BTG 81 - Countering over Defending

Hello and welcome to another episode of Breaking the Guard. I'm your host, David Avalon, and let's go over some of the news items today. One of them I wanted to cover is the Who's Number One 23 card, okay, which is going to be on Flow Grappling, and that's on May 10th. uh some interesting matchups that they have going on. They've switched up the some of the matches just because I believe some people got injured. But uh main event, Nicholas Maragali versus Vagnner Roachcha. It's an interesting matchup. On paper, it looks like it should be pretty straightforward victory for Maragali. Uh however, you can't sleep on the dog that that is Rocha. He's been in the game for a really long time. I remember him competing in grappling tournaments I was hosting back like in 1999 2000 early era. So I mean he's been in for a really long time. Very seasoned competitor. Probably one of the guys with the most experience in no grappling really when I come to think of it. Uh and he's shown he's still sharp. He beat u Margali's teammate uh Luke um not too long ago pretty soundly too. So he understands strategy and tactics. So I'm imagining he's not going to go into a straight firefight with Maragali. I think that would be a a easy win. But if he was able to play more tactically and try to use the rule set to win a decision or you know even you know take the back or whatnot he can definitely make something like that happen. So interesting matchup. I definitely lean on Margali of course. Uh but again it depends on how Roachcha approaches the match but I know he's a smart competitor. So, I think he'll play tactically and try to drag this out uh to give himself the best odds of winning. Now, the next match also very interesting is uh it was supposed to be Mika Gaval versus Tommy Langacher. Mika got injured, so now Andrew Tacket jumps in. So, he just won ACC West Coast Trials in great fashion and now he's getting a nice match up with Tommy Langacher. That should be a very interesting matchup. I'm going to go for the for tacket on that one. He's been on fire. Uh and uh I really like his style. Uh next matchup also really nice. Philip Pepena and Rafael Lovado Jr. This is interesting. uh you would have you know like Lovado and Ragnarocha I think would be a great age appropriate matchup and you might have even flipped having a Penn Margali right uh but Philippa Pen Lovato is interesting Lovato you know didn't look too great against Craig but then again I felt like the leg lock game has always been an issue for Lovato and uh Craig obviously is a master of it so I think that created that mismatch Uh, with Penna, I don't see leg locks being that much of a threat, although he certainly can do them. It'll be interesting to see if he just just tries to repeat the game plan or is he going to play more of his game. Um, I definitely think Penna has the edge here, of course. But again, it depends on how Lovado approaches this as well. But uh I think Filipe Pena is, you know, even though he's hasn't looked super great recently, he's a very tough competitor. Uh and he's only looked, you know, mediocre when you put him against someone like Gordon Ryan, who's a superstar. The next matchup, another good matchup, JT Torres, Nikki Ryan. Uh we haven't seen much from JT in a while. At least I haven't. Uh so, but JT has tremendous pressure and pacing, very good uh passing and good sweeps. Uh going against Nicki Ryan is a very interesting matchup. I would definitely like to see that one. U again, who I favor on this one? I'll probably say JT. Uh he's a very good competitor as well. seasoned. Uh Nikki had some, you know, setbacks in recent matches just being outsized in some of them or just being beat tactically. Uh again, JT is another guy who plays smart. So, uh I think it will it will definitely lean towards him. Uh we have a couple more match matchups. Jasmine Roachchub is Emily Ferrer. I don't know too much about Emily. Uh, so I can't really say too much about that match. Jasmine obviously coming off her ACC trials win. Looks to be in good position. And then the final match, Diego Rose. Uh, Diego Race and Shea Monte. I don't know much about Sheay either, so I can't really comment that. Diego is legit, so I would probably lean on him. But this is a pretty solid who's number one card. A lot of top uh competitors here. particularly those last four matches to me are all very exciting matchups that I definitely want to check out. In other grappling news, we had both of the Rotulla brothers compete at 1FC and against much better competition. And both of them ended up hitting arm and side rear naked chokes or really uh behind a backmounted dart stroke which is phenomenal. Like I can't imagine the high it must be to win with your brother at that level uh with the same submission. And it's clearly a submission that works best for the builds. Again, usually dart strokes are great for guys with long arms. Uh me being kind of like a T-Rex, it's always struggle to get a dar. If I got lock of dar on you is usually you're it's a death sentence because that means it's super tight. But uh uh this setup that they both used was very clever if you go and watch and basically uh they got to to the back mount and one of them hit a beautiful switch into a hip bump. Love to see it. That ended up becoming a mount and then I think it's