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Coffee & Chokes with 3x World Champion Claudia do Val

A world traveler and animal lover as well as three-time World champion, Claudia do Val opens up on what it feels like to win a gold medal at the world championships, and how bullying in earlier life affected her self-esteem and influenced how she promotes herself as an internationally-recognized athlete.

Jul 23, 2019, Pro

Grappling Bulletin: When Should You Get Excited About Breakout Black Belts?

Jul 22, 2019, Pro

Keenan Cornelius: "No-Gi Is Imploding Because Of Leg Locks And Wrestling"

Controversial to some, a thoughtful analysis to others. Keenan Cornelius offered his opinion on the development of the no-gi grappling metagame when he joined us in the studio earlier this year. Hywel Teague: So ADCC is a big one, and man we get a lot of questions in here about, kind of about the leg lock game and stuff like that. Because you're known for being a technician in jiu-jitsu. You're a technical innovator, let's say. That's kind of one of the labels that I think- Keenan Cornelius: Eloquently put, if I do say so myself. And also accurate. Hywel Teague: Any time anybody thinks of Keenan, they think of the various tricks that you come up with, the various new things that you're unveiling in competition. Your work in teaching jiu-jitsu in the seminars. But, we were talking about this a little earlier, is that no-gi, it's really diverging from the gi game nowadays. Now how do you see that happening? Reid Connell: It feels like the no-gi game is exploding, like a lot of people are doing it- Keenan Cornelius: It's imploding. Reid Connell: Imploding? Keenan Cornelius: Yeah, because there's significant ... Can we all just agree that there's significantly less techniques in no-gi, than in the gi. Reid Connell: Significantly less? Keenan Cornelius: Yes. Will Safford: I would agree. There are less options. Keenan Cornelius: There are less things that you can do. Hywel Teague: It's not less technical, but there are less- Keenan Cornelius: It is less technical. 100%. No-gi is a much more athletic game. This is coming from someone ... I have more accolades no-gi than I do gi. If you look at my stats ... Hywel Teague: Let's pull 'em up. Keenan Cornelius: Look at the stats. Hywel Teague: No-Gi world champion. Keenan Cornelius: I'm a no-gi world champion and I've like two times silver ADCC and two time bronze ADCC. So I've been in it for a while. So I know the game, and I'm not saying this form a biased perspective. I do enjoy no-gi, or I did enjoy no-gi. Hywel Teague: Not anymore? Keenan Cornelius: Not as much anymore. I'm not a huge fan of no-gi. But there is less to do in no-gi because there are no grips. This is the fact that you cannot make a grip on the gi. And there are so many chokes that are just gone. How many chokes are there with the gi in jiu-jitsu? You could argue there's probably a thousand. Like if you really were trying to find every single one. Variations included. Keenan Cornelius: So just there, that's a thousand less techniques. Point made. Reid Connell: Let's wrap it up. Hywel Teague: But then you say that no-gi is imploding. And you don't like it anymore, so what's happening? Keenan Cornelius: It's imploding in the sense that it's becoming ... Like all these people who trained jiu-jitsu in the gi and no-gi, they were sort of training no-gi how they would've trained gi, which is like the classic, I pass your guard, you play guard try and sweep me, and then try and pass my guard. It's changed to where the guard pass and guard play aspect has kind of been removed by leg locks, so now the goal is, leg-lock, so it's like, be on top. If you're on bottom, leg-lock. If you're on