Hardest Jiu Jitsu Move

By Benjamin Strusnik, July 20, 2022

Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a highly addictive and intricate Martial Art, as many of the maneuvers are quite complex and hard to master. The sheer magnitude of the endless list of bjj techniques is phenomenal, as even more are added to the list all the time. Many of the complicated moves have a long series of steps involved, which makes them extremely challenging to master. Some of these highly advanced movements can take years to build to a proficient level. The great aspect about BJJ is how the art can be modified to suit whichever body type or style that a practitioner has.

Nowadays with the rise of many highly proficient international competitions like the ADCC, Who's Number One, Fight 2 Win, and the IBJJF Worlds, many high level practitioners are pulling off exceptionally complicated maneuvers. With this significant popularity of complicated moves, many practitioners worldwide are diving head first into the more complex elements of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. This includes intricate systems like the 50/50 guard, the rubber guard, and various forms of the lapel guard.

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HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO MASTER TECHNIQUES

Mastering techniques can take an extremely long time, but are specific to each individual athlete. It is the age old saying "you get out, what you put in", meaning the more work you do on the mats, translates into the more successful you will become within the art. Repetition is the key to all BJJ moves, as even the simplest foundations bjj moves, all the way to the most complicated ones, need to be practised a lot.

The most dominant competitor of his generation Marcus Buchecha Almeida has joined forces with BJJFanatics.com to share his personal system of leg attacks and foot locks!

Practising a specific move isn't enough, as once the move has been mastered, it then needs to be implemented, and practised into a flow of movements. Many of the maneuvers that students learn in BJJ have different counters that need special attention, so they can continue evolving the technique. Some moves can be learnt in a small matter of time, but then other moves that have certain requirements like flexibility, agility, dexterity, and even technical complexity, can take significantly longer to master. It's no good learning a move and then practising it 3 times, it needs to be practised hundreds of times, this is the only sure way to become extremely evolved in how the movement works.

BJJ MOVEMENTS

We have all heard the old cliche purple belts don't do warm ups. This is mainly due to the fact that a student that reaches the purple belt rank is already extremely versed in the BJJ movement. For a new student, learning intricate movement is the most fundamental part of becoming good at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Many beginners will often complain that the warm up is too hard, and will often ask questions like, how does this even relate to BJJ. At the time many of the beginner jiu jitsu moves may seem foreign, but you can rest assured all of these movements have a place in Jiu Jitsu. Something as simple as a hip shrimp seems odd to do on the mats, but when you are trying to escape from the mount, it all makes sense. The art of BJJ has a method, and following these methods is how all black belts build the foundation of becoming exceptional at Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

Practising forward rolls, backwards rolls, and grampy rolls, all have a place in BJJ, as learning how to invert by yourself is extremely important, before trying to implement it against an attacker. It is extremely important to use many of these warm up drills as a way to strengthen the body, and get used to the rigorous, and demanding grind that BJJ has on a practitioner's body. Students that skip many of these warm up drills, and just try to jump straight into hard core rolling, will often find themselves getting injured quicker, as their joints and muscles won't be ready for the high intensity of BJJ. So for a white belt to watch a purple belt not do the warm ups, and think well maybe I don't need to do the warm ups either, couldn't be further from the truth.

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ARE THERE MANY COMPLICATED MOVES IN BJJ

Although BJJ does have quite a large number of easy maneuvers to learn, it also has a large number of complicated moves. Many of these maneuvers will either have a long series of steps involved, or they require a certain level of flexibility, athleticism, and dexterity. There are many flying submissions that have an extremely high degree of difficulty. Moves Like the flying triangle, the flying armbar, and the flying omoplata, have been known to be exceptionally hard to execute. These kinds of maneuvers take a significant degree of thinking to set up the correct steps, as well as an extreme amount of patience to find the right time to execute the maneuver. It also takes impeccable timing to hit the move at the right time, and of course it takes a considerable amount of athleticism, and ingenuity to pull off such a high calibre movement in real time.

In the modern Jiu Jitsu game there have been significant developments in many different brazilian jiu Jitsu positions like taking the back, as some of these techniques include the berimbolo and the crab ride. The berimbolo seems to be an extremely complex way to invert, and move underneath an opponent in order to take their back. To make the berimbolo even harder, there are many different versions of this maneuver making the move very dependent on the opponent's initial reaction. The crab ride can be another hard maneuver to execute as it can be an intricate part of the berimbolo itself, as the move requires a practitioner to use their hooks in the back of an opponent's knees, in order to help slide them into back control. This whole system has become quite complex, as many high level practitioners are bringing out detailed series on how to execute this maneuver.

