BTG 71 - Be a Basic B...

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. Let's get on to the news. So, we had one FC 165 take place this early morning slash yesterday if you're or is it tomorrow? if you like on the eastern side of the world. It was it was in Japan. Uh so I think our time it was like 3:00 a.m. or something here on the Pacific coast. And uh the notable fights that I was paying attention to that had the quoteunquote bigger names were one we had Gary Tonin uh going against Martin Newian. Uh, and this was I think for the next title shot and uh and posed a bit as striker versus grappler. Obviously Gary Tonan being the grappler in this case and again spoiler alerts coming out. So if you don't want any spoilers, tune out right now. Otherwise, Gary Tonin wins by a rear naked choke in the very first round. Uh was able to execute a grappling game plan. pull him to the ground, get to the back body triangle and then was able to work in for the reneg choke. So, congrats to him. Uh, and similarly, we had Shinji Aayoki who was originally supposed to fight Super Sage, right? Uh, and something happened where Sage was not available. He got hurt. It wasn't clear why he wasn't there, but then they threw Lker in there uh as a literally last minute replacement. And uh although Laker is a strong dude, he's significantly smaller. And the size uh advantage was very apparent uh just visually immediately. And Shinay also was able to take this to the ground uh and finish with a submission as well. I believe it was also Reneoke if I recall correctly. Um and Shina is around my age I think maybe a year or two younger. So, pretty impressive that he's still out there fighting animals, you know, and like at that age. We also had Kade Rulo get a rematch uh versus Tommy Langacher, which they had a very good match the first time around. And on running it back, it proved no different. Although, it seemed this time around Kade was much more dominant, getting a lot of of catches and being the aggressor for most of the the matchup. So, he retained his title in the one grappling uh division. Back home, at least in my hometown, Miami, we had uh a karate combat event, which for whatever reason was throwing a lot of grappling matches. And they had a bunch of the guys from New Wave that I've had the the pleasure or displeasure depending how you want to put it of training with uh they had Luke uh grappling against Vagnner Roachcha which is a very weird matchup because Luke now is quite big. I think he's like 230 240 something and he's like 20 something. And Vagnner Rocha is probably around 200 lb maybe less and like 42 or something. I know he's my age more or less. So big size disadvantage, big weight disadvantage. Nonetheless, Vagner came out on top. And I didn't get to see the whole match. I I tuned in late. I saw like the later half of it, but uh Vagner seemed like he just wore him out cuz at the end he was just kind of ragdolling Luke around and able to pass and just take him down pretty much at will. Very impressive victory. Luke's a really tough customer. a amazing job by by Vagner to be able to still be a dog in the game, you know, and it it just shows that I feel like having the stamina and the ability to push pace is super important. A lot of people like to sleep on cardio and think, "Oh, you know, you're just technical enough. That's that's all you need." And that's not true, right? somebody who's a good tactician and uh and I believe Vagner is. He's a smart dude. He's been in the game for a long time. He's seen lots of tricks. He's played lots of tricks. So, I'm sure he went in there thinking, uh, I want to get this big boy tired so that I can work him when he's fatigued because he has a lot of confidence in his conditioning. He's been in a lot of wars. He knows what it takes. Whereas Luke is still relatively young or not relatively, he is young, but as speaking in competition terms, uh he probably doesn't have nearly the amount of experience that Vagner has. So Vagner could have dragged him to the deep waters that would put him into trouble, which it clearly did. So congrats to him. And then there was Max Himenez versus Big Dan, which is again another uh Clash of Titans, right? These are two enormous people. I'm not sure how big Max is, but he looks like although Big Dan's taller and more limby, Max looks a lot more girthy, right? So, Max might be heavier. I'm not sure who's heavier, but either way, it's probably good that they were fighting, which is another thing that was pretty interesting. They were fighting in a pit, right? So rather than have a cage or a ring or you know where people are going out of bounds, the karate combat uses a pit. So basically there's like uh it's elevated and then it slopes at an angle and then it's fought there. I think this is a very interesting take. I'm not sure how that will play out over time as far as if it seems it would be a lot more difficult to get someone out of bounds because it's a pretty steep incline. So, you would really have to want to run up it to to get out of bounds and it's not just a steep drop off. There's like another layered mat. So, it would be it would be very difficult to have a ring out in that situation. And I did see a few occasions like uh both Vagner and Max, they used that incline to pass guard like they would like circle around it while they were like chest to chest to go to like a north south type position, right? So it does have some uh unique ring play if you will just like the wall the cage does in MMA. And I think from a spectator point of view, if you're in the stands, as long as they're high enough to have the clearance or so you can actually see in