Ep. 362: Submission Series: The Omoplata, feat. "Silver Fox" Karel Pravec

Speaker 1: Hey everybody, before we get started this week, I have huge news. She actually did it. We're pleased to announce that Beatrice Jin, top-ranked women's competitor in North America and long-time BJJ Mental Models premium community member, has published her first ever course with us, exclusive to BJJ Mental Models. It's called Stop Being Nice. It's a three-part audio series designed to solve real mindset problems that regular folks experience in Jiu-Jitsu. If you struggle to be aggressive and competitive in Jiu-Jitsu, you'll find the solutions here. If you're already a BJJ Mental Models premium subscriber, you've already got access. And if you are not, good news, you can get it now and get your first week free. Go to BJJ Mental Models.com and check it out today. Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to BJJ Mental Models episode 362. I'm Steve Kwan. BJJ Mental Models is your guide to a conceptual and intelligent Jiu-Jitsu approach. And I'm back again with a returning champ. It's been a while, but glad to have you on. I've got Carl Pravec, the Silver Fox on the line. Carl, my friend, how's it going? Speaker 2: Great. How are you doing, Steve? Good to talk to you again. Speaker 1: I am doing well. It has been a while since you've been on our main feed here. So I should ask, do you want to do a quick intro? I think most people probably know you by name and reputation, but just in case we got some newbies, maybe tell them who you are. Speaker 2: Okay. Um, Carl Pravec, I'm a fifth-degree black belt under Henzo Gracie. I've been training with Henzo ever since he moved to the US. I've, uh, generally speaking, I really haven't competed a whole lot in the last 10 years, but I used to compete sort of at the top-level tournaments into my mid-40s, did not enjoy it, but did get some nice medals and, uh, the last, uh, 15, 20 years, I've really focused on sort of more of technical development of of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. That's been my focus probably for the last 20 years. Speaker 1: Yeah, and that actually ties into what we wanted to talk about. So we had been going back and forth on social. There there were some messages talking about the Omoplata and and you had jumped in with some good tips on that. And that got me thinking, you know what? We have not done a technical conversation on this technique in a long time. This isn't the first time we've talked about it, but I think it's kind of cool to attack the same technique from multiple different angles. So you had some interesting concepts around the Omoplata. I'd love to maybe pick your brain and help unpack some of that and give people some tips to really figure out how to use this move effectively. It's a a super powerful move, challenging for beginners because it can be a little bit counterintuitive when you're a white belt compared to the other stuff you're learning, but I'll pass it over to you. What's your case for the Omoplata? How do you like to work that into Jiu-Jitsu? Speaker 2: Well, you know, it is one of the most underrated techniques in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And the reason it's underrated is because it rarely works for people. There is a lot of nuances and subtleties to it, but the reality is, if you put somebody into trouble in your guard, be it arm bar, be it, uh, you know, triangle or guillotine or some sort of a choke, the technique, you know, if they need to kind of leave something behind or or or give something up, the technique that they're most likely going to offer you is Omoplata because they feel probably the most confident to be able to escape that versus an arm bar versus a triangle. So the reality is at a, especially at the higher levels, you have constant opportunities to work your Omoplatas, but a lot of people have given up on it, which I think is is unfair. And but also it is not easy to get really good at, you know, you got the Omoplata and and there's a variety of them, but more importantly also beyond sort of just the Omoplata, there is a lot of different ways people respond to that threat. And you need to be able to sort of figure out, you know, your counters to their responses, to their defenses of it. And I think that's what makes it difficult, but it also makes it extremely intriguing and if you do get good at it, it is a great weapon. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I would agree. For me, out of all of the, I guess fundamental techniques you would call them, the Omoplata was kind of the last one that I developed. And I think that's probably most people's experience. They'll likely deal with the arm bar and the triangle and the cross collar choke first. And there's something I found more intuitive about those techniques because you're sort of attacking someone who's dead on to you. The Omoplata requires you to sort of turn your body at a 180-degree angle and that can be a weird counterintuitive movement for beginners. Also, as you mentioned, a lot of people get frustrated with the Omoplata because it's kind of hard to just make it work. I mean, a beginner can snap on a triangle and and pull it off or an arm bar and pull it off once they know a little bit, but the Omoplata, there's a lot of things that you need to really tighten up if you want to actually finish that technique. And that I think leads to people, as you said, getting frustrated with it, giving up on it and moving on to other things that are more immediately rewarding. And then that creates a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy because nobody's using this move, but I think it's highly underrated like you said. Speaker 2: I agree, 100%. It's, to be honest with you, I think especially at the high level, you know, I tend to train a lot with my high-level black belts and guys, you know, even at Henzo's before John and then a lot of a lot of the students moved out for support Rico and then Texas. I have a lot of opportunities because the high-level guys, they tend to sort of see the arm bars and the triangles coming on and like I said, when they get in trouble, they're going to be, here's an Omoplata and let's see what you could do with it. So you really do need to have a very good, not just Omoplata. So basically, you need to have a good setup, good technique when you're doing it, but also have a slew of of follow-ups to make sure you get something out of it. Speaker 1: So let's unpack that bit because that's where the Omoplata really shines, is the follow-ups. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: With many techniques, especially from the guard, you really need to think about what is my worst-case scenario if this doesn't work. So with things like the triangle or the arm bar from guard, one of the most common oopsies is if you screw it up, you're probably going to get stacked and then passed, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And that is a downside to those techniques. So it requires you to be very judicious in terms of how you use them. One of the things I love about the Omoplata, like you said, is it's not always about the submission. One of the most common outcomes from the Omoplata is the person defends and they wind up having to roll or something, and you wind up getting on top of them, which is a huge advantage. And that means that even if you don't get the submission, you still get something good. You still wind up on top. So even your plan B from the Omoplata is pretty darn good. And that's where I think it really shines over things like the arm bar or the triangle, is that plan B, if you don't get the submission, is still an amazing option. Speaker 2: That's exactly right. I think a lot of people, you know, when you have somebody in your guard and they're high level, it's extremely difficult to