The Miyao Brothers are COMING!

Unless you've been living under a rock there has been much chatter on social media groups about the two phenomenal Japanese/Brazilian twins finally making their move to the United States.  A new gym in New York City known as Unity Jiu-Jitsu is very close to opening their academy.  From what I have gathered Murilo Santana will be running the gym and of course the bolo twins of Joao and Paulo Miyao will be training and possibly teaching to some degree.  It sounds like the intent of this move is for them to re-focus their training in the Big Apple and capture some World Championships at the Black Belt level.  They have spent a great deal of training during their time in Jiu-Jitsu under the banner of Cicero Costha which is also well known for developing the talents of Leandro Lo.




Pretty exciting stuff right?!  If you don't know where these talented brothers come from then take a minute to watch this excellent piece by BJJ Hacks which focuses on training at Cicero Costha gym.  I know quite a few local competitors that have recently visited the Sao Paulo gym for some training. It's a different world training in Brazil I can promise you that much.

Link for mobile users:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20040Wr2ng0 )

Murilo Santana vs Lucas Leite (Nogi Worlds 2013)

Link for mobile users:

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1cZt8hWMZ0&feature=youtu.be)

New York City is just packed with some talented schools you could takes weeks of vacation to visit all of them.  Off the top of my head there is Marcelo Garcia Academy, Renzo Gracie, Vitor Shaolin, and the addition of Unity Jiu-Jitsu is just amazing as there are all fairly close in proximity.  There are many other schools already in the area...you just can't go wrong picking a school or selecting a few to drop-in for some training.  I could easily exhaust my vacation days for 2015 trying any of these schools and not get to nearly all of them.  

Links:

https://unityjiujitsu.com/

https://www.facebook.com/unitybjj/info?tab=overview

http://www.bjjheroes.com/bjj-fighters/murilo-santana-facts-and-bio

http://bjjhacks.com/

Flashback Friday: Paulo Miyao 2013 Pan Jiu-Jitsu Match

Here is a match with Paulo Miyao from the 2013 IBJJF Pan Jiu-Jitsu tournament earlier this year. Unfortunately I don't know his opponent's name but it does appear to be an Absolute match.

Miyao threatens early with a leg-lasso spider/De la Riva hook which eventually allows him to attack with Berimbolo as you would expect.  His opponent does a good job to prevent the back-take by taking a seat himself and controlling Miyao's grips (note: Miyao's non-DLR leg).

At the 3:00 mark Miyao attacks with an Omoplata which was the beginning of the end.

His opponent attempts to posture out of the shoulder lock at 3:47.  Note how Miyao compromises his posture (at 3:56) and bring him back to the floor.

Miyao does an excellent job of keeping the pressure on as his opponent finally tries to somersault roll and Miyao obliges him.  He allows him to feel safe, remove the shoulder lock, then takes his back for all his efforts at 4:26.

Interestingly Miyao appears to finish the match with a modified sleeve/collar choke rather than the typical lapel choke from the back.

Flashback Friday: Rafa Mendes vs Bruno Malfacine (WP 2011)

This is an interesting match up that we are rarely treated to.  Rafael Mendes (Atos) and Bruno Malfacine (Alliance) are a couple weight classes a part in IBJJF tournaments and the weight classes in this tournament are much wider pitting two of the best against each other.  This match took place at the World Pro 2011. 

The REAL Berimbolo

I started training BJJ back in February 2008.  Early on in my Jiu-Jitsu consciousness it didn't take long for me to realize the greatness of Marcelo Garcia.  Other BJJ superstars stood out as I was a pretty green grappler but with the emergence of Budovideos and their coverage of IBJJF events such as the Mundials and Pan I realized there were some other GREAT competitors out there as well.  A couple brothers known as Rafael & Gui Mendes garnered a lot of attention during the broadcast of the events and grappling forums.  A lot of naysayers criticized their use of the 50/50 guard to win tough matches by way of advantages at times.  I will agree that  some of these matches aren't the most fun to watch but it's difficult to argue with results.  I found that many high level guys were putting out instructional DVDs, doing lots of seminars, and/or just uploading content to YouTube.

While there was some content out there on the Mendes Bros I always felt like there wasn't nearly as much as there could be. These guys know how to win and recently launched their own online training website.  Having been a member of MGinAction a while back I found the Mendes Bros site to be very similar from a user standpoint.  The functionality of the website is familiar and feels as if it was designed by the same people.  I signed up during the late summer and the amount of content was not great. I was a bit disappointed to find that all the De La Riva and Reverse De La Riva guard stuff they have become famous for wasn't uploaded to the site....yet.  I allowed a month or two to lapse in my membership but recently renewed and was elated to find that they had finally released videos of the Berimbolo techniques and other guards.  Now there is a lot of debate as to whether or not they "created" the position.  I don't think they necessarily claim to have done so but to have "developed" techniques in this position.