because that's the other problem, seeing from a spectator point of view, if you're in the floor, you can't see anything. So obviously everything has to be elevated. But assuming if it is, you should have a very good view angle. You don't have to worry about looking through a cage or through ring ropes. U so that might be good. And especially for grappling, I hate when referees have to get in there and pull people back in and do restarts. It creates all Yeah, I know about restarts going wrong. All right, so it's better if there's no restart at all. It's just continuous action. So, I'm definitely there for that. Uh, but I got sidetracked a little bit. Max Himenez ended up winning that match against Big Dan. Pretty dominant fashion as well. I'm not sure what happened to Big Dan. At a certain point at the end of the match, he was grabbing his knee. He was limping out. I couldn't see anything in particular where like this guy never went for a leg lock or anything like that. But they're two big guys. They were both in the beginning doing like uchimas to each other. Big Dan hit him with one and then he I think he got him with one back. At a certain point, Big Dan pulled guard. It just never really got off his back and Max was able to pressure from the top and worked pass a bunch of times. Uh, no real strong submission attempts, but it was just a lot of top positional control. Not the funnest match to watch, being honest. Uh, but a big win, pun intended, for him, Maxi Menace. And, uh, finally, the last notable, Helena Cravar. She's the teenage sensation. Well, I think now she's like 17 or 16, but not a surprise. She ended up winning with another. I think it was a triangle armbar, if my memory serves. But another dominant performance. I mean, that girl is getting so much experience so early in. I can't imagine like what, five, 10 years from now, she's just going to be an absolute terror on the mats. So, uh, congrats to her. Let's move on to my point of the day here. And on this one, I want to touch on something that I've talked about many times, but I feel it's warranted to bring it up again just in case you're a new viewer or perhaps you need a reminder, which is basics are the most powerful weapons in your arsenal. Right? A lot of times people think that they need very complex or advanced techniques in order to beat tough opponents. And I would counter that you're much better off focusing on basic techniques, very simple things, but getting very good at them. If we just look at some of the matches I was talking about in the MMA side of things, right, with uh Shinyoki and Gary Tonin, those are two reneg choke wins, right? These are very simple moves. Like reneg choke is probably the easiest move someone could master because it's very basic. you know, you cross your arms over, you finish, right? It's not complicated. It's the fact that it is simple is what makes it very powerful, right? The way you have to think about it is a basic move is so effective that I could show it to anybody and they could start using it effectively right away. Now, they might not be great at it, but they could still finish, right? Whereas a move that's complicated or advanced is has a lot of moving parts. So somebody who is limited in their experience and knowledge won't be able to do it. They just can't do it right. That would be like let's say doing like a dead orchard for example. Like if you don't have the flexibility or the knowhow and understand all the different moves you're combined together, you probably won't even be able to do it right. It's not that you do it poorly, you just can't do it, right? You don't have the knowledge or the skill set yet that you have to develop that. But a basic move everybody can do. So what that means is that a basic move could be executed successfully even with 50% skill level, right? Which in most things we would consider that that's a failing grade, right? Like you're below 60, you're you failed. But with a rear naked choke, even if you only understand 50% of the move, you can still hit it, right? And you can still win. Whereas if you have like inverted rolling plat an advanced move, right? Not complicated, but advanced. But there's definitely a few moving parts and you have to roll for it literally. Um, so if you had 50% of that, you're not hitting that move. It's you're not going to be able to catch it. Like when you roll, it's going to fall apart, right? Uh, you probably need at least 75 80% to be able to just to catch and and finish, right? The point I'm making here is that most people stop learning a move or working on a move once they're able to successfully hit it. Right? For example, to master a complicated move, like I said, like I literally graded it, you needed 25% more skill or understanding to be able to execute, let's say, that rolling inverted um plata, right? which means it's going to take you more time to learn it. But once you're able to actually use it, you might say, "Oh, I'm good. I got it." And you might not continue working on the skill anymore. You just might have it checked off a list saying like, "Oh, I was able to hit this a few times in training. Now it works." So imagine when you have a a move that's basic like a guillotine choke for example, and you hit it a couple times, maybe in your first time training, you're like, "I got it." and you stop working on it, you're leaving another 50% potentially of skill, knowledge, of expertise that could, excuse me, that could be gained from that move, but you already wrote it off like you got it because you were able to tap someone out with it. That's where there's a lot of missing ground where if you went from a 50% understanding of