sweep them. I tend to use a threat of a submission as a way to sweep, which basically they sweep themselves. It becomes an very easy sweep rather than sort of trying to tie somebody up, you know, get the lapel and just kind of keep yanking back left and right, forward and backwards until you get a get a sweep. And I think, you know, that's that's an excellent point on Omoplata because a lot of times that's your sort of, if you have a good attack, and what do I mean by a good attack? What I mean by that is, first of all, you need to set it up properly. Usually, I don't try to attack an Omoplata when the guy's postured. When he's postured, he's going to be very difficult for they don't have to really do anything. They just kind of posture and pull their arm up. So I need their hands off the torso, at least the one I'm attacking, off my torso next to me, and break their posture. And then I basically try to attack with a triangle, which is, you know, it's a stronger weapon than than an Omoplata, but usually, if you have a decent attack, they just give you Omoplata feeling confident that not only worst-case scenario, they're going to be able to roll, but a lot of times they try to kind of helicopter over. And you got to make sure that that is not possible for them to do. The way to do that is to make sure that one, posture is broken. Two, you basically attack close to the elbow, not close to the shoulder. People are a lot stronger closer to the core. So if you attack a guy that's 230, I walk around 160 lbs. So if I try to attack Omoplata on a guy that's 230, and I attack close to the shoulder, it will fail because he doesn't really have to defend it in any sort of way that potentially exposes him to a sweep or sort of follow-up. But if I attack close to the elbow, I have a lot of good follow-ups there. The other thing is, you know, there's literally two types of Omoplatas besides all the variations and all the variations of, you know, how people defend and how you attack those, those variations and escapes. But basically, parallel Omoplata, which most of us are familiar with, and perpendicular. Interestingly enough, that defense to one, so basically, the defense, the the early stage defense against normal parallel Omoplata that most people know, is to posture up. Well, when they posture up, they're offering you a parallel a perpendicular Omoplata. And again, the way to sort of counter the perpendicular Omoplata is to bring the head back down, which puts you back into sort of the normal parallel Omoplata. So it's a very good sort of way to to attack their posture if you sort of start to make the move before you completely broke their posture and isolated their arm where there's no return, where the only best way for them to escape is to roll. But again, guys, when you start to look at Omoplata, also look at it as an excellent, your worst-case scenario should be a sweep. Speaker 1: Man, there's a lot to unpack in that. Um, I agree with you completely that the the true power of the Omoplata is its ability to work as a sweep. I mean, you can use things like arm bars and triangles as a sweep as well, but I find it's a a little bit more difficult to do so effectively. And especially if you're a Nogi person, you got to worry about a lot of slippage. The cool thing about the Omoplata and a lot of techniques like it is when you bend the person's arm like that, it gets way harder for them to slip it out, especially in Nogi, this can be a huge difference. I want to talk a little more about the two different families of Omoplatas that you described there. You talked about the parallel Omoplata where your body is basically lined up parallel to theirs. This is probably, I would guess, what most people were taught first. That is basically, they are in your guard, you turn your body at a 180-degree angle so that now you're kind of face, you're both sort of facing the same way, but you're parallel to them. Speaker 2: In direction. Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're parallel to them. That would be the parallel Omoplata. The perpendicular one is where you're kind of making a, you know, you're at a 90-degree angle with them. You're kind of making a T with your body combined with their body. And like you said, there's a lot of great sweeping options from there. Maybe describe a little bit more what the parallel and perpendicular Omoplatas are like and when you would use those guys. Speaker 2: So, a lot of times, I don't know if you're familiar with some of my sort of go-to guards. One of my go-to guards is split guard/Ude Garami. Basically, I do it differently from a lot of people where I primarily focus on having my feet on their hips because that puts allows me to control the distance much more effectively than kind of go-to clamp guard. Now, the once I get a good bite on split guard, literally, I don't care who you are. Your only way out is to literally just give me an Omoplata. And you basically give it to me because in order for you to save your elbow, you need to kind of turn hard away from me and bring your head down, forward and down. That saves your elbow, but now puts you into a risk of Omoplata, which is, you know, you're attacking the shoulder. So, what happens is when people sort of start to defend that initial split guard attack, once they feel it, they again, it's almost universal. They literally turn hard away, bring their head down, and I'm deep into Omoplata. What happens a lot of times, you know, especially guys that that are good and have, you know, decent decent strength, they realize they're prone and that their arm is very deep into a traditional parallel Omoplata. And what they try to do is posture up. When they posture up, I immediately sort of pivot back towards them and bring the outside leg underneath. It could be anything, whatever is exposed. So usually if they if the arm is exposed, I weave the outside leg under their armpit. If they're standing, it's even better. The best way to place it is underneath their leg, which is extremely, extremely tight. And worst-case scenario, if I can't kind of get under the arm or the leg, I go under the head. And what happens is the perpendicular Omoplata is actually far worse than the traditional one, especially if I can weave my outside leg back in under their leg. It becomes completely brutal and they cannot move. Speaker 1: Interesting. So how are you connecting your leg to their leg from the Omoplata? I'm trying to visualize this. Speaker 2: So, Omoplata again, there is a lot of sort of subtleties to it. When I go for Omoplata, I try to keep the inside leg, the the leg that's actually wrapped around my opponent's arm, heavily bent. So at a very acute angle, heavily bent and don't move it because when you open it up, you're creating space for them to pull their arm out or alleviate the pressure. And it's the other one, the outside leg that tends to serve as a pendulum, but also kind of as a pendulum up when I start to sit up and I start to sort of weave it, go back. So I pivot on my hips, on my butt to basically pivot back under the arm, under the leg or under the head. And once I go under the leg or under the arm, I actually cross-reach with my outside arm and grab his far-side arm and it's absolutely brutal. Uh, there's a lot of videos I've done on this on YouTube, you know, you can do you can just Google, you know, Silver Fox BJJ perpendicular Omoplata. There's a lot of videos. We did an analysis, deep analysis on this five years ago with Firoz Zahabi, uh, up on, uh, Tristar YouTube channel. And, but, you know, five years ago, my game has has evolved. My Omoplata now actually when I attack the normal one is even more dangerous. When I visit some of the black belts that have been trained with me for a while, and now I'm shutting the Omoplata a lot sooner than before, where I don't even have to go to any of the follow-ups. So, my game is constantly evolving and, you know, everybody else's should be as well. You guys should constantly be sort of a constant student, whether you're a teacher, whether you're an instructor, whether you're a, you know, even if you're primarily, you know, you run your school as a business, which a lot of a lot of instructors do, you still need to be a student of the game and continue to evolve your game. