You've been real helpful in answering my training questions, I hope you could help me with 2 more
you say your training works gi and no gi. for guard breaking in gi, i like to grab the belt/gi pants, however in no gi, my instructor doesn't like his students grabbing any clothing what so ever. without the handle of his pants, i'm a bit lost. any tips?
i have your back escapes dvd and it's great material. i use a lot of the rear naked choke defenses, but since one of the guys i train with started using a marcello garcia harness type of attack, I've had a hard time escaping. since you've studied the harness extensively, have you come up with any counters to it (ex: how do i break that grip...not the gable grip, but the garcia style one)? as always, thanks in advance
Here's a tip- stop grabbing the gi top, pants, or belt when you roll. :)
You are relying on grip to maintain the position of your arms. If you do not rely on grip, then you must rely on friction. Think of it like using a 2x4 to wedge a door shut. You put one end of that piece wood under the door knob and the other end is angled to the ground. The door cannot open because of the friction between the piece of wood and the ground. Your body is the door, your arm is the piece of wood, your opponent's body is the ground.
If you want to know how to escape when someone is on your back doing Garcia style of control, then it is best that you first learn how to control. Once you learn how to control, escaping is nothing more than doing the opposite of that. When I first trained with Garcia and I tried to do my basic escapes, I did not know how to counter his control and was not anywhere close to escaping. The reason was that I had no idea what he was doing to me. After studying his style of back control for a while, I now have a better understanding of what he is doing and, therefore, automatically have a much better understanding of escaping and all I am doing are variations of basic escapes.
Garcia's back control is a system. It is not a single technique. Therefore, a system cannot be countered or defeated by a single technique.
If you want to learn how to control and also how to counter and escape, the absolute best study material is to watch the match between Renzo and Marcelo at ADCC 2003. That piece of footage is gold.
wow..thank you! that first tip about the wood to floor friction is on some deep, shaolin metaphor type shit! i will be studying that footage asap, thanks a ton!
If you want to learn about back control, this footage surpasses any instructional if you are willing to take the time to study it. In fact, I learned more from studying this than my privates with Garcia himself.