We’re looking at a vintage video featuring two massive names in jiu-jitsu who are today both part of the Ultimate Fighting Championship: Demian Maia and Ronaldo ‘Jacare’ De Souza. The match is 10 minutes long, maybe a tad bit too much for the attention span of us modern people. We’ll just be going over the highlights.
Guard Jump
Judo is great for BJJ. However, there’s a simple way to shut down the stand up game and that is the guard pull or jump. You instantly nullify and kill the takedown game. Mr. Maia, probably aware of Jacare’s background, does so multiple times during the match.
Single leg
I have to say I’ve rarely seen the single leg used so effectively. Shooting in is great, but the guard pull to single leg seems to be even more effective. Mr. Maia uses this a couple of times during the match. All you’ve got to do is go shin to shin, over-hook a leg and scoot your butt out to the side while moving laterally with your head pushing into your opponent’s solar plexus. He takes the back off of this move and that’s what gets him the win.
Judo
Mr. Jacare on the other hand looks to trip, throw and pass. He makes several attempts at fireman’s carry, seoi-nage all of which fail. However, during the first single leg attempt he catches a beautiful corner reversal throw, the sumi-gaeshi. Most of his passes appear to be variations of the over-under pass combined with the backstep.
X-Guard
Besides the single-leg, another thing that Mr. Maia goes for and uses to great effect is the X-Guard. He elevates the inside hooks to stand up and transition to a single leg which yet again paves the way to Mr. De Souza’s back. The match was a point win for Mr. Maia.
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