Stepping up to the plate: There was a fascinating event yesterday at the ADCC west coast trials yesterday. Braulio Estima was scheduled to match the great Leandro Lo in a super fight of 20 minutes under ADCC rules. Mr Lo is arguably the number one jiu jitsu player in the world today, certainly top three. He is a five time world champion and has in the last twelve months won a huge array of medals and beaten a who's who of the jiu jitsu world. He is known for his extremely impressive guard passing skills and sweeps from bottom. In recent years he has, through an extraordinary strength and size building program, gone all the way up to heavyweight divisions and continues his gold medal success. Mr Estima injured himself during warm ups for the bout. The promoter looked for a last ditch replacement- Gordon Ryan has spent the day coaching and cornering the junior squad members – I had stayed on the East Coast to corner Eddie Cummings in Philadelphia on Friday. With only ten minutes preparation, Mr Ryan immediately took the match despite the size and strength disadvantage. The match was an interesting one. Mr Ryan had not prepared at all for ADCC rules so just went all out for attacks. Mr Lo was forced to play a defensive tactical game that saw him set an ADCC record for the most stalling penalties in a bout – four. He did secure two takedowns to go ahead on points. Mr Ryan made the tactical error of countering the takedowns with Submissions- if he had just fought the takedowns and ignored the submissions he may way have won on stalling penalties – but that is not our way. More importantly he showed he can go with the best people and have no fear on the ground – just needs more tactical awareness. This is amazing given that he has trained less than half the years of Mr Lo, is smaller and weaker, had zero preparation and is only twenty one years old. We are so proud of his progress and can't wait to begin training again for the next big event.
