Lessons from the Minotaur

I love the way that Minotauro set his guard in this fight. He had a nice tight grip on Fedor's right wrist, "posting up" Fedor's arm. This opened the door for the whole King Crimson suite of kimuras, crossover sweeps and omoplatas. Nog had a underhook on with his other hand, with an occasional collar tie. Very nice no-gi guard set-up.

Fedor has great hand speed, and his tactic of lunging forward to strike Nog from within Nog's guard was effective mostly because of Fedor's hand speed and sense of range. To nullify that, Nog needed to step on Fedor's hips, pushing him off and taking away the base that provided Fedor with a "striking platform."

Instead, Nog was either butterflying his guard or using a sort of soft closed guard. Neither were very effective in controling Fedor because Fedor wasn't so much raising up to strike as he was sliding backward and launching himself forward in a sort of dive. Where most guys try to regain full posture in the guard before launchign strikes, Fedor just slid back enough to be able to dive forward and deliver his punches.

The counter to this is to make Fedor move further back than he wants to by stepping on and pushing off hips. In other words, Hilo Guard.

It isn't easy because Fedor is strong and very fast with his punches. But if Nog had kept his feet on Fedor's hips and just pushed off forcefully a few times, it would have made Fedor less sure of his base and his ability to throw punches with both power and accuracy.

Another point. Nog goes for a kimura at one point. If I remember correctly, Fedor manages to yank his arm out of the first one. With his corner screaming "omoplata!" Nog goes for another kimura. As it locks on, Fedor postures up to counter the pressure on his shoulder.That was a great time for Nog to switch to the Crimson.

Both the kimura and the omoplata attack the outside and try to drive the pressure back to the inside. One defense against this is to posture up, making it hard for the attacker to drive to the inside.

But this posturing up makes it easier for the attacker to drive pressure to the outside. So the idea is to attack hard with the kimura to force him to defend the drive to the inside. If the guy counters by posturing up, then immediately switch to the Crimson and drive him over to the outside.

Immediately look to armlock the same arm as you move into the mount after the successful Crimson sweep.