top, avoid leg-lock and disengage. And then maybe try and pass. But there's just not a lot, there's not as much passing happening in competition. I think at the lower levels, yes, but I'm speaking from like the black belt competitive- Hywel Teague: Top of the tree. Keenan Cornelius: The meta game is different at each level. Like purple and blue bet you can get away with a lot of stuff that doesn't work at black belt. But at black belt you don't really see a lot of guard passes anymore from the high level guys. Whereas in the gi, IBJJF competitions, you see the full gambit of positions, from guard play, people get passed, people get their backs taken, people get choked, arm-barred, leg-locked, everything's there. But in the no-gi, it seems like it's kind of imploding, that's why I say imploding, the game was out here. It's becoming more dense and smaller around leg-locks and take downs. Hywel Teague: Leg-Locks and wrestling. We have a comment here, basically. So it's catch wrestling? Keenan Cornelius: Yeah, it's become submission ... And it was always, ADCC had always been like this, but the IBJJF rules from transferring into no-gi, sort of encouraged a more passing guard playing style. Which I really like because I like playing guard. But as the overall level and understanding of passing and being on top progresses, the inherent advantage of being on top is becoming more prevalent. So being on top of someone, you have gravity on your side. And that's a huge, huge advantage. And people are getting much better at taking advantage of that advantage. Keenan Cornelius: So people who like to play guard, guard is actually becoming less effective in no-gi, to the point where you can't really play an effective guard in the sense of sweeping someone and getting on top with it. The guards that are effective now are guards that set up leg locks or set up take downs. So like 90% of transitions you see in no-gi are a leg-lock position to sweep or a sweep attempt into like a single leg or double leg. Something like that. Hywel Teague: And you see a lot of people basically ignoring the guard pass to go to the back as well. And this is both gi and no-gi. But we saw it much more, the recent no-gi Worlds that, you can force a guy from top, he'll give the back, you get the back. Or now using the leg entanglements to open that up as well, right? Keenan Cornelius: Yes. Yeah, the leg entanglements, it's becoming ... It's just shifted a lot. The Danaher guys take full credit for that. They've really shown what you can do by attacking someone's legs. Gordon made an awesome transition to use that to sweep at the last no-gi Worlds as well. But even he I think will start to struggle if you were to try to continue playing guard against all these guys. Just because it's too easy to avoid the ... It's easy to avoid the engagement when you're on top without getting penalized. Or just like attempting ... You back out from the danger. And then you re-engage. As the guy struggles to set something up again. You can just disengage completely. So you get- Hywel Teague: And we saw that. Keenan Cornelius: You get a free reset every few seconds if you want. Without it being penalized. Hywel Teague: And Yuri figured that out pretty quickly, right? Keenan Cornelius: Yeah, so in their second match, Yuri did much better against the sweep attacks and wasn't really, Gordon wasn't really able to mount an offense as much in the second match. That has to be just from the learning curve that he experienced from the first match. Like Gordon wasn't performing worse. It was just he became aware of the techniques. Keenan Cornelius: That's why I prefer the gi because I think it has more long term ... The effectiveness of all positions.