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I will try to find links to those videos you mentioned and put them in the in the show notes in case people want to dig a little bit deeper and see that firsthand. But the one thing I'm constantly surprised by with the Omoplata is how much versatility and interpretation there is around these positions. And it shouldn't be surprising because every other submission has kind of the same amount of variability to it, but I think they get a lot more exposure. Whereas when you dig into the Omoplata, you really realize, man, there's not just one way to do this. People have so many different variations around how they attack it. Stephen Kesting from Grapple Arts did an Omoplata instructional not that long ago, which was really great. And he broke down the Omoplata into a a series of kind of families. And I realized when I I saw that, like, man, there's a lot more variability in this submission than I initially thought. But I I agree with you that the main variant is the main thing to consider. Are you going perpendicular to them or parallel to them? And I love the point that you brought up about posture because that tends to be, especially for beginners, and I would say also smaller people, that tends to be one of the main challenges they have with the Omoplata is the victim will just posture and basically base out and just try to put their weight a little bit down on top of you to make it difficult for you to finish. And a lot of the time they won't even really try to escape. They'll just try to make you feel like this isn't going to work so that you give up. But like you mentioned, if you are failing the parallel Omoplata because they're posturing, if you go perpendicular to them, and especially if you start rolling over, you can sweep them quite easily from there. So, being able to chain back and forth between I'm parallel to I'm perpendicular and knowing when to play those, that is a huge detail. If you want to prevent yourself from getting stacked or stalled out from this position. Speaker 2: Yeah, the perpendicular Omoplata is is very devastating, especially when you go under the leg, you're going to feel that the guy cannot move. And a lot of times the people basically they would like to go once it's set up that deep, they cannot go back to the normal one. I think it's kind of interesting that you spoke about variability in in how sort of how you do, you know, techniques and arm bars and triangles and Omoplatas and, you know, that there is some basically three, four different sort of ways to kind of go into the entry. What I think makes Omoplata particularly frustrating is the variability in escapes. I think, you know, especially with arm bars, you know, you you arm bar somebody from your guard, basically they either stack you or they try to rip out or they try to go sort of step over. Whereas with Omoplata, you have a lot more possible ways to sort of counter it. Yeah, again, you can helicopter over, you can roll under, you can roll away from it. You can basically position your body sort of in different angles. You can sort of start to sort of put your shoulder as if you're going to roll away and then kind of get a reaction and pull your arm out. There's the variability on the escapes from Omoplata is probably greater than triangle or arm bar, where you have three or four fundamental basic escapes. I would say easily double or triple, and that's what makes it so frustrating because people, you know, they start to feel like it's a completely ineffective submission, which I think is false. Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I think that the big difference for me with the Omoplata, what really made it work for me was when I stopped thinking of it as just a submission, and I came to terms with the fact that like, look, there's like a 50% or better chance that I'm not going to get the sub here, but the ability to get the sweep is super high. I would say at least for me, it's much easier to sweep from an Omoplata than it is from say an arm bar or a triangle. And that's what I really love about it. Where I was getting stuck with the Omoplata was I was insisting on trying to finish it. And, you know, sometimes you just can't break their posture the way that they want. They hunker in really good. It's just, you're not going to be able to break them down easily by staying parallel to them and trying to chop their arm or something like that. And I used to just get really frustrated because I couldn't finish from there. But once I realized that, hey, I can just transition into a sweep from here, man, that completely changed the position. And I would say that when I go for the Omoplata, you know, 80% of the time, I don't get the submission. I get a sweep instead. But I'd say that, you know, pretty close to 100% of the time, I wind up in an equivalent or better situation afterwards than when I started because so much of the time, if you're ready to switch to a sweep or switch your angle, you can get on top from the Omoplata so much easier. And once you're willing to kind of let go of the need to finish a person from the bottom and transition to a sweep, I mean, it's probably one of my most effective sweeps at this point, and it's not a move I learned as a sweep. I learned it as a submission. Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point. I think people tend to forget that, especially against high-level guys where the skill gap is not so great, it's a nice thing. If your attack from the guard fails in a way that you wind up on top, it's a beautiful thing. And I think a lot of people tend to forget that. I think what's most important, I I think, you know, if I were to sort of almost like put it into a sequence, when I attack Omoplata, I usually go from split guard. Again, feet on the hips, put going for like a shotgun. I I don't like to call it shotgun because I think with shotgun, I think your elbow or your armpit flares out a little bit. I tend to have my armpit closed, but basically, when I attack sort of the split guard, almost always the reaction I get is, here's an Omoplata and they bring the posture down. If I cannot control their posture, a perpendicular Omoplata is your way to go immediately because what happens is, when you sort of bring that, keep the inside leg that's actually wrapping his arm or her arm, is basically keep it heavily bent and then you swing that outside leg under head, arm or leg. That immediately puts them in a in a worse threatening position. Now, the question is, when they see it, they need to, they only have one free arm. So that their outside hand either if they try to control your leg, guess what happens? They no longer have that arm to support their posture. So, one of the things, if they actually do stop your leg from coming under their neck, under their arm or under their leg with the outside arm, what happens is they've dropped their head back down because they have no support from their arm to keep their posture up. And that opens up for you to re-attack the normal parallel Omoplata. These two, it's it's such a great combination. And then from there, obviously, again, if the guy has it, if they have half a brain, they usually roll because if they stay, they're going to get finished. So I think it's again, and I'm okay with that, is every time I attack from my guard, be it with a with a sweep, be it with a submission, I'm looking to basically