying to make a transition and boom, pop into it really fast. That works very well. But uh what was funny to me, you would see people like, and it's weird cuz people are completely polarized. You're either all on one side, you know, with with Craig or you're all on one side with Gordon. Not a lot of nuanced takes of in the middle, you know. I think most people were commenting emotionally for who they're rooting for versus like technically that's where I was trying to step in. Like I'm saying from a technical angle, from real world experience, from I would consider myself someone on the higher end of skill in that area, this thing works extremely well. Uh, and I think there's always push back when you're working on cutting edge technique. And I won't say like, oh, this is brand new. I started doing this around 201 15ish when I really started digging into it. I've did it before because I had matches from 2007. I was doing this. Uh, but I wasn't really consciously aware I was doing it. I think it was more of like, and that's why I always refer to reverse seat belt. I saw it like a wrestling scramble. But around 2015, it was when I was in West Virginia. If you guys have been around with me for a while, you might have seen my videos with with Spencer, uh, when he was filming me. That's when I actually explored the position a lot and that's when I named it and I started going through all different moves and like writing it down and systematizing it. So I've been now crap it's been 11 years that I've used this technique and this position. But again I say it's not new because I wasn't the first one because I didn't realize I I've heard the term octop octopus guard. I thought it was a different thing. I thought it was more of like a ghee game and I know like Eduardo Telles was uh I believe the innovator of that space and uh even I didn't and I still haven't honestly I should be looking back and see what he was doing because he's been working it longer than anybody I think and I know Craig gives him a lot of credit for like stealing [laughter] his his tech. So, uh, it would do me good to go back and try to see some Eduardo stuff to see if he's doing anything different or anything that I can pull away from him. But I digress there. My point being is that it seems now, and probably because Craig is such a influential figure in jiu-jitsu, is starting to become a lot more mainstream. So, the consciousness of this position is is being raised significantly. And I think in general when you introduce new tech there's a lot of push back. There's a lot of reasons to be resistant. And usually the first thing people want to say, "Oh, that doesn't work. That's fake. It's garbage." Trust me. I've heard that before when I was playing with heel hooks in the late 90s. People said it was cheating. It was fake. Not that it was fake, but that it was cheating. It wasn't honorable. This and that. And now look where leg locks are, right? If you don't know leg locks now, you can't be a serious player, right? And when people introduce things like for example Eddie Bravo with uh the rubber guard, a lot of people talked a lot of smack about it. And now if you don't know rubber guard, you you might not be able to play it. That's my only problem with the position. It's not not everyone can do it because it requires a a high level of flexibility. And if you haven't developed that, you're not going to be able to do it. But if you don't know how to defend against it, you are going to be in some problems. Um because somebody with a very tricky rubber guard will mess you up if you're not ready for it. And I've had the fortune or misfortune of dealing with several people who are extremely flexible 10th planet guys that are very good at that playing that position. And those are people that you don't want to be in their closed guards. Like it's just a nightmare to deal with. It's just lots of traps. Um so I can, you know, say all I want it doesn't work. But once I get stuck in it, I'm going to realize, oh crap, this thing does work. And it is very tricky to get out of. So there is always a strong sense of skepticism about being on the cutting edge of technique that as an innovator I feel that you have to be able to push back on and usually the best way is with showing it working in the field, right? Uh, unfortunately for Craig, the at least the one clip I see Gordon Kee posting, I think he was with Kynan and Kynan shut him down. Uh, he got a cross face quickly before uh Craig could address it and got smashed down. Oh, you see it doesn't work. I'm like, yeah, well, it's like everything else. That would be like if someone defended a heel hook and then you say, oh, you see, heel hooks never work. It's like, yeah, you can give stuff on any good technique. Doesn't mean it doesn't work. it means they wasn't set up well enough or that they weren't prepared with the proper counter to that. For me, I love it when people cross face because I'm always preparing for that. There's a lot of strong counters uh a few that I showed recently on the channel or on the website on how you can make their cross face their undoing. So, and that's something I haven't seen people do yet. And I've been doing that now for years. The little kimora was just one. We just added one using a lock down and Alvin was showing how you can do the back take there. I haven't seen anyone else teach that yet. Uh but my point being that when you're going to be playing on the cutting edge, you have to expect that people are going to naysay you. They're going to tell you you're not being realistic. It won't work. If you let that dissuade you, it's going to be hard to innovate. I believe there was a story about the the guy who was trying to create television when radio was such a huge thing back in the day. And no one wanted to invest in television because no one thought anyone would be interested in watching TV when you could listen to the radio, right? It's like, are you crazy? Why would you watch TV? you could listen to the radio that they didn't have an understanding of how transformative television was going to be and they missed a huge opportunity much like people didn't understand when the internet was coming around like how big opportunity what it was going to be to be investing in internet versus television and other mediums to the point where now we're like people used to think podcasting was just a BS thing, right? Like it's not real and now news networks are collapsing because podcasts are eating their lunch. When you fail to recognize the trend and particularly with cutting edge technology and the benefits it provides, you will be left in the dust if you don't adapt. It's funny because my last podcast