a guillotine choke to a 70% to a 80 90 right and approaching 100 your ability to finish with that guilt choke would be ridiculous right and it would become almost unstoppable to the average person. That is the type of skill and investment of time that I believe is worth more than learning other moves. Right? That is what I have done with my understanding of the kimora. Right? I poured everything into it where I feel I'm somewhere in the 90 plus percent range of applying kimoras. Right? Now I'm not going to say 100. I know I'm not 100. Right? And that's generally an impossible number. But somewhere in that 9000 range, I'm there, right? Which is what makes me so effective with that move. And I've dedicated a lot of time. I still am learning stuff and trying new things with the Kimura to this day, right? Whereas there's somebody like Roger Gracie, and I don't do the ghee, so I don't really work it too much, but you know, the collar choke, the cross choke, right? he is probably somewhere in the high 90s with that technique because uh people that I've talked to Dell who's been able to train with him and compete with him and other people you know like Lovado and they all say like the same thing that his you know he has a mastery of those basics and again a collar cross choke is a very basic uh choke but he's got it at such a high level that if he's able to get those grips you're dead right you're done it's over similar to having someone like Marcela Garcia on your back, you know, like man, it's it's almost a wrap, right? Like you can pretty much, you know, call it a day if he's behind you because he's going to get you with that choke, right? Or like having Dean Listister put you in a leg lock and, you know, there all these type of people who have mastered a particular position, it's difficult to come back from because they've spent so much time in it. But basic moves I feel have the most they're the lowest hanging fruit because like I said most people understand how to do them and they can do them successfully. So they stop doing it right there. What I would urge you to do is instead keep going in right like don't just stop being able to successfully hit it. Keep learning details about the move so that you become extremely effective with it. Whereas just even a small catch becomes fatal. Right. What would I consider basic moves? Armbar, guilt choke, reneg choke, triangle choke, kimora. Those are five, right? And these are, you know, when we if you look through those five, those are things that you could expect to learn in your first week or so of training, right? They I'm not saying that's a definitive list. I'm sure we can throw more depending on your definition of what basic is, but at the very least, you know, if we're talking about arm bar, triangle choke, guilding choke, rear naked choke, and kimora, um these are moves that can be explained pretty easily and people can hit right away, right? Uh but if you went into those moves and worked on them further like an arm bar and figured out, okay, what else besides the hip extension and controlling the wrist? How do I control the wrist? How does that affect how the arm bar? What if I put the arm towards one side instead of the middle or the other side? Or instead of going down the groin, I go on the side of the hip or I go on the other side of the hip, right? Or where do I cross my legs? Do I not cross my legs? Do I figure for my legs? There's a lot of little little ways that you can alter, you know, how our armbar could be applied. The basic principle we get is we're hyperextending the elbow. So, we need some elevation at the underneath the elbow and then we need to control the wrist, right? And we need some way of keeping the rest of his body down. But there's many ways that we can execute that. And when you understand which levers are more powerful than the other, right? Then you can make the move more effective. Like I know the new wave guys now are very big on like the I forget they always like using the Japanese terms, but basically they do like triangle on the near side shoulder uh versus bringing the legs across the head and body, right? The traditional way that you would have seen like Hoist Gracie doing in the UFC one, right? whereas now they're essentially triangling the near shoulder here and they they find that that's more effective. And there's different reasons why, right? Because a lot of people forget that if this shoulder can move up and elevate, I take away your ability to raise my elbow as much. Right? Again, if I go a little bit sideways here, if I'm flat on the ground here, the moment your hips move my elbow up, it's a done deal. But if my shoulder starts to pop up here like this, now I'm raising the my elbow higher off the ground. And you have to pull back my wrist more uh in order to get contact with your hips underneath my elbow. So now rather when you pull my arm back rather than or my wrist rather, rather than getting my elbow off the ground, you first have to get my shoulder fully in extension, right? where it's fully pulled back. Only then now can you get to the elbow, right? Whereas when they do that little uh shoulder knot or whatnot, triangle on top of the shoulder, they're pinning the shoulder immediately. So the shoulder can't raise. So now it goes all into the elbow, right? So that's an understanding of the armar mechanics that allow them to make the move more effective. Is the other way effective? Of course, we've seen like hundreds and thousands of arm bars being applied in MMA and jiu-jitsu, but it doesn't mean that's the most effective way, right? But you're only going to get that if you keep working on the move and practicing