either finish or improve my position. And a sweep, a lot of times off Omoplata, that's the other thing, as you get good at it, start to sweep in a way that you don't wind up in their guard, but you basically wind up not just sweeping them, but also passing their guard in the process. Speaker 1: Yeah. And you brought up how opponents will sometimes preferentially let you attempt an Omoplata because they think it's safer for them. And so if you have a good Omoplata, you can really punish people for this. Like you mentioned, we all know that we're not supposed to do this, but people sometimes get overconfident. People to escape something like a triangle will sometimes try to hide their arm or, you know, get get it outside of the triangle or even reach behind so that you can't pull the arm across. And some of those defenses or which I wouldn't even say they're defenses, they're more stalling tactics, but those put you into the position where you can get Omoplata'd much more easily than if you're just in in good posture. So people will sometimes do this. If they're being arm barred or triangl'd, they might feel like, well, I'm in danger here, but if I give this person the Omoplata, then they're going to abandon this high-percentage move, like a triangle or an arm bar, and they're going to switch to an Omoplata, which maybe they believe is a lower-percentage move. And that's just a some calculus and a trade-off that they're making in their head. Like, well, I I would rather this guy do an Omoplata to me than a triangle to me. And if you're good at an Omoplata, you can really make people pay for that mistake. Speaker 2: Absolutely. Speaker 1: Because I have found it much easier to get into the Omoplata, even against relatively good opponents, for this reason, because they're so cautious about the triangle and the arm bar, but they're not necessarily as worried about bending their arm a little bit to the side, right? They're not so scared about the Omoplata. And if you really train that, you'll find that the opening there to get the Omoplata is there a lot of the time, much more than most people would think. Speaker 2: Absolutely. And I think, you know, people tend to forget that, you know, Jiu-Jitsu is ultimately a game of probabilities. You know, it's a statistics. Again, you know, you just alluded to it, you know, if if you get start to get the guy starts to attack and you're in danger of a triangle and arm bar, which tend to be higher percentage moves than for most people than Omoplata is, they offer a lower percentage move, which they feel somewhat confident to be able to escape. So you need to learn how to make it a high percentage move. And there is ways to enhance it. It will take more time because you will have to spend time to analyze and learn not just sort of one or two counters, but a whole slew of counters depending on how they react. Are they trying to bring their knee across your body? Are they trying to helicopter over? Are they trying to sort of roll? Are they trying to roll over the inside shoulder? Are they trying to roll over the outside shoulder? Are they trying to sort of time you and position their body sort of more sort of perpendicular way? Are they trying to just posture up? So every one of them has a different response, but when you sort of start to understand those responses, you can make then Omoplata a high percentage move. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And that's maybe the first thing to to dig into here in terms of how we chain this. That is understanding what are the what are the common responses, the predictable responses that we're going to get when we try to Omoplata someone. Because like you said, there's some variability there with arm bars, for instance, or with triangles. I mean, yeah, there's different ways to escape it, but most of them are somewhat similar. With the Omoplata, there's a lot of very different ways to deal with it. Do you want to maybe run through quickly some of the common responses that people should expect when they try the Omoplata and how to block those? Speaker 2: Yeah. So let's assume that the guy gave you a you're above his elbow, between your leg is between his elbow and and shoulder and he kind of offered you Omoplata. The first one and sort of the most effective one is posture. Hopefully you broke the posture before you attacked the Omoplata, but if you sort of start he starts to regain posture, go immediately into perpendicular Omoplata. That will literally make him do one of two things, tap quickly or immediately try to sort of stop your foot, the outside leg as it's swinging under his neck, arm or leg, to stop it from doing so. And when he does, you can sort of start to chop him down and break his posture. Now, a lot of people start to sort of roll over the outside, they try to get under and and a lot of people teach it, a lot of high-level black belts teach it. I could tell you that when the guy rolls over the far-side shoulder and they put their head underneath your sort of hips and then they kind of pull out, that's beautiful, you know, and and I've seen it work in in sort of when you do it to me, I will arm bar you off that very consistently. So I don't consider that a good response. For me, if I'm in trouble, the best response, like if I'm if it's a late stage, basically what I'm trying to do is bring my inside shoulder, the shoulder that's being attacked, to the mat, look away, look towards my feet and roll over the inside shoulder and then deal with the position issue after after I land. Did he did he wind up in my guard? Did he wind up top side control? I will deal with it, but that is probably your best bet. Again, if I'm on the attacking side now and the guy rolls like that, basically I will just take the sweep and try to usually I'm pretty good at sort of being able to get past their legs as they're rolling through and when that happens, I swept them and passed their guard and I will take top side control. Now, some of the interesting things that happen is, you know, when you have a guy kind of brings his sort of hips away from you. So he's not fully he's not perpendicular, but he he's not parallel either. Somewhere in between. He's trying to play the angles. Sometimes people kind of make a little bit of movement, see how you're going to react and hoping that in your reaction, you give an opening. When I do that, I basically start to bring again, I do not wolf the leg that stays on that arm once I attack it. It's heavily bent, acute angle because that's what controls that arm. I'll throw my outside leg over their hips all the way to the far side and it's it's a very deceiving arm bar. So there's a ways to shut down almost any responses. A lot of times when the guy tries to roll, they post on the far-side arm to protect their neck, which is a good idea. But what I do is I'll use sort of my inside arm and scoop up that arm, grab their wrist, thumb down and when they roll, I call it mangledome because I actually wind up holding their arm and it's trapped underneath their body. And if you want to Google mangledome BJJ, you can see some some pretty interesting videos. So there's almost ways to to counter almost any type of Omoplata escape. All you need to do is invest the time and effort to learn them and try to pay attention to the patterns, how people escape. