Flashback Friday: Rafa Mendes vs Justin Rader (Pan 2012)

This is a great match that exemplifies Rafa Mendes when he is at his best.  It's not often that you see Justin Rader get dominated but Rafa simply has his number.  Some of the techniques you see on the Mendes Bros. training site are executed in this match.

Commentary:  (Skip to the bottom for the video)

The match starts with both competitors working from their preferred positions.  Rafa pulls open guard and Rader looks to establish his own grips and pass.  Rafa transitions quickly to De La Riva guard, controls the hooked pant sleeve with a solid grip and stands up into a single leg passing immediately a leg drag position, then into side mount.  This worked well for Rafa for a couple reasons:  1. Rader's posture was not favorable & 2. Rader's trapped leg completely extended and disturbed his base.

Rafa wastes little time and appears to work Rader's lapel free from the side mount, feeds it under his head and attempts to set up a baseball bat choke.  Rader does an excellent job of staying mobile underneath and forces Rafa to let go.  

When the action restarts Rafa moves to knee on belly, then switches sides (as seen on his training site).  He controls the far arm with a figure four and as Rader defends awkwardly by standing up. Rafa transitions brilliantly into a back mount dragging Rader to the ground.  Still threatening with the arm control he slides his leg over and attacks the armbar.  In typical fashion Rader manages to defend very well and escape from deep waters like few others can do.

Action restarts in the center at 2:11; Rafa grabs the same side lapel and shoots a well-timed triangle. The timing Rafa uses to lure him in and bump Rader's elbow inward enough to lock in the triangle is worth noting here.  Very smooth technique.  Rader crouches down trying to survive the choke but it's in too deep.  Rafa forces the tap at the 3:00 mark.  It's not often you see Rader get taken apart like this and simply a HL reel match for Mendes.  

Link for mobile users:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qUJ1qPpEnc

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.