it. So rather than just accept what was given to you or what was first taught to you, right? And this could be any technique, not just a basic, but I'm just saying there's a lot more. It's a lot easier to get gold from those basics, right? uh since they're so effective that even if you halfass it, it still works. It's a good place to start working on mastery, right? Anyhow, so what I was saying was if you stop accepting what was first given to you as the gold standard and nothing to be improved, look further. Get a magnifying glass and try to find small details. Break down the move like, okay, why is this armbar effective? Like it does it matter where I grab on the lower arm to control and pull the wrist back, right? Like maybe, you know, tucking under my shoulder is better for me versus just controlling the wrist or maybe I should be grabbing the thumb so they can't turn their wrist, right? You have to look at all these little variables. And again, I know some people like, "Ah, David, that type of stuff hurts my head." like, well, if you want to be a great fighter, a very skilled martial artist, and have a full understanding of the the techniques that you're using, you're going to have to scratch your head a little bit. All right? Uh, and this works great, especially if you have a partner who's also interested in being really good and expanding their understanding of the move. And another way of figuring these things out for yourself if you struggle just on your own to think about how can I make a move more effective and you're like ah I don't know either get somebody new and teach them the move or pretend that you're going to have to teach the move to somebody and write down like how you would explain it like you're giving a lecture so to speak because what you're going to find is that there's a lot of things that you know on the subconscious level and then there are things you know on the conscious level and when you have to teach you're going to be forced to dig out some of that subconscious knowledge right I know for me and you can ask anybody who teaches on a regular basis they learn a lot more about the move as they teach it because a lot of things you just do naturally because you've seen it and you mimic it but you didn't really consciously register it as an important detail of the technique I used to teach a kimura that was called the sevenpoint kimora which then became a eight-point kimura and which is currently a 9-point kimora right like I keep uncovering little details that I didn't I was doing the whole time but I didn't really recognize it as a a you know a substantial factor in the technique and by emphasizing it now it becomes even more powerful right so when you are forced to teach people things or not say forced but when you do teach people things you're going to be forced to uncover more details because they are since they've never seen it they're they're not going to have that subconscious understanding. So, when they do a move, it's going to go wrong. And then you're going to be, "Oh, well, when I do it, this elbow is here." And you're like, "Oh, that is an important detail." All right. I didn't even recognize it. I was just always doing it that way. I learned ways of doing takedowns by watching myself in competition. There used to be this takedown, or not used to, it still exists. I called this the sliding double leg where I took down Jeff Monson with this. I took down quite a few guys who are really good grapplers. And I always thought in my head I was just doing a double leg, but when I watched the videos, I realized this wasn't a regular double leg because he was standing with a it would have been a left lead, right? And I was standing with a right lead. So, traditionally, that's not an angle you would shoot a double leg on, right? Because we're we're opposing leads, if you will. So that's more of a head inside single leg that you would shoot if you were going to just shoot from a dead stance, right? Or from the without adjusting their weight or whatnot. But what I was doing, I was shooting like I was going into a headside single leg, right? So my I was making heel toe knee on my right side outside of his left lead. And then rather than try to turn and cut the corner, put my head on the inside, I just slid all the way through and my head would end up popping up on the outside and I would end up in a double leg. But what made this tricky was normally if I shoot a head inside single leg, you're going to sprawl, right? And the moment that you sprawl, now your body's on top of my head and you squash me. But since I was shooting past them, they would sprawl and my head would land on the outside. So I would always get a strong angle to to cut the corner and get to their back. And that's how I ended up taking everybody down off that the that sliding double diverted them and made them sprawl and sprawl the wrong direction so that I would get an easy takedown. I never knew that until I actually watched the tapes, right? And then once I started studying the tape, oh, this is what I'm doing, right? And I don't know where I learned it, how I did it. It was an accident, but it was just something that happened by accident, right? they are, you know, just naturally. But it was only when I would review the tape that I started to see this trend like, man, my shots were all sliding doubles and and this is like a a move I was never taught, right? There's also a reason why my brother and I always filmed our competition was to study ourselves and to study our opponents. And sometimes you might think, why would I have to study myself? There's a reason. There are things that you're doing that you don't know