Today myself and a fellow bjj student had the pleasure of attending a submission wrestling seminar by Eddie Bravo.   If you are not familiar with him, he is a Jean Jacques Machado Black Belt who shocked the world by beating Royler Gracie in 2003 at the Abu Dhabi World Championships.  Eddie’s secret was that he had been training for years exclusively without the gi.  In those years he developed some very powerful guard techniques that did not depend on the gi.  He called this type of guard the “Rubber Guard”.

I have to say that Eddie was a real nice, down to earth kind of guy.  It is refreshing to find another in the jiu-jitsu community who is so willing to share what he knows.  I have been lucky to find this with guys like Dave Camarillo, Matt Thornton and now Eddie.

The seminar itself was only 2hrs, so it was a bit short, but we covered the cornerstone of his guard work - Mission Control.  We started with breaking posture and obtaining Mission Control and worked to a submission from there.  We also covered some other spots like “Chill Dog”, “Krackhead” and some other wacky ones I can’t remember.  The good news was that we covered so little that I can actually remember it (as opposed to most seminars), but I would love to have gotten into his half guard game since it is so good.

Some key points I remember were:
-always clinch tight in guard
-think about breaking posture all the time
-stay tight with all limbs
-armbar grips should be tight (ie. elbow to elbow)

It really makes you wonder about the gi controversy.  I will be sure to add some more no-gi training to my game.  I know if I ever went up against one of his students I’d be in real trouble - you know what that means?  I better learn this stuff pronto!

So if you ever have the change to train with Eddie, I highly recommend it.  He is a great teacher whose heart is in the right place.

See you on the mat.