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My name is Romeo Barnes. I'm an author and a BJJ black belt with cerebral palsy. This blog is about my life balancing existence in two worlds. My latest book, My World is now available Amazon.com. Glad you're here, enjoy the journey.

Old school vs New School

This post is a result of a speech given my by one of coaches on "YouTube shit." The gist of the speech was we don't teach "YouTube shit" so don't do it. This speech is common in many gyms as white and blue belts across the world watch youtube and want to copy the black belt world champions. The aforementioned speech brings up the issue of old school vs. new school.



First we must define new school and old school techniques, for the sake of simplicity we will use generational examples. Old school will be closed guard and new school will be the berimbolo. Now we must define the specific techniques we chose. Closed guard the standard position where all attacks that come from the bottom originate. Berimbolo a sweep using the De La Riva hook designed primarily to take the back but has many variations which can lead to submissions.



Okay, we now know that the De La Riva hook is required to be successful with the berimbolo. So how do establish the De La Riva hook? Most of the time you'll establish De La Riva guard when your opponent stands up by opening your closed guard, putting in said hook and establishing the necessary grips. Having established these facts brings forth question that is the true basis of this entire post. Why are you as a white or blue belt trying to execute the berimbolo when you don't understand the basics of the De La Riva position? Everyone with a great berimbolo has an amazing De La Riva the same can be said for X-guard, everyone with a good X-guard has a great butterfly guard. Need proof? Watch Marcelo Gracia competition videos from blue belt until now. You'll see he evolved his butterfly guard because people began to avoid or counter it. The berimbolo came about because people began pressuring the De La Riva player causing them to get stuck until the guard was passed(as stated by Samuel Braga on This week in BJJ; which can be found on youtube).




I watch youtube literally everyday while I eat breakfast. I have a YouTube channel dedicated to BJJ and Writing accompanied by the occasional rant when shit annoys me, so I'm not saying youtube is bad. What I am saying is it is a terrible tool for learning BJJ. I watch it simply because i'm a competitor myself and youtube is a great resource for scouting potential opponents.


Until next time

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