transitioned to the back mount from there. But basically from the back, the opponent was somewhat defending the choke by going high, you know, and when they went high here, they just use this as the the under hook arm to then cinch the dar from here. Uh, again, very clever. It's not new, but still not very well used. And I think a lot of people also don't understand. I've seen people try to do this when the guy's arm is down and like that won't work right cuz you don't have to choke on this side. Uh so like the key uh that I think at least for me made that a lot more obvious of how that works well is that the arm has to be high. So when they start locking up that dar boom now it's flush and now you got that shoulder to neck connection that is going to help facilitate the choke. But they both hit it beautifully. Uh something to definitely keep your eye out if you're going against a a long armed bandit. You know, I was trying it the other day. Uh and I couldn't make the grip. This is the arms. I I could get the figure four, but I couldn't get the hand behind the head because I just had no room. I might have to work on it a little bit more to see if I can get there because that's a really nice setup, you know, very clever. So, hats off to both of those brothers and congrats. Now one thing I wanted to talk about is that while defending things or evading uh threats is good, it is always better to counter. Right? This should be intuitive, especially if you come from striking where if I slip a jab or, you know, I slip across, it's great. But if that's all I did, I only prevented damage and maybe ex made my opponent expend themselves. What you really want to be able to do is to counter, right? where if I slip a jab and then throw a right cross or, you know, slip the jab and then throw a rear uppercut at the same time. Now, not only am I getting out of the way, I'm also doing damage. And usually when you counter, the damage is much more because in this case, he's moving forward to the strike and then I'm evading and then coming back into him. So now we're creating a strong collision, right? where for striking you're going to create the most damage in those types of situations versus if I throw a strike while the guy's backing away, you know, it doesn't really do as much because he's already moving with the the blow, right? Uh but this applies to grappling as well. If I'm just focusing on defending, let's say, leg locks, that's okay, right? Like it's better than not defending them. But what would be better is to be able to counter the leg locks uh with a very offensive approach. Now the the issue usually is that countering is more difficult. It requires one knowing the right counter to use and the technique. And then two there's going to be a timing issue, right? Like you can't just counter somebody at will, right? You need the setup, right? And the setup is them doing the move to you. So then you could counter it at the right time. Again, striking is a little easier to visualize. You know, if a guy throws a jab and I counter too late, that's basically going to mean either I got hit because I didn't evade the punch in time or when I slipped, I took too long to fire, right? And then he already recovered from his missed strike. So, usually it's a combination of uh having the right counter to use and having the timing and also hand eye coordination, being able to react quick enough to be able to get in and out uh with your counter. Uh, but a lot of times I feel like people if you focus on a very defensive based game, you're only preserving yourself and doing minimal damage to your opponent. I say minimal because if they waste a lot of energy trying to attack you and let's say we're doing a wrestling counter game where I'm just or defensive game where I'm just sprawling just defending a lot of takedowns is going to net me a stamina win right I use less energy defending a shot than a guy will use trying to take the shot right so you in that sense you can do some damage right like if a guy just goes hard on the takedowns I'm just sprawling sprawling sprawling sprawling defend ing, he will wear himself out and then now I can win easier. But what's better than just defending in most cases is to be able to counter. Guy shoots a double leg, I hit him with a switch, boom, and I reverse him. Now I'm already in the positive position. Okay, but again, takes timing, takes good reactions, good technique. But if you invest I so you definitely have to invest time in defense and learning how to defend because it's not realistic to be able to counter every move, right? Just like I can't expect to slip and counter every jab, cross, or hook. It's just uh most of us don't have the type of speed and reaction time to be able to anticipate and read every strike coming in and not only to get out of the way, but be able to rip the counter uh immediately is tough. But so you need defense, right? But if you build enough reaction time and and that usually comes through training, right? Then I can have moments where I can rip counters, especially when I could see somebody develops a pattern, right? For example, again, I use striking because it's very easy to to visualize. If I get into a fight with somebody and we're, you know, sizing each other up and he starts throwing a jab at a regular tempo, then I know, okay, this is how he throws a