Gordo and his younger brother Gordinho are no strangers to us at OTM. We spent many years training BJJ with them at Gracie Barra in the 90s and early 2000s.
The two of them are really unknown considering how much they contributed to the techniques area of BJJ. They both created and developed the BJJ Haft Guard techniques that are now an intricate part of BJJ. You could say Eddie Bravo’s lockdown and haft guard game all developed of that Gordo and his brother started.
Kodos to BJJ Hacks for this great interview with Gordo and the killer BJJ techniques covered in the video. Gordo deserves all the credit he can get and all of our HESPECT.
Here is some translation I did on the first part of the interview. The haft guard techniques part doesnt need any translation.
It all started when I was 19 years old and I was a purple belt. I had a conventional guard a normal good closed guard. I really like to attack with the triangle and the arm lock from the close guard.
In one competition I had a serious injury to my knee I had an ACL problem. I had this knee injury for so long I couldn’t do the traditional clothes guard that I like to do. So because of the injury I started training with just one leg.
The half guard at that time was a defensive position I used to grab the belt and stay there just holding on.
At that time there one a lot of sweeps or any offense from the half guard. It wasn’t until I started using the under hook and I was able to take the back from the half guard that it became a new position that I had a lot of success with.
Once I got successful with the position I began developing attacks from the half guard.
The part that was really great about this new position was the under hook and using under hook to get to the back. That is what change the position and open the door for new things to come.
The half guard at that time had three variations to it one part was using the undertook to go to the back. Then they’re starting to become dozens of different variations and this increase the different options from the half guard.
At this time I trained at Gracie Baja for my whole life. But my instructor at that time who gave me all of my lessons was Jean Jacques Machado.
He had a very good game, very strong legs and he instructed me to work my garden this way. I don’t remember him showing me anything specifically but for sure he was always correcting me and helping me.
Today if you see his no gi Game you will see that he uses a lot of half guard. At that time half guard was something very positive in my game because it was something brand-new. And, it help people develop their defense on top, and to attack that defense from the bottom.
I think the best part of it was that I had really good results using the position in competition. Other people started using the position and developed it even further.
It was a position that I used to use and not look for it for sweeps because at the time sweeps from the half guard were not two points.It was a positioned I used to take the back.
It was a way to turn the game around and might be to my objective became not to get two points but to use it to win the competition and finish my opponent.
For more on Roberto “Gordo” Correa BJJ Innovator of the Haft Guard check out this 2007 interview we did on him. >> CLICK HERE