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And what I found is if once you become familiar with those handful of common escape patterns and you're just ready for them, you anticipate them and you don't get caught with your pants down when they try them against you, it's a lot easier to get a good outcome from the Omoplata because you kind of force the person into this very unfortunate reactive cycle. And if you know what their defenses are going to be and you move with them, then you're going to be able to maintain some sort of decent control. That's what the, you know, the Omoplata reroll is really all about, where they roll and then you roll with them and you keep going. It's all that really is, is you're anticipating what they're doing and you're just moving with them. And so for for the Omoplata, especially because like one thing about this move is unless you nail it perfectly, they probably have some degree of base. They're probably on their knees. You know, you can do it where they're completely belly down. That's ideal, but usually if you get that to that point, it's going to be a pretty easy finish. A lot of the time when you try this, they're still going to have base, they're going to be on their knees. And that means it's they're open to do things like roll or posture up or as you mentioned, helicopter over. But as long as you anticipate all of these, they're relatively easy to either block or flow with and that allows you to either keep the the position or even advance to something better. For me, I always like to think with all of these different counters, what's the worst that could happen if my opponent does them? And so for example, if they do a forward roll while I'm trying to Omoplata them, most of the time, I'm going to wind up on top in side control or I can reroll into an Omoplata. So that's okay. I often don't even try to stop people from forward rolling anymore because I like the outcome, right? The the worst-case scenario is still pretty good for me. If they posture up, that's a bit different because you can get stalled out there, but as long as you're willing to transition to something else, like you said, you can go perpendicular or if they posture up too high, you can even backward roll, right? And take advantage of their bad posture and you still wind up on top. So that's okay. There's variants of how you can roll. You can do angled rolls, like you said, you can roll toward the person, like turn your head toward them or you can roll head away. And again, with a bit of awareness, you can at least transition with that. The one Omoplata counter that I worry about is the helicopter that you talked about. And the reason why is out of all of the different Omoplata counters, it's kind of the only one where if I screw it up, I'm in a much worse position, right? The the helicopter for those who don't know is where I'm trying to Omoplata you and you basically hop over to the other side, like you kick your you hop your legs over. So now you're in top side control on me. So I tried to Omoplata. Now I've gone from being in bottom guard to bottom side control. That's really the only Omoplata counter I can think of where you will be punished for trying it if you fail. With all of the others, you can either reguard or you can switch to something else and so it's pretty low risk. But the helicopter to me is the one thing you got to really watch out for because it'll put you in a worse position if you fail. Speaker 2: Correct. If you're playing with Omoplata against the counter needs to be a part of your arsenal. I teach it quite often. When they helicopter over, they have to kind of they post heavily on their sort of upper body and kind of bring throw their, you know, leap their legs over, hopefully all the way over to the other side and wind up to top side control. When I feel that counter happening, what I do is cup their arm that I'm attacking with the Omoplata. So I use my inside arm, inside hand, I cup the elbow and rather than, you know, with Omoplata, you're trying to have your hips kind of facing to slightly towards the opponent. In this case, I actually kind of almost because they are trying to drive their their hips across. So basically, I keep my hips pointing away from them and what I just do is tuck my legs in and I basically go with it. Like you said before, I go with it and I wind up top side control again. So basically, what I'm doing is I'm basically keeping their arm stationary and using their big body movement to actually have them over-rotate where I wind up on top. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And you've got to be willing to be fluid from the bottom like this because the challenge is, you know, you're on bottom position. The Omoplata receiver is on top position. They're probably on their knees, maybe even on their feet. So they've probably got decent base. And it's very hard to stop them from trying to move if they really want to, especially if they're big. So one of the common threads you'll see with a lot of Omoplata counter-counters is when they try to counter and escape, you counter their their counter by moving fluidly with them. It's very hard to just stop the person from moving until you get to a finishing position. But usually with the Omoplata, it's kind of like trying to ride a bull, right? You have to you have to sort of go with their motion for a while and then eventually at some point, if you flow with them enough, you can get into a good position where maybe you can catch them belly down and you can get the finish. But you've got to be willing to go for a bit of a ride and that means rather than trying to just stop them from moving, which may not be feasible, you have to anticipate and go with them. Speaker 2: Absolutely. That is a such a great point because, you know, fluid BJJ, I've I've wrote a book on this. Again, because you really need to get in sync with what they're doing and take advantage of their movement. Once they start to properly counter. This can apply to anything you do in BJJ. However, it's extremely important in Omoplata because it's so difficult sort of there's so much variability in their responses and you need to kind of number one, choose the counter and also time your counter in a way that sort of lines up with how they're trying to escape and properly time it. Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think this is again where people get really frustrated with the Omoplata because they want to try to control the person and stop them from moving. The kind of strategy you would you would do maybe if you're playing closed guard, you're trying to kill their movement. But it's just not really feasible at the beginning stages of the Omoplata. You can really only stop their movement at the end when you get to a finish, right? And that's where ideally, they're not on their knees anymore. You make them plant belly down on the mat and then you can stop them from moving. But while they have that potential to roll, if your whole idea of defending is, I'm just not going to let them move, that's probably not going to work unless you are massively stronger than them. Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think, to be honest with you, the whole idea of the book was basically the idea that you cannot, it depends. If you're 230 pounds with some artificial help and you're strong and flexible, you can force people to do certain things that they're properly countering and they may not be able to counter it properly because just you have so much you force them to move. I've never been a believer in that strategy because the reality is, there's always somebody bigger than you are. The other reality is, as as you get older and you've been on the mats for so long, I'm I'm perpetually banged up. I train seven days a week. You know, you get a guy that comes in twice a week and he's fully fresh. You're not going to be able to force that guy to do certain things. You force them through sort of pain in their body where you attack something and they in in response to the potential threat or potential pain, they start to move and then you lead them down to first better position for yourself and finish. Speaker 1: Yeah, awesome, awesome. And I mean, where the Omoplata, I think really shines in a way that people don't expect is it is awesome. It is absolutely awesome against really big