jab. So, the first few jabs I might not slip. I might just block or parry, you know, catch. And then, okay, now I got his timing. And maybe he has a tell. He steps into every jab he throws. So, I can read that. Now, when he slips, when he when he strikes, rather, I can go into a slip and then counter with a with a rear uppercut or counter with a right cross left hook. And I I once I got his timing down, that becomes easier to counter. But those first few, I'm going to be cautious because maybe he's going jab right immediately or jab lead hook. And if I if I didn't get a good read on it, I might be I might get caught while trying to do my counter, right? Because I haven't chosen the proper counter. So, uh you know, in MMA and grappling context is the same, right? I I might defend the first couple takedowns or defend the first couple submission holds and then once I get a good read, then I go into counter mode, right? Where now I can counter viciously because I know that I've read his pattern. And particularly when you have tape on an opponent, this gives you some a little more advanced intel or I could have counters in advance, right? Like for example, I was telling you if I was Lovado and I'm going against Craig Jones, I'm watching those early matches. Okay, this guy is going to use a Zguard and he's going to, you know, go into an inversion to get into Ashie or to a saddle, right? So, I have to have a counter game set up for that, you know, which a lot of people now are doing the the ashy bolos or whatnot, but uh that comes through training and drilling and putting yourself in these situations and reacting accordingly, right? Uh so countering doesn't normally happen magically like it's just like everything else you have to prepare and good ways of doing this for drilling is having your opponent go if you the one thing I would say that again striking context uh easy to understand if I expect to build hi coordination about slipping a jab and countering with a right cross and just having my opponent throw at the same tempo like we're just standing in front of each other and he's just doing this one. You're not doing anything here. This is a a useless drill. And you could see people do this all the time, especially when you're uh feeding pads sometime and you get into a rhythm. You pop and then you throw and then they slip and they throw the right and you won't even throw the strike sometimes and your partner's already doing the slip because he's anticipated it, right? That's not good because we're trying to build reaction time. So, you shouldn't be throwing at the same tempo from the same direction all the time. You want each read to be organic, right? But it doesn't happen if you're you're drilling like a robot that's programmed. Okay, every 5 seconds throw this left jab, you know, because then we're patterning machines. Your partner is then going to learn, okay, I don't I could even have my eyes closed. I just wait 5 seconds and then I slip and it's it's going to happen. So, you need to be moving around, shifting, and changing the location of the punches so that your partner keeps getting a positive read. So, if you're doing a grappling, it's got to be kind of the same where rather than just, okay, start from a standing position, I'm going to go into this ashi and then it takes about 10 seconds and we're going to repeat this pattern. It's got to be a little more organic, right? if you want to get that read where maybe he doesn't always go for the move that you're trying to counter. So, you have to defend appropriately and then he'll just whip it out of nowhere and that's when you have to be able to react, right? If you're trying to build reaction time, uh that's how it's going to be done. So, it can't be just a flat monotonous drill session. It has to be a little bit more organic so that again your brain is firing, your eyes are focused to to read the appropriate technique so that you can get the the right counter for it. So that's my take anyways like you know a lot of people say uh you know defense is important. It is. But I think at a higher level, countering is more important because uh at a higher level, if you just defend, it's not going to be enough. And people rarely give themselves a lot of room for mistakes, right? So being able to counter is crucial because it's going to give you the edge you're going to need to get a upper hand on an opponent, right? by utilizing their force against them, which is again just such a martial arts principle. That's how you're going to be able to get an edge uh rather than just blindly shooting in or trying to set yourself up into an entry. Could be harder because like I said, that guy could be defensive and nullify all your offense. But if you could take advantage of one of his offensive moves to make it your offensive opportunity, now he did the setup for you. You have initiative, right? versus me trying to set up and then attack, I lose initiative because I had to set up the move myself, right? But if he sets up the move by attacking me first, now I have initiative and normally you have a good upper hand on being able to finish that technique. So that's my take on it. Hopefully you guys uh learned something from that. Again, just like every time, if you like this, uh, leave some comments, share them with a friend, and, uh, hopefully I'll see you guys on the next