what is a core memory from when you were a blue belt something interesting funny or traumatic that has always stuck with you I mean honesty is a lot lot that I can think about first time I rolled with Craig Jones he got really close to breaking my arm that was pretty core memory meeting like henzo Gracie and John danher for the first time that was pretty awesome I also got the worst Pink Guy the world has to offer as a blue belt that was pretty memorable I mean success wise like I won I won like
50 or 60 matches at the world's highest level as a blue belt I remember the first year of training jitu I competed as much as possible and I told it up to like 50 or 60 matches I mean in addition as a blue belt I think I'm pretty sure I'm the first blue belt to ever make it to ADCC World Championship so let alone you know make it to the finals where I se silver medaled one technique that every blue belt needs to know when I pull guard against a standing opponent one of my favorite
things I love to do and I've been doing it since I started j- Jitsu from white belt to blue belt all the way through is the wrestle up so I have an opponent in front of me I look to wrestle up on top of them first of all I have to distinguish which Le which leg is the lead leg so my opponent gives me a staggered stance and I understand that this is a lead leg so this is a preferable leg of wrestling up once I get close enough I can use either my inside or
outside hand to reach behind the knee one cue for me for attacking the wrestle up is if I'm close enough to touch him I'll take advantage of it and touch him behind the knee and start pulling and wrestling up so my opponent gives me a stagger stance I take a hand behind the knee I pull the knee towards me in term typically my opponent starts to pull away I start wrestling up and attacking things like single legs or quiring their hips but in the higher level of Jiu-Jitsu a lot of guys look to sprawl so
we have to have a good reaction from the wrestle up to a sprawl so in this technique I'm going to be combining a wrestle up and then a reaction to do when an opponent sprawls on me so opponent's in front of me I reach behind the knee start wrestling up as I do so he get begins to sprawl on me and gets very heavy from here what I'll do is I'll start backing out of the sprawl by uh get off me real quick so as my opponent sprawls on me uh I acquire his weight I
face two thumbs down and I tuck my head in between the shoulders as I back out what this does is makes me a smaller Target so I go from being very wide attacking the wrestling and as he sprawls on me I go thumbs down shoulders tuck head tuck between the shoulders and I back out this creates a smaller Target which in turn makes it harder for my opponent to hold on to me so as I back out I'll be reaching for a grip behind the armpit which allow me to drag and get behind my opponent
so opponent I my opponent is standing I'm seated I reach for behind the leg start wrestling up he sprawls on me as he sprawls I go thumbs down heading between the shoulders and start backing out as I do so I'll take a hand towards the armpit and I use this armpit grip to drag and get behind my opponent where I can start breaking him down further and attacking him in various ways go again so if you're blue belt on through use this wrestle up technique and if your opponent sprawls on you become a smaller Target
grip the armpit and get behind your opponent establish the lead leg hand behind the knee pull the knee towards me as he pulls away I start wrestling up as I build height opponent opponent reacts with a wizard from here I grab a grip around the hip and I step nice and deep I glue my ear to the chest and I use this grip around the waist and my ear glue to the chest to set them down backwards right down towards the mat once again when it comes to competing typically want to hurt your opponent when
it comes to training you don't want to hurt your training partner so I'm going to show you guys the proper way to put your opponent down with some speed athleticism ultimately safely so when I'm wrestling up grip the knee start building height attacking the single leg as I get higher he starts attacking this wizard I'm able to reach the hip and glue my ear to the chest Circle a little bit what makes this work is me stepping nice and deep and allowing my upper body to pull my opponent down towards the mat so I have
the waist I step behind the secondary leg I glue my ear to the chest and I used my leg almost as a shelf to sit him over so it's supposed to just like kind of throwing him down to the mat stepping nice and deep gluing my ear to the chest and I use the grip on the hips as long as my ear as well as my ear being glued to the chest to sit him down towards the mat so I go to the restle up position I reach towards the hips lock my hands as I
step nice and deep towards the secondary leg I'm almost in a squatted position and I use my ear glue to the chest to sit them down over the leg right down towards the mat that's a preferable way of sitting them down sometimes it sounds loud cuz they smack the mat and they like to break fall other times they scramble out so use this wrest position to put your opponent down towards the mat but the blue BT days were were very interesting to me cuz I was such so I was so green like I didn't I
barely knew the rules um all I knew was I had better wrestling than all these guys I had to stay on top bottom was bad you know I only had one option when it came to grappling and that was to wrestle and get on top of these guys you know nowadays have many different ways of winning which is um which is great it allows me to focus and develop game plans do you have any techniques that you learned that blue belt that you still use today I definitely have techniques that I learned at blue belt
that I still use today how to wrestle up I started wrestling up you know when I was a blue belt and uh continue to to progress it and and use it in today's competitions all the defensive escapes like my armar defenses that you guys have seen put on display and you see J Rod use it in his world class competition as well I lowed a lot a lot of Defense as a blue belt cuz my goal my goal was like all right if I can just be come super super difficult to control and submit then
I'll eventually be able to implement my offense so I was really hyper focused on defensive uh defensive grappling and then eventually later on in my career I got better at uh being offensive the defenses that I have now are much better now but I started devel developing them as a blue belt foot sweeps foot sweeping foot swept one of the best ways in my opinion to hit a foot sweep is when an underhook when an opponent acquires an underhook from here it's all about turning my opponent's upper body against their unweighted foot so I can
really use this overhook as an anchor when sweeping my opponent typically I'll step away from the foot and get a foot to foot connection and then start sweeping my opponent so opponent gets under hook I pull him towards me and then boom get a foot to foot connection while sweeping him down the down towards the mat so my secondary hand secondary hand as I step and pull I have a foot to foot connection along with this overhook I also like to push my opponent's shoulder and what really helps a good helps land a decent foot
sweep is creating an angle twisting their shoulders so they can be swept down towards the mat so opponent gets under hook time to foot sweep let's take a a shuffle step towards the right get foot the foot connection push the shoulder on down towards the mat and boom we land a nice smooth foot sweep so again foot sweeping and opponent we're both standing I have a overhook and as I get foot to foot using a shovel step and pushing the shoulder again misaligning the shoulder from the hips allowing them to fall down towards the mat
foot sweep if I had to give my blue belt the blue belt Nikki Rod one piece of advice work more leg lock rounds specific leg lock rounds so I did like almost I really didn't do too many when I was a blue belt so I would do a ton of leg La rounds like a week before ADCC I was doing like a turtle round with Gordon and I got like to the side and I reached back to to turn around face him and he hit me with a twister and then when I got to the
ADCC finals con DTE had my back and I had the opportunity to reach around and face him but I was like I was thinking I was like I I I don't want to get twisted and submitted in in competition you know what I mean so then I didn't do it but but then with like 30 seconds left in the match I finally reached around I was like whatever I got to get out and sent it and ended up facing him so if I would have done that you know a little bit earlier uh could have
shifted the tides of that uh 2019 ADCC World Championship Finals so um to Nicki Rod as a blue belt work more leg locks definitely and then don't let the forget about the twister thing right that would have uh been a little bit better if you're Blue Bell make sure you guys are subscribed to the B team's YouTube channel we and our sem meta if you guys want to get good bio instructionals but subscribe to the B team subeta we do voice voice uh breakdowns live rolling breakdowns voiceovers uh techniques and uh it's just a great
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