people. At least that has been my experience. And that is probably really counterintuitive for a lot of people because again, if you try the Omoplata at the beginning and if your whole strategy is, I'm going to muscle this person into position and prevent them from being able to move, you're probably going to feel like this is not a viable move against big guys because you simply can't do that. But once you let go of that need to try to muscle them down from there and you're willing to flow with them, you realize that this is a devastating move against bigger people in a way that other traditional guard submissions aren't. Because as great as, you know, the arm bar is or the triangle is, you are still attacking someone while they are in a position that they can defend somewhat strongly from, right? I mean, if I am triangling you or arm barring you, I am mostly starting that from a dead-on position, kind of facing you. So you're still in a place where you can you can prime your body, you can use your muscle to try to deny me what I want. But the Omoplata, when you're doing that, you're beside the person and you're forcing them to look away from you. And even if they're big and strong and you can't break them down, you can still prevent them from facing you. And that is a huge strategic advantage. If you can prevent your opponent from being able to face you. So that's part of the reason why I love this move. If I triangle you or arm bar you, there is the possibility that you're going to use the fact that you're still in decent body positioning to put your weight on me or stack me or posture up. But for the Omoplata, even if it's a a not-so-great Omoplata, just the way our body's lined up, you can't face me. And that opens up so many other options to good stuff, right? So for that reason alone, I love the Omoplata and the idea of using it like a guard because it's a guard where your opponent cannot face you. And that is very unique in Jiu-Jitsu and super powerful. Speaker 2: Yeah. I agree with with most of the points you made. To be honest with you, it's like this is like a circus act for me. I usually when I teach triangles, I usually pick the biggest guy in the room. And I have there's a couple of videos on Instagram where I pick the guy over 300 pounds. And basically, I lock once I lock up the triangle, they're not getting out. Actually, this summer I had a I had a guy, he had to be close to 400 pounds. They cannot pick me up, they cannot posture out. So I can lock down a triangle. However, it's much harder to get into a triangle position with those people than an Omoplata. So again, if I start to set something up, if they feel the danger, they're not going to give me a triangle. If I get a triangle, people are not getting out. But once they turn their body away, then they're going to give me Omoplata. And then I'm very good at again, you need to attack close to the elbow because if you attack close to the shoulder, they're going to be able to posture up. If they can posture up immediately, you're going to lose it almost for sure. If you attack sort of close to the elbow, at least halfway between your shoulder and the elbow, you're going to be able to go into perpendicular Omoplata that compromises their posture. And now we can go to all the sequences depending on their follow-up reactions. But it is a great technique. Speaker 1: I am so glad you brought that up again because that is a a key difference. If you are trying to chop the person down by their shoulder joint, I mean, it's doable, but you're not really getting a lot of leverage out of it. You're basically just using the force from your ability to kick to knock the person down. And I find unless you catch people off balance or unless again, you're just really strong, that's likely not going to work. And I don't even like really relying on strength to kick people in the shoulder. I mean, I've been dealing with a shoulder injury for years now, right? I mean, I think that if you want to take care of your training partners, trying to kick them in the shoulder to break their posture is not a nice way to make friends. And this is the challenge, right? If I'm trying to control your body, if I grab you by the torso joint, meaning your shoulder or your hip, that can be really powerful as like a body lock if I want to clamp onto you and be able to rotate around you and keep my position. But I can't really get leverage by just grabbing onto your hip or onto your shoulder. The leverage comes from the lever. And in the case of the Omoplata, the place that you would get leverage is the elbow because you're bending their arm. If you put pressure down on their elbow or like you said, close to their elbow, there's a lot more leverage than if you try to pressure them on the shoulder. So that is really key if you're doing this against larger people. Speaker 2: Yeah, very good point. Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, and the other thing too that's probably worth pointing out is unlike with arm bars or triangles, the bigger and stronger they are, the more natural defenses they have against those, right? I mean, I like you, I have had to attempt triangles on people who are so big that it's a struggle to even get my legs around their traps. And it is possible to finish those, but as you mentioned, if a person is really big and strong, getting to the finishing position can be riskier because there's things that can go sideways. So the bigger and stronger they are, the more advantages they have to defending arm bars and triangles. But with the Omoplata, the bigger or stronger they are, usually the more disadvantages they have because big people tend to lose a lot of their shoulder flexibility. They can't do the kind of gummy bendiness that a smaller person would do. So I often find that when you put them in that position, they kind of have to take it seriously because even if they're really big and strong, I mean, your shoulder by itself doesn't have enough muscle to to muscle out of a lot of these positions. Speaker 2: Yeah. So again, if I have a chance, and again, you must break their posture. I I start most of my upper body attacks from split guard. If I have a chance, if I feel like I broke the guy's posture, I stretched him out, I will lock a triangle, they will not escape. Once I lock it, they will not escape. I don't care how big you are. But the problem with that is if you try to attack a triangle before you break their posture and stretch them out, if they stack you, a lot of times off a failed triangle, they pass your guard, they're top side control. Off Omoplata, if you attack Omoplata, if you do not, if you have developed counters against the helicopter, then they will, even if your Omoplata fails, you can easily wind up back in the same neutral position, back in the guard. You just kind of bring the leg closer back down to their hips and you can sort of start, you know, going to cross collar choke or whatever, you know, whatever you feel like arm drag, whatever you feel is appropriate further attack. But off Omoplata, if you can prevent them from sort of helicoptering over you, there is a the worst-case scenario is you should be back back in neutral position. Speaker 1: Yes, yes. That's one of the great things about it. It is what I would call a low-commitment technique. You can attempt the Omoplata and use it kind of as a probe. And if it's not working out and you feel like it's going to be turned against you, you can just reguard most of the time. With things like arm bars or triangles, that can get a little bit dicier because by going into those techniques, unless you have their posture broken, you open up opportunities for a stack pass. Whereas with the Omoplata, a lot of the time, you try it. If you're just not getting the vibe you want, that's okay. You just release and go back to a regular guard