you're doing, right? to the point that if you're really serious, you film yourself in training because there's going to be things that you're doing that you don't recognize that you're doing, right? And your coach can spot it out, but you're not going to be able to remember it or even be cognizant that you did something like that, right? So, even just sparring at the gym, put like your phone on the side, film, and when you want to rest, you know, between sessions or whatnot, you watch that instead. Instead of watching some TV show, watch yourself training and see what you're doing, right? uh you're going to be able to pick up things and correct mistakes or recognize opportunities and be able to improve your game. And all this comes back to the point which is if you focus on the basics and become exceptional at them. And while most of my conversation was talking about submissions, this is true of everything. Sweeps, takedowns, strikes, right? Instead of doing spinning back fist and jumping, you know, sidekicks and all that, if you work on the basic round kick or the jab, but you get exceptional at it, you're going to be a lot more dangerous as a striker and a lot more effective versus working lots of funky stuff, right? If you're working on the basic head inside single leg or the double leg versus, you know, a three-step takedown sequence, you know, it's going to be a lot easier and a lot more effective and a better use of your time because ultimately at the end of the day, we're going to be limited by time, right? We you only have a certain shelf life. Although the guys nowadays are pushing past the 40 barrier and still being very successful, I'm not imagining people are going to be successful until late 40s, 50s, right? I just think there's going to be I hope to be proven wrong though, but I think at a certain point you're as a world-class athlete, you're going to start to fall off a bit, right? So, we need to be wise with our use of time. And if you're focusing on learning as many techniques as possible, I feel you're wasting your time. It is much better to have a few techniques and basic techniques are the easiest to learn. and I feel they have the most leverage to gain from them. Right? If there's anything you're getting from this this long-winded conversation is that the basics have the most opportunity. Right? That's not to say that advanced techniques don't work, but the advanced techniques I feel rely on a higher level of understanding the move with a lower yield. Whereas basic techniques have a lower level of understanding and a much higher yield. So why would I pick something that's complicated when I could pick something that's simple? Personally for me, it doesn't make sense. I would rather just do all basics. You know, I've done a lot of work with Kimoras. Obviously, I've done a good amount of work with arm bars because they go coincide with each other so well. Um, guilt chokes have put a good amount of work in. triangle choke is probably one of the chokes I haven't put as much time in. Although I do have um I do understand what I believe at a good level the how to apply triangle chokes and what makes them tick. But for my particular style and that my anatomy with the way my legs are is just trickier, right? The flexibility is an important part and I haven't developed enough yet. I've been working on it though. I've been doing my yoga. I've been trying to open up my hips more so I can catch them. But not being a long limbmed guy is definitely going to factor in that technique. So, uh, but I still know how to do them, but particularly side triangles, which work well with kimora traps and all that. And then rear naked chokes. Uh, an area I want to get stronger at. I typically I'm not very good at back control because again because of the triangle situation I don't have a great body triangle. It's very hard for me to lock it up and without a body triangle on high level guys. It's pretty tricky to keep him in there. And when you see like one of the better guys I know attacking the back is actually Luke. um his body triangle is so ridiculously tight and he's able to glue his hips and his torso so well to you. Whereas most people who need to control the back have to have a seat belt or at least one arm under while they're fishing with the other hand, he can use both his hands. He doesn't need any upper body control to keep you in the back, which makes it so much easier for him because he can just literally rip with both hands and dig to under the chin to get a choke. uh whereas most people have to at least have one type of upper body control and fish with one hand before they can make both hands to connect and finish the choke. So there's still more that I have and that's probably like one of the the next areas that I need to focus on as far as my my jiu-jitsu game is is getting really nasty with naked chokes and uh that's where I would probably be spending more time in personally, right? If I'm going to master a basic, that would be the one that I'm going to do. So, you have to figure out what would be a easy one to to jump into. But like I said, those are good starts, right? Armbar, triangle choke, guilting choke, reneura. Pick one of those, get really good at it, and then keep going as much as you can and try to use it as as much as possible. And those are just submissions. We can also do that with takedowns. Pick takedowns that are basic, right? uh pick sweeps that are basic, guard passes that are basic, and try to gain as much uh results for them as you can. That's my take on it. Hope you guys get some value from that. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll see you on the next podcast.