was about adapting and we're we're still kind of on that theme, but just saying with being on the cutting edge of technology, you have to believe in it and continue to push forward. And I tell you this because there's lots of great people who have lots of great ideas. But I I imagine there's some people that get dissuaded from pursuing it just because someone they trust, someone they love, someone they respect told them, "Man, that doesn't work. Don't do that." And they stop. And I'm not just talking about martial arts. I'm just talking about in life in general. Whenever you blaze a new path, people are not going to think it's going to work. they because they haven't seen it. And they're not they may not be doing it just to, you know, nag on you or just to be a hater. They might be doing it and I would think more often than not because they care about you. And just from their point of view, it just doesn't seem reasonable. From my life, I remember when I was working in a nuclear power plant. I graduated as an electrical electrical engineer. had a nice job right out of college and I ended up quitting to become a martial arts instructor back when there was no money in being an academy owner. Right. And I know my well my parents were supportive for sure and I will be forever grateful for their love and support. But other members of my family were not stoked about that decision. [laughter] They thought it was dumb. They thought I was wasting a huge opportunity. And uh it took many years until my brother and I became a success with the gym and just and even as a competitor I became renowned and then they looked oh you you know I was wrong and some of them were able to admit oh I was wrong about that you you guys have done amazing things with your lives right a lot of people won't even admit that right uh but at least they But my point is, if I would have stayed in my lane, I would have never been able to compete at the ACC. For you guys, this doesn't exist. Kimmore trap system never gets created. Lots of things fall apart at that point. I would, my MMA career as far as a professional would have never even taken place. A lot of things would would shift. So, you have to, if you're going to dabble with high-tech, you have to be able to eat that criticism and smile. You have to have faith in what you're working on and know that you can make it happen. Does that guarantee that it will succeed? No. But I can tell you it will guarantee failure if you don't. Right? So you have to have that almost insane conviction that when others can't see what you're going after because they've never seen it, you have to have enough belief in your vision and your tech and your ideas that you can make it come into reality. Otherwise, it won't happen. And I know in martial arts and especially introduced to there's a lot of creativity. And I don't think it's as big as a problem as it used to be now because we see so much stuff going on. But I just I just stress it anyways. Like even if you're a white belt, don't let your creativity be muffled. You might annoy instructors, but if you have ideas, play them out. And that's why I've told you before, I've had white belts come up to me to show me things that I'm sure other instructors would dismiss, laugh, or not even give them the time to look at it. But I do when someone says, "Hey, can I run something by you?" Go ahead. Let me see. Now, sometimes it might be absolutely ridiculous and I'm like, "Okay, well, I'll tell you that's not going to work and here's my reasons why." But every so often you get a little nugget and I see someone do something. I'm like, "Hm, I could use this in some way." And I've had that happen at least three times that I can recall off the top of my head. And uh those three things change a lot for me. So don't be quick to dismiss somebody just because you haven't seen it work before. It to me the way you should see it is if somebody is going to present you with something and you actually want to learn, treat them like they're a black belt and let them teach whatever they're going to teach or show whatever they want to show you. You could then use your deductive reasoning to look at what they're doing and decide is this valid or is it not valid. If you know it's something that wouldn't work like a guy goes, "Hey, I can get escape a triangle check by holding my breath." You can be pretty sure that's not going to work, right? if you know anything about chokes. But if someone has some weird way of trying to escape a triangle choke that you haven't seen done before, then it might be worth, hey, let me see if I can reproduce that. Or maybe you could try to reproduce it in me and I'll give you some resistance and we can go from there. If you want to learn, you have to have some humility. If you want to be right, then you could just shut people down all day. And you might remain right within your frame because you never even got to see what they were showing. But you will also be limited in growth. And as I've said many times, my whole purpose is to try to grow as much as I can and by extension grow through you guys by teaching you things, hoping that you could improve on whatever I was able to show. So, keeping an open mind from a student perspective and someone who's an instructor as well is going to allow you to experience the most growth. And I would say as well, if you're trying to be an innovator, you have to have a lot of belief in what you're doing and the willingness to be ridiculed, to be made fun of, and still go out there and do it anyways. And in this case, you know, like Craig is the one being ridiculed for what I think is a very strong position in my opinion, a very good technique. I use it a lot. Uh I've had a lot of success with it. So, and if you guys seen, I'm not going to name names, but if you guys seen the people I train with, they're not slouches. They're all very tough people. All black belts. some of them pro UFC fighters, some former UFC champions, some former ADCC champions, you know. So, it's not like I'm working with, you know, some Joe Schmo. I'm working with some of the best guys. And I've been able to reproduce this stuff quite well. And even someone like Craig, although he makes himself a joke, he is a legit guy. He's won a few silvers at ACC, you know. Uh obviously Gordon is the best that we've ever had in the sport and he's lost to him a bunch of times. Uh there's no shame in that, right? And maybe because you can't do it to Gordon doesn't mean that it doesn't work at all, right? There's always a counter to a counter and then there's a counter to that. You know, I I think you just got to keep believing in yourself. And to me, the principles behind