and nothing is lost. So that's really one of the beautiful things about that technique. Another thing I want to ask you about, one of the biggest problems that people have is when they try to finish the Omoplata in what I guess you would call the traditional way, where you kind of try to climb up their body or break down their posture. That's where people can struggle, especially against big people. I used to have this training buddy before he moved away, who was like a much larger black belt than me. Probably about a foot taller than me, probably outweighed me by 50, 60, 70 pounds. And every time I tried to go to the Omoplata on him, he would kind of just sit there because I just wasn't big and strong enough to break his posture or climb his body. Now, when I say this, I'm talking about the way that we often teach Omoplatas to beginners, which is, you get into the Omoplata position, and then either you as the Omoplata person, you either try to like put your arm on top of them or reach over them and climb yourself up, or you try to break them down. Maybe you grab them by like the belt or something and you try to hip away and you try to break their posture down. And that's great if you can do it. But against really big people, sometimes it feels like you're just climbing a mountain. That's where a lot of the transitions that we talked about help, like being willing to switch to a perpendicular one. But I want to give you a second to maybe expand on this. So if you're doing this technique against someone who's really big and you get kind of into the position, but you can't climb them to finish and you also can't pull them to break them down. What do you do from there to kind of get them moving again? Speaker 2: Well, I don't try to attack Omoplata. They give it to me. They literally give it to me on a platter. So, what I would do and you know, I would encourage you guys, don't just take my word for it, but look at just Google split guard. Split guard. And you're going to see a lot of videos. Basically, split guard, I've filmed it's on my Silver Fox BJJ YouTube channel. I've done it with Firoz Zahabi. Basically, what it is, I basically control the guy's posture and I attack, let's call it, you know, split guard. One of the submissions that you have available there is the short arm bar. The shotgun arm bar, however you want to call it. What happens is they literally the way to defend it is they put themselves deep into an Omoplata. So they already give it to me. So the only possible way they they give me Omoplata as soon as I attack it. They already half a step or a step behind because now they have to start to react and defend Omoplata. They don't have to battle from kind of a neutral position. So we first started the this talk together. One of the things that I told we talked about is is setup. Every attack from the guard needs to be properly set up. I think this is one of the biggest problems that beginners face is when they attack from the guard, they they kind of know, okay, I got the guy in guard. I need to do something, otherwise he's going to pass my guard. And frankly, I believe that the onus should be on the bottom person because if you training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for self-defense, keeping somebody in guard is not it's not good. Something if you get into an altercation and the guy takes you down, you tripped or whatever and the guy winds up in your in your guard, that is not a good position unless you can tie them up. You can start to attack and do either sweep them or submit them from your guard because otherwise the guy couldn't know nothing about grappling and still start to hit you and then things go sideways. So, when you attack from the guard, basically what I'm looking for is put them in split guard. Again, split guard description is, I want their hand, their wrist under my armpit, both feet on the hips. And that is sort of my initial setup for attacking position from my guard. It's either Ude Garami where I have the underhook or split guard where I have the overhook. Those are extremely effective ways to set up attacks from the guard. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google it, look it up. This is extremely important to set up and you can set up triangles, you can set up arm bars, but also literally the high-level guys, when I put them in split guard, they almost 90% of the time, they give me Omoplata. And they give me a good one. They don't posture. They've tried to posture after, but now they're a step behind. They give me basically broken posture because the way to deal with that possible elbow break is to drive forward, turn hard away and bend their arm. And this is what gives you this split guard. Omoplata. Speaker 1: You know what's interesting is that particular guard, the split guard, I've never used it by that name, but I'm just looking up the pictures right now. That is one of my absolute favorite guards to play. For those who who aren't going to pop open the YouTube video, I guess the way would it be fair to describe it as kind of like you're sort of halfway to an Omoplata. You're trying to kind of get on your side and trap their arm, but the really the distinguishing feature is they can't face you. Am I correct in understanding it? Speaker 2: Well, when they face you, they basically the pain starts. So what happens is when you put somebody in split guard, and you need to start to play around with it quite a bit because my feet are on the hips. I control the distance. I don't care how big you are because if I cannot move you out, I move myself out. And that control, when they try to square up to you, that starts to cause a break in the elbow. So the respond response to that pain and the possible break in the elbow is literally to turn, rotate your hand, thumbs in and start to bend the elbow and bring the head down. That alleviates the possible break in the elbow and the pain in the elbow, but literally you now you're putting yourself into an Omoplata. Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. If you are a smaller person and you kind of struggle to fight bigger people in guard, I really recommend looking into the split guard because it's um, first of all, you have their arm isolated in a way that is always threatening, but also you can face and attack them much more easily than they can face and attack you for the reasons you brought up, Carl, right? Because if they try to square with you, they're going to injure themselves. So it's a very powerful position. And also for the Omoplata because from there, it's easy to either go perpendicular or parallel and do what you want. So if you're looking to build an Omoplata system, it's like a great starting point. It's kind of the hub of probably a lot of what you're going to do. Speaker 2: Yeah. And it it leads you to a lot of good places. To be honest with you, I train with a lot of good black belts around the world and it's kind of funny which, you know, I've been doing split guard before I even knew what to call it. Like Firoz asked me like, show me what you, you know, what you do to me. And I'm like, and then I, you know, about 10 years ago, I realized what I was actually doing and start to kind of be able to explain it better. But for me, this is the best guard in submission grappling/BJJ bar none. If I had to choose, you know, like when you know, when you do EBI rules in overtime, you got to choose between the be on the back or the arm bar, the spider. If there was a contest where choose any guard to attack from, this would be Ude Garami/split guard. I encourage you guys to to play around with it and a lot of the black belts, they tell me afterwards, they're like, you know, when I saw it on on the video, I, you know, I was like, ah, I'm not quite sure this work for on me. And then, you know, you do it to me so many times that I start to dive deeper into it and and then I realized like, I need to know this. So it's an amazing, especially if you're smaller, this is an amazing setup for a lot of good things from your guard. Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And it's awesome in both Gi and Nogi as well, right? I mean, the distinguishing characteristic of a lot of these Omoplata-type moves is, if you can start bending a person's elbow a bit and forcing them to to turn a little bit away from you, man, it's really hard for them to do anything. Unlike a lot of other moves, like arm bars or any sort of linear move where the the limb is straight, those can get harder to do as a Nogi match goes on because things get slipperier. But a lot of these bent-arm techniques or things where you're kind of twisting someone a little bit, it's harder for them to just slip out of that even if you get sweaty. Speaker 2: Yeah, one of my black belts coined the term intricate pain compliance. That basically, I attack the joint and now they have to react. And and I start to take advantages of their reaction, which goes to the point back where you said, you got to be flow with them, you got to be fluid. And off their reactions, I put them deeper and deeper into a hole. Speaker 1: Amazing, man. Well, there's a lot that we could expand on here. I would love at some point to hear you talk more about split guard. And also, I'd love to hear you talk about your triangle against really, really big folks because that is such a common problem. But probably those would be better served as independent separate episodes. As we tie this up, on this topic of the Omoplata, were there any other big details or points that you wanted to bring up which we didn't get into yet? Speaker 2: Yeah. When you attack, again, focus on controlling their arm with your legs. A lot of people want to hold that arm with their hands, which prevents you from utilizing your hands to kind of drape your hand over their body, using the outside hand, outside arm to prop yourself up, slide yourself forward, backwards. So start to focus really, what you want to do is make sure that the once you once they give you Omoplata and you attack with Omoplata, the leg that's draped over their arm is going to be very sharply bent. You're going to be try to get as close as possible to their elbow and the outside leg can serve as a pendulum to help you get up and your other limbs help you do control other parts of the sequences. But that is one of the most important things. Start to also get better at sitting up quickly. That's why you need your arms for that rather than try to hold on to their arm with your arms. And when you sit up, again, play around with perpendicular guard and most importantly, start to learn how to stop the helicopter over. Again, it is basically this is an early stage defense for your opponent because this is the most dangerous part of Omoplata. Omoplata, is that a word? Can we say I have Omoplata on somebody? So anyways, when you do that, you basically need to sort of that this is the one time that you're going to cup their elbow and you basically going to face your hips to the outside and kind of on your knees, get to your knees, make them overshoot and turn to them and be top side control. Once you sort of start playing with it, I think it's a very worthwhile endeavor for you guys to to play around with and have add it, you know, entirely, you know, very dangerous dimension to your guard game. Speaker 1: Amazing, Carl. Well, I will put links to those resources that you mentioned in the show notes. So if people want to check out those videos on uh, split guard or your Omoplata tips, I'll make sure that those are easy to find. But beyond that, I also want to plug your other stuff. I see that you've actually made instructionals about this on BJJ Fanatics and I know that you've got your own site and your own app. Why don't we take a second to plug those for people? Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Everything that I do is under Silver Fox BJJ. So the free resource, I do a weekly troubleshooting session on on YouTube, which is free. It's live. You can ask whatever troubles you in BJJ and we troubleshoot it so you can have opportunity to ask follow-up questions. Usually that's five to 10 minutes on YouTube and then we spend a deeper dive into that technique on uh, Silver Fox BJJ app. So that is under Silver Fox BJJ Global.com and that could be on Apple or Google stores. And again, depends how deeply you want to dive into the details. Right now, the Silver Fox BJJ app has five free days. You can peruse the materials and see if you like the way it's organized and also has a live live feature. So basically, I come into your living room once a week. Speaker 1: Amazing, man. Well, I will link all of that in the show notes. I will also put a link to our stuff. Everything we make is at BJJ Mental Models.com. If you like these kind of long-form conceptual discussions, that's probably what we're best known for. This will put us on the map and all of those are completely free. We've also got short mini episodes that get to the point a bit quicker in the main feed if you are understandably short on time. And I always suggest, if you haven't already, please do consider looking into BJJ Mental Models Premium. Uh, what we're building is, to my knowledge, the most extensive audio resource and library on the internet for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Our approach is a little bit different. We tend not to lean so much on visuals. The type of stuff that we teach is more conceptual, more related to things like mindset and strategy. And audio is such a great vehicle for doing that. So most of our courses are going to be audio-based, which allows it to fit much more cleanly into your life and augment whatever else you're already learning in Jiu-Jitsu. If you want to level up with us beyond that, we also have coaching tiers where you can get rolling reviews and direct remote coaching. If you want to if you're struggling to build a game plan and you want someone to do that with you because you're not getting that in your existing training environment, we offer great services that can augment whatever you're doing at your gym right now. And we also have pro services if you're a Jiu-Jitsu business owner and you're understandably struggling with the marketing and the sales side of surviving in this business. That is our specialty and we can help with that. So again, all of that is at BJJ Mental Models.com. And also, if you ever have questions about this stuff, whether it be our premium stuff or if you just want answers to anything that maybe has come up on the show, just DM me on social. I always try to do my best to get back to people when they send me messages. So you can find us on Instagram or any of the main platforms as well. But Carl, man, thank you so much for doing this. I will put a link to your stuff and my stuff in the show notes. But really awesome chat. I love these conceptual breakdowns. They're people don't do them enough in Jiu-Jitsu on podcasts, I find. You know, everyone just talks shop, but I love to be able to sit down and like nitpick about exactly why this thing works. I find it super helpful and uh, hopefully you had a good time and hopefully the listeners did as well. Speaker 2: Absolutely, it was truly my pleasure and I always enjoy talking about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. Speaker 1: I think we all do, man. That's why we're here. It's like Once you get to black belt, like your main skill set now becomes talking about Jiu-Jitsu rather than doing it, right? But thank you for coming by, Carl. I really appreciate it. Speaker 2: My pleasure. Thank you. Speaker 1: Most welcome. Thanks to the listeners as well. Appreciate you too and we will talk to you in the next one. See you then.