For the last two years this position (Berimbolo) has been a hotly debated position or sweep in competition.  Some people love it and some hate it.  The bottom line is if you are under 185lbs and like to compete you should probably learn it or at least understand it enough to defend it.  The Mendes Bros have seemingly made the Berimbolo a phenomonom that competitors and gym rats have tried to duplicate.  Some have put out instructional vidoes on YouTube but I just never found most to clearly explain how to either maintain the position or properly knock an opponent down and begin to implement the sweep.  Because of this I've never really dedicated much training of my own to the sweep not fully understanding or buying into the technique.  With the recent instructional that the Mendes Bros have put out I have realized that a lot of little details have been missing that make sense to me.

Just for reference...this is all we had as a Berimbolo instructional for quite some time from Rafa:

The new and improved version:

Not only is the Berimbolo a sweep...it's more than that.  It's really a position that creates multiple ways to sweep or reverse your opponent.  I liken it to the X-guard position that provides various methods of reversal depending on your opponents reaction.  It's not always necessary to go inverted and take the back of your opponent.  There are various ways to reverse depending on the type of resistance you encounter.  This is shown here by Ari Farias in this recent video. Here he utilizes the leg drag position to pass and move into side control rather than going inverted and attempting to attack the back.  

I have found that many high level competitors have their preferred methods of gripping and/or sweeping their opponents.  It's really up to you to figure out what your preferred method is.  

In closing, I really can't give enough praise to the Mendes Bros online training website.  I have found the level of instruction and explanation to be the highest level stuff I've seen to date.  The manner in which Rafa and Gui break down techniques and explain why we do this and not that really works well for the way I learn Jiu-Jitsu.  I am a smaller grappler and find that a lot of the stuff they demonstrate works with the style of Jiu-Jitsu I like to use.  Even if you are not a small grappler (under 200lbs) you will find much of their content to be incredibly useful.  Simple techniques that only worked at the white belt level can be cleaned up and once again become useful or high percentage at the blue/purple belt level and above simply because of the way they manage execute the techniques.  If you have not tried out the site and enjoy studying Jiu-Jitsu I highly recommend you sign up for at least a month and see what you think.  For me, $25 is very cheap for the level of instruction you receive.  I have been implementing some of their techniques into my own game and find them to be useful as a teaching aid as well.  

https://www.mendesbros.com/

Berimbolos, Inverted Stuff, Blah Blah Blah!!!

In case you have been living under a rock, Berimbolo, Reverse De La Riva, basically anything inverted seems to have been the rage over the last year and currently in BJJ competitions.  BJJ is a constantly evolving sport and while some of these movements aren't necessarily new, the competition is also evolving and picking up these techniques.  The ability to find the techniques on YouTube and various DVDs is always growing so it's hard to not find it.  That said you are silly to not want to learn this so at the VERY LEAST you can recognize it and even better....avoid or defend against it.  I wouldn't say I'm building my game around it but since a large part of my game revolves around the 1/2 guard I think it's imperative to know how to attack from multiple angles and situations.  A lot of people I roll against will stand up in a combat base or simply stand up to try and open my 1/2 guard.  I have found that the "Terra Guard" or "Spiral Guard sweep" are very good options to counter this.

I have not spent much time working the Berimbolo and find a lot of variations on Youtube.  Unfortunately one of the best practitioners of this move, Rafael Mendes, has not made a good instructional of this.  I imagine he will at some point down the road.  Funny thing is he has been using this move for a while now.  I ran across some competition footage of him using it back in 2005.  Anywho, here is Rafa showing a version of Berimbolo that he has a lot of success with.



The last couple weeks we've been working some De La Riva options (not Berimbolo) and wanted to park this here as it's very similar to what JD's been showing us.  The only difference here is the opponent isn't nearly as broken down, you can't reach across, grab their back and roll them.  Rafa shows to break them down and expose their back which is a little different.

Not wanting to be completely defenseless in this position I found a nice Berimbolo counter that I'm going to start working into my training.  This works well on the ground once your opponent initiates the Berimbolo sweep.

This is an effective counter if your opponent is deep into the Berimbolo sweeping position while you are standing.