using the reverse seat belt are very sound. I I see it as a position where the top guy loses all their weapons. They don't have their arms in the position to attack my arms because my arms are behind theirs. Their legs are not in position to threaten me. There is no submission threat for them. Whereas I have submission threats against them. And I have avenues to expand my position by taking their back, by sweeping them, right? So I try to explain to people. I like using it the most as a last minute guard safe, right? Where if I know that my guard's going to get passed because my legs are being beaten, I'll just make sure that my my arms or my frames don't get beaten. So the moment they feel like they're going to get by my legs, I'll get by their arms. And a lot of people are very happy to accept that trade because they think, "Oh, technically a guard passes when you get the legs, you know, past my legs and you're no longer between my hips." But if I'm behind your arms, you really have no position yet. And uh I know scoring wise this is like a gray area I feel like where if I'm resting on my elbow or on my hand and I got the octopus reverse seat belt whatever they might score that as a guard pass but to me you really haven't attain control yet because you can't attack yet. And to me, the whole point about passing a guard is that you have control of the position and you can attack. So I would challenge the definition of a guard pass in that situation as well that you have to be not only past the legs, but you also have to be chest to chest. that would make a side mount or a neon belly position or a north south or mount. All these would be positions that would qualify as a guard pass or let's say maybe not chest to chest but your chest is facing their chest, right? The opponent is in front of you. See, what makes the reverse seat belt interesting is that although the legs may be pasted, you are not in front of me because you're facing away from me right now because when I sit up here, you're facing this way. I'm facing this way. We're not chest to chest, but you're not even like facing my chest. So, you have no recourse in being able to hold on to me or attack me with your arms. That's how I would modify. And if you guys, you may have seen that if you watched my rule set from a while ago because I discussed this because I made that caveat for uh octopus guard because it doesn't it doesn't seem to me that should be a scoring position because you can't do anything with it as a top guy. You have to be able to shut it down first and get the guy flat and you know get the cross face in. Then you have killed Dr. And now you have made a pass. But if the guy is sitting up on you and he's got an angle, he's got [clears throat] the edge or he may have the edge depending on who plays the position better. Anyhows, I digress. But point being, don't be afraid to be on the cutting edge. have some conviction in your ideas and your technology, you know, in your vision, and be able to accept that ridicule regardless of who it comes from, where it comes from, whether it's from a highly technical guy that you respect or like a low that's a hater, it doesn't matter. Just do the thing. If you are able to do it, that's going to start bringing some awareness to it and eventually you might be able to get enough attention behind it where you can make it a thing. One of the guys I could say that's done this recently that I know is Abe Monting. I I I can't pronounce his last name too well, so forgive me. But he made the A block new uh it's not a towh hold. It's more of a heel hook, but let's say new leg lock, right? And I hadn't seen anybody do that before. I don't see anybody else claiming it. And I remember when he started doing it a couple years ago. And his partners and training partners, they all thought I was dumb. I think mainly they just hated the position [laughter] of of being, you know, reverse clothes guard uh or donkey guard. But now he's done like 60 plus of them in competition at expert black belt level tapping out all sorts of people. Mind you, 60 submissions in your record is amazing. 60 submissions in this one hold is crazy. And now it's undeniable, you know. So that's a guy and mind you he's he was training at a very high level you know probably the highest level gym in the world with with a new new wave or now Kings wave so you have to imagine and he wasn't at the time one of the featured guys now he's becoming that guy but he wasn't he was just another blue belt or purple bell in the room with a bunch of black belt world champions So he had to have a lot of conviction and belief in his technique in order to get it heard because man it's hard to outshine people when you got Gordon Marie you know Gary Tonin and Oliver Taza you have all these big names in the room and you have to somehow shine with yours as the purple belt. So a lot of respect for that man. Like he showed that spirit of a innovator and a pioneer that he had to have delusional belief that even when you had these guys telling him that wouldn't work or and again I don't know if they told him that. I imagine I know there was some push back on it. Uh but he was able to make that a specialty move that worked and we even had I think uh who was it that won the trials with that [sighs] it's one of the brothers can't remember the name but uh someone had a trials finish win with that and here like I said he's got many finishes off. So now it's a position that's not like oh this doesn't work. No no it works. And if you don't know it, guess what? You get caught in that position, he's going to make your life a living hell, right? And you're going to get your foot broken. So, uh, shout out to Abe because I know that couldn't have been easy and especially since that position, it looks really silly, right? Uh, very easy to get made fun of for being a specialist in that position. But when you make it work at the level he did, people stop laughing and they start taking notes. So, congrats to him for getting that move mainstream. And I think it was a it's a great example of what it takes to be an innovator. You have to be immune to criticism, to ridicule, to all that. And you have to have a lot of drive and conviction and belief and put it out yourself. And he was the first guy that went out there. He he coined the name of the move and he went and did it a bunch of times to the point where people started asking him to teach it. He has his own website now. You guys should check it out also. And now he's got a following for this position because he did it so well. That's what it takes. Anyhow, that's all I have for you guys for this week. Thanks for tuning in. I'll catch you all next week.