Jul 16, 2019

The New Guard: Roberto Jimenez

Jul 10, 2019

Grappling Bulletin: Jiu-Jitsu vs Wrestling & 2 Rear Naked Strangles in MMA

Jul 15, 2019, Pro

Fix My Game With Vagner Rocha: Float Passes, Wrestling, & General Nastiness

Fix My Game With Vagner Rocha: Float Passing, Kimuras, Wrestling, & General Nastin

Mar 5, 2019, Pro

Gordon Ryan Guard Passing Part 2: Establishing Top and Passing the Legs

Your opponent's guard is a dangerous place to be: unless you know how to correctly connect to the upper body and get past the legs. Gordon Ryan shows you how.

Feb 13, 2019, Pro

Gordon Ryan Guard Passing Part 1: Entering Seated Guard

Gordon Ryan's well-developed guard passing game starts with entering your opponent's guard in a strong position to pass.

Feb 13, 2019, Pro

Royal Camp: Jiu-Jitsu Techniques From Top European Black Belts

Aug 2, 2018

Nick Rodriguez: How I'm Training To Become A World Champion

Jul 2, 2019

Keys To Victory: Vagner's Gritty Win Over Celso at KASAI Super Series

Jul 6, 2019, Pro

Vagner's Tactics Divide Opinion, Canuto-Leon Ends In Controversy

Jul 6, 2019

Liera Jr. Locks Up American National Gold With Two Submissions

Jun 28, 2019

Baleia Breakdown: Renato Canuto's Keys To KASAI Success

Renato Canuto is a two-time KASAI Pro tournament champion and the most successful competitor to appear on the KASAI stage. The Checkmat black belt has one of the most entertaining styles in our sport today– but don’t let his acrobatics and showmanship fool you. Renato has a very strategic and effective style– there is a method to his madness. Here are my 5 Keys to Renato Canuto’s success at KASAI. Unorthodox Movements (Footwork & Attacks) If you have watched him compete throughout his KASAI career you will recognize Renato’s unique style which, when standing, incorporates a peculiar combination of footwork combined with attacks. Renato constantly moves side to side, in and out, disguising his attacks which vary in the stand-up between takedowns, flying submission attempts or counter attacks. Although he never officially studied the brazilian art of Capoeira, Renato uses his similar footwork based on the same ginga, or creative footwork rhythm, to constantly confuse and hide his attacks. Left, right, back and forth, with level changes in between. You never know what he is going to do next. Wrestling (Defensive & Offensive) From snatch single legs to blast doubles to beautiful hip toss counters, Renato’s aggressive stand-up and takedown game has been a staple part of his success. Not afraid to engage first he– more often than not– attacks first in his matches to get ahead on points in KASAI’s six-minute matches. This sets up the Canuto gameplan, where he follows up with passes, scrambles and sets up submission attacks. If his opponent decides to play on bottom willingly, Renato uses his next most popular tool to score. Acrobatics (Guard Passing cartwheels) If you have seen any of Canuto’s highlight videos you will have seen a number of high-flying cartwheel guard passes and other acrobatic movements. Timed correctly, Renato uses these to eliminate the nuances of the contemporary guard play which could slow him down, and allows him direct access to superior positions to dominate. And more than that… makes his matches some of the most entertaining in KASAI history. Submission Defense With and impressive KASAI Pro record of 8-1-2 Renato not only has an outstanding winning record but has never lost via submission at KASAI. His submission defense is some of the best in the game, where he uses quick and precise counters to defend against some of our sport’s best submission hunters– especially those pesky leg lock guys. Renato seems to stuff, flow and counter out of submissions, appearing to always be three steps ahead AND is even able to use the leg lock counters as openings to take the back of his opponents. Experience Having competed in almost every KASAI event Renato has the most experience under these rules anybody else. KASAI rules are different in that there are no advantages, but submission attacks earn points. This keeps the pace fast and furious, which is where Renato thrives. Some say the best competitors are not only masters of their techniques, but also can manage and understand the points, the clock and what the judges are thinking. IF and when Renato is even close to getting a draw, he knows exactly how to turn up the intensity and take his opponents into deep waters. And THAT is what makes Renato Canuto so successful.

Jul 2, 2019, Pro

Never Miss A Moment With The New FloSports App

Jun 13, 2019

Analysis: Celso & Vagner Promise The Most Brutal Match at KASAI

Jun 25, 2019, Pro

Kaynan Duarte The Conquerer, The Most Versatile Black Belt In The World?

Jun 27, 2019, Pro

Travis Stevens Tomoe Nage Technique Breakdown

Judo Olympian Travis Stevens breaks down the tomoe nage technique, looking at examples such as Wellington 'Megaton' Dias.

May 15, 2018, Pro

Travis Stevens Ippon Seoi Nage Technique Breakdown

The ippon seoi nage is one of the most classic judo techniques, and we occasionally see it in jiu-jitsu, too. Travis Stevens analyzes a few examples.

May 16, 2018, Pro

JT Torres DLR Techniques

JT Torres Techniques

Feb 13, 2018

Learn Omoplata Details From One Of The Best!

Alexandre Pimentel gives away some key details for maintaining and finishing the omoplata.

Jan 9, 2019, Pro

Techniques That Work: Deblass Shows Simple Sweep

Tom DeBlass takes a minute ahead of his Fight to Win Pro 72 main event to show a technique he hit at the 2017 ADCC World Championships!

Apr 26, 2018

Road to Gold: Iasmim & Rui Dominate the Blue Belt Absolute

May 31, 2019

7 Must-Watch Purple Belt Athletes at 2019 Worlds

May 30, 2019, Pro

2019 Road To Worlds: ZR Tream Training Report & HL

May 15, 2019, Pro