This is my 2 minute YouTube video about how to think of the 3 main levels of BJJ and how to win them. If you do all these steps perfectly, you never need to learn anything else. Of course, no one does them perfectly, so you’ll need to understand a lot more about BJJ before you can be good at it. That being said, I often think that BJJ has too many options.

When I watched the Dricus Du Plessus vs Khamzat Chimaev fight, I thought I was going to have a new technique to work to dominate from side control: the crucifix. But the next day when we went to workshop in the gym, I realized that top crucifix is not a very good position to hold. Here is my take on how to escape. Now, there are variations where top player can lean deeper, lean more with their head on the mat, etc.

I learned this takedown back in the early 1990s off a bootleg John Smith Sunkist Kids VHS tape. It got John Smith 6 world championships and two Olympic gold medals and it got me a state placement in Ohio. Even though I’m 47 years old now, I still use it to take down most opponents from standing, including our local NCAA all American wrestler. The down side is that even though this looks simple, it’s a high skill level move.

This is my take on Marcelo Garcia’s hip switch pass. At least, when I visited Marcelo’s gym in NYC, the hip switch pass was a big part of the game there. As I’ve been playing with it, especially on bigger guys, I’ve noticed a couple entries to leg attacks that will either give a submission or, by avoiding the submission you get the pass. The basic idea is: Flatten their hips to the mat with your body.

I’m traveling in Italy right now with no access to make videos. Hopefully I’ll be able to drop in to train in Rome this week. But in the meantime, I figured I’d get this concept down in written form. I’ve come to believe that front headlock position is the second most dominant position in BJJ. Just look at what Makhachev did to Moicano - completely passed up taking side control to go for a D’Arce choke from front headlock.

When I was 14 or 15 I went to a wrestling camp hosted by 1960 Olympic Wrestling Gold Medalist Doug Blubaugh. Doug was quite a character and I’ll mention a little bit about him in order to honor his memory now that he’s gone. When I went there he was an old man with diabetes. But the gristle that won him a gold medal was still visible. He would joke about how he had both narcolepsy and cataplexy and so if he sat down while teaching he would fall asleep and if he laughed while teaching he would fall asleep.

This is my standard mount escape: comb my hair to protect my neck get my hip free and turn to my side control a hand and scoop out the back or entangle the legs This day I was fortunate to have Nathan, our 6'6" 270 lbs giant as a demonstration partner. I don’t know if you can tell from the video, but it’s clear to me he is getting bored of the demonstration and just wants to submit me, so some of this really is me trying to escape his mount before he chokes me.

I got caught with this submission about 15 years ago and it’s stuck with me. To my mind it’s the most annoying way to get subbed in BJJ just because of the emotional roller coaster from “I took their back I rule” to “wtf was that cheap $*#!” Some folks like to build games around doing weird submissions from inferior positions. I know a couple of black belts who love to give up their back so they can try to catch arm-bars.

When I was a white belt I thought the key to having a good guard game was to lock on and hold guard no matter what. Now that I’m a black belt I’ve come to believe that making your guard impassible is less about locking down and more about knowing when and how to bail out when you feel your guard is getting passed. If you can prevent your opponent from securing a scoring position (side control, knee on belly, north/south, mount, back take), then you can make your guard impassible.

This is my take on quarter guard. Quarter guard has become one of my go-to guards lately. I feel like it’s on a continuum of my bottom game: Stay on your side, control a hand So, of course if you play quarter guard flat on your back, it’s really more like a 3/4 mount position. Which is bad. However, from my side, it gives me easy access to deep half and/or transitioning to half guard, both of which are fine positions to be in: