This is definitely the most times I’ve seen them used in a competition match at such a high level. Of course it helped that the match was 20 minutes long and JT Torres is such a good guard passer.
At 3:32, Rory used an elbow push to hip roll in response to a stack pass.
The commentators referred to it as the ‘Turkish get-up escape’ , which is an apt name.
At 4:24, a sit up escape.
As a bonus, around 11:55, Rory does an interesting mount escape where he put his hands on JT’s hips and popped his legs up in the air repeatedly until he got his guard back. We’ve seen this before from Garry Tonon.
At 13:40, elbow push to counter a stack pass, in the top right of the video.
At 17:49, sit up escape to hip roll escape.
These are a great example of how effective these escapes are, to be used against a great top player like Torres.
In its classical form, it starts from knee-shield half guard, aka, Z-guard or 93 guard. It’s a great alternative for situations where you can’t play the common underhook half guard game for whatever reason.
I would approach it like this: Whenever you have your knee shield guard and you feel that trying for the underhook is a bad idea, cross grab the sleeve and attempt something like a scissor sweep, back and to the side of the sleeve you’re grabbing.
See 2:15 of this clip:
Mendes Bros ‘bottom 393 knee shield back roll sweep’
If the opponent doesn’t want to get scissor-swept, then they have to push back in towards you. That’s when you have the momentum to perform the Shaolin sweep in the opposite direction. So we’re setting up a double attack: if they don’t want to get scissor swept, they have to drive towards you and to one side. If they don’t want to get Shaolin swept, they have to drop their weight back and to the other side. The defense for one sets up the other.
This sweep is also great to use in a situation where you’re in a reverse scarf hold style half guard, like this:
You can use essentially the same move, but you don’t have the double attack because the scissor sweep isn’t there. In this case, you need to focus more on pulling your knees to your chest to off balance the opponent to your north direction. See the James Foster clip below for an example of this.
More Shaolin sweep clips:
Here is Shaolin himself demonstrating it (‘Shaolin teaches the ‘Shaolin Sweep’ from Half Guard’):
‘Shaolin sweep half guard’ by Bruno Dias:
‘Half guard back roll sweep’ by Gerry Young:
‘The Roll Over Sweep from Half Guard with James Foster’
‘Amanda Loewen back roll sweep from half guard’
https://www.facebook.com/AmandaLoewenSBG/videos/687099881367830/
‘roll over shoulder sweep from half guard’ by Carnage BJJ
‘Yuri Simoes Belt Grip Backroll Sweep from Half Guard | BJJ LIBRARY’
Defending against the leg on shoulder stacking smash pass
Skip ahead to about 18:00 in this video, ‘TWIBJJ Episode 98 with Roy Harris Part 2 of 2 – Roy’s favorite guard pass’ for a demonstration of the pass:
The first counter that you might think of is to go for a triangle, but against those who are good at this pass, it’s a bad idea. The pass is deliberately designed to bait people to try to throw up a triangle. When the bottom guy shoots his hips up in the air for a triangle, it makes it easier for the passer to lift the bottom guy’s hips up and stack him on his neck.
I would focus on a few other things.
Stop the arm under the leg from grabbing your collar or shoulder
If you look at this still image, you can see that the top guy’s left hand is grabbing the bottom guy’s shoulder. This helps lock him on top and can also lead to a stacking choke, demonstrated here by Simon Hayes:
In order to prevent that, on the bottom, I would immediately grab that wrist and elbow and extend my arms to push it away from me.
Get the back of your leg to their bicep instead of their shoulder
The pass is done by getting the bottom guy’s calf on the top guy’s shoulder and using the top guy’s back and hip extension through his core(center-line) to apply pressure. If you can get your calf out to the bicep, he can’t apply nearly as much pressure because his bicep is far to the side of his core.
If you compare the images below, Cobrinha on the left has his leg on the bicep, which is better for resisting smashes than the right picture, where the leg is on the shoulder.
Scoot away to the north
The goal of the stacker is to put your knees over your nose. If you can scoot your shoulders north, that moves your nose farther away from your knees. Ralek Gracie demonstrates that in this clip, ‘Ralek Gracie – Get The Triangle Everytime – BJJ Weekly Issue #099’:
Before you’re stacked too hard, set up an elbow push escape
Once you’re really stacked with your knees over your nose, life is miserable. There’s a certain point at which you can tell that the passer is about to stack you. In that case, deliberately allow your leg to pass over their head and give up side control, and immediately set up the elbow push escape. Marcelo Garcia demonstrates that in this clip, ‘MG in Action – Elbow Push to Fireman’s Carry’:
Another take on this topic from Ryron Gracie involves doing a back roll and guard pull. Note that he has to do it BEFORE he is stacked too badly. ‘How to deal with the stack with Ryron Gracie’:
In this video by Inverted Gear, ‘Defending the single stack pass’, the guy in the gray gi shows a lot of the elements that I mentioned:
Bernardo Faria vs Leandro Lo Pan Ams 2015 Lapel choke from side control with your own lapel
This choke is one of my favorites. You can see the finish (blurrily) in this clip: Leandro Lo vs Bernardo Faria Pan AMs 2015 Open Finals:
Here’s a breakdown from Renato Tavares, “Bernardo Faria x Leandro Lo Pan Ams Choke”. At 1:30, Tavares brings up an important point of moving your own shoulder south onto their neck, instead of the chin, to make that side tighter.
Here’s a breakdown of the choke from Professor Buck, “How Bernardo Faria finished Leandro Lo”.
Bjj AfterForty has a variation called it the “ninja roll choke” which involves doing a roll:
Marcos Barros of Gracia Barra shows a very similar move here, ‘
BJJ Technique – Learn How to Apply 2 Lapel Chokes From Side Mount Control’:
Ricardo Cavalcanti shows a similar choke here, with a different roll, ‘
Jiu Jitsu Techniques – How To Use Your Own Lapel For Lapel Choke’:
Update: Some time after I originally posted this, Bernardo Faria himself released a video explaining the choke. Interestingly, in his version, he uses both hands for the finish.
‘Pan Am Scarf Choke with both hands’ by Bernardo Faria: https://player.vimeo.com/video/156126898
I like to set this choke up myself from reverse scarf hold, the reason being that when you’re on top of reverse scarf hold, the opponent can’t see what you’re doing, so they can’t see your lapel coming over their neck until it’s too late. The reason this choke works so well is that once you throw your own lapel near the opponent’s neck, they have 2 choices.
They can ignore it, in which case you do the choke.
They can try to grab it or otherwise block it, but if they do that, then they’re opening their arms up for attack.
So once you put your own lapel near their neck, it’s like you have 3 arms (your two arms, plus your lapel) attacking their neck, and they can only defend with their two arms.
CarnageBJJ shows an example of a similar attack from reverse scarf hold here:
‘Daily BJJ: Near-Side Lapel Gi Choke from Side Control’
and
‘Exclusive Jiu-Jitsu – Lapel Choke from the Side Control – Essence Of Jiu-Jitsu’
Here are some thoughts on Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and self defense.
Why is BJJ useful for self defense? Is BJJ better than such-and-such martial art?
Check out this clip of Matt Thornton on Aliveness in martial arts:
Essentially, any martial art in which you train with aliveness (real resistance and sparring), will develop great attributes for fighting or self-defense. Any martial art which does not involve a lot of live training is a waste of time, even if they focus more on self-defense. Are there differences in the effectiveness of different martial arts when trained with aliveness? Yes, probably, but I don’t think the difference is so much that it should be a big deal. Instead of spending so much time arguing on the Internet, everyone would be better of spending that time training.
If we agree that aliveness is the key ingredient, then grappling is a great choice because sparring regularly in grappling is low impact and more approachable for most people than sparring in say, boxing or Muay Thai.
Is sport BJJ moving too far away from old-school self-defense based BJJ?
I think the main benefit of training is to build attributes, rather than technique. When you train, you build balance, sensitivity, timing, strength, cardio, fear control, breath control, and things of that nature. So I wouldn’t worry overly much if you’re practicing berimbolos or things like that which are less applicable for a fight. The technique isn’t as important as the attributes, and you’re still getting a lot of benefit out of it.
In BJJ circles, the common Gracie basics self-defense curriculum is designed to defend against common attacks from an unskilled opponent, like a wide haymaker swing, or a standing side headlock, that no one with skills would ever do. And this is typically practiced with little or no live resistance. I don’t necessarily consider this to be effective self-defense training.
Of course, if your main goal is self-defense, then you should train with strikes sometimes, and also with weapons and multiple opponents. But the training should be alive, with real and unpredictable resistance. Ideally it would also incorporate scenario training, with decision making and verbal de-escalation. A great source for training like this is Craig Douglas, aka SouthNarc of Shivworks.
What about awareness and verbal agility for self-defense?
This kind of stuff is really under-rated in some circles. Avoiding the fight, or at least avoiding getting sucker-punched, is arguably of much more importance than being good in a fight.