Although many leg locks are simplistic in their essence, the concept of the 50/50 guard is very complex. In the modern game of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, leg locks have become a weapon of many practitioners at the highest levels. The 50/50 guard itself has this name for a reason, as it gives both opponents an opportunity at attacking a leg lock. For this reason the 50/50 guard and all its attributes are very complex, as not only does a practitioner need to understand how to attack the leg lock, they certainly need to know how to defend it. With the many submissions from this guard including various forms of the heel hook, the toehold, the calf slicer, the ankle lock, and the kneebar, this is a very dangerous position, and very intricate to learn for a practitioner.

There are many takedown maneuvers that are also quite intricate, and hard to learn, as some of them take years to refine. Even though some of them seem simplistic in their steps, trying to master the level of proficiency within the move is extremely hard. Moves like the double leg takedown, require a practitioner to be able to change levels, shoot low, drive in with momentum, before using power to take their opponent down. Other moves like the uchi mata, the seoi nage, and the drop seoi nage, are also very complex in how a practitioner can execute them. As many of these judo throws require a practitioner to turn their back to their opponent, which can be extremely dangerous in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, as moves like these do require a considerable amount of practise.

There are a considerable number of new styles of guards that are extremely difficult to learn, and execute. Now with the innovation of many high level athletes, they are taking their games to new levels with the addition of new concepts within their art. Guys like Keenan Cornelius who invented the worm guard, and Neil Melanson for his intricate system called the k-guard, have invented a complex series of guard systems, that specialise in wrapping their opponent up with the lapels, and attacking submissions. These systems can be quite intricate, and extremely difficult to learn. Many of these guard systems have multiple positions, and multiple attacking submissions, or sweeps that can be executed from. Although these systems have basic concepts involved, to execute these types of techniques need practise, as they are far beyond basic level BJJ.

One of the most intricate styles of guards developed throughout the world of BJJ, is Eddie Bravo's rubber guard system. To learn this intricate series of movements a practitioner can spend a long time practising, making it one of the hardest systems to learn. Through the ingenuity of Eddie Bravo, he has developed many different names for all of the positions involved, which helps students track their way through this extremely advanced system of guard. Many of the controls developed by Eddie Bravo are designed to keep an opponent completely wrapped up, and unable to move, while the practitioner can attack simple, to advanced submission maneuvers. Nowadays as many of Eddie Bravo students have added their own developments to the system, there are many intricate submissions that are extremely hard to pull off, like the hindulotine, the dead orchid, and the invisible collar choke.

WHICH MOVE IS THE HARDEST TO EXECUTE

To rate which maneuvers are the hardest to execute there are a few factors that come into play. Different athletes have different attributes including greater levels of flexibility and dexterity or athleticism than other practitioners. Some practitioners are considerably stronger making some of the moves easier for them to use. There is always a bjj hierarchy of positions that practitioners will utilise, as many of their moves in BJJ have intricate steps involved. Trying to pick one specific movement that is the hardest, is next to impossible. Here are a detailed few moves that are among the hardest in BJJ to learn and execute. The First is the gogoplata which is an extremely hard and rare submission to execute in BJJ the gogoplata is a form of omoplata, that involves the practitioner using extreme flexibility, and dexterity, by pulling their toes underneath the neck of their opponent, as they reach around the back of the head grabbing their toes to execute the choke.

The second move that is extremely rare, and hard to pull off is the twister, which is a type of spinal crank, and is illegal in most BJJ competitions. The Twister was made famous by Eddie Bravo the head instructor of the 10th planet Jiu Jitsu Academy. What makes executing a twister hard, is that a student must learn firstly how to enter into the truck position. This technique can be executed from most control positions, and involves a student to secure a leg, and roll over attacking the second leg. Using a lockdown style of thread with their legs, the practitioner will then lever their way up towards the neck of their opponent, before wrestling the arm underneath their body, and using an s-grip around the neck to twist the spine of their opponent. This submission is extremely rare, and very hard to pull off, but when it does happen it's definitely a fan favourite.

The most dominant competitor of his generation Marcus Buchecha Almeida has joined forces with BJJFanatics.com to share his personal system of leg attacks and foot locks!

Another move that's exceptionally hard to pull off in a fight is the scissor leg takedown. This maneuver takes a lot of ingenuity, balance, and practise, to master. Just like the twister, this maneuver is illegal in most competitions, but is still a highly rated technique used in high level BJJ, and Mixed Martial Arts. The scissor leg takedown has been made famous by the former Strikeforce champion Cung Le. This technique involves posting off the ground with a hand, and kicking your leg into the hips of your opponent, while the back leg scoops the back of their opponents knees, tripping them to the floor. This move can be exceptionally dangerous as it can result in severe leg and knee injuries. This takedown technique also puts the attacker simultaneously into a kneebar position, making this a highly effective, and deadly maneuver.

There are many different high level maneuvers that are extremely effective in today's BJJ. Athletes will always be looking to gain any significant advantage they can, but in terms of succeeding at exceptionally hard techniques, all they can do is practise, work hard, and master the technique.

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