My name is Jason Mallory and I had the opportunity to train with Eddie "the twister" Bravo while I was living in Los Angeles, California. I started training Brazilian jiu-jitsu with Maricio Acosta who is a Rickson Gracie black belt and I received my blue belt from Renato Magno of Street Sports Machado Jiu Jitsu. Eddie gave me my purple belt and I have to say that it was a blast to train with him and the guys at 10th Planet Jiu-Jitsu.

Eddie is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Jean-Jacques Machado. He first came to fame with his win as a brown belt against Royler Gracie by triangle choke in the 2003 Abu Dhabi Submission Wrestling Championships.

Royler is one of the most accomplished Brazilian jiu-jitsu competitors in the world and had never been submitted by triangle choke before or since the match with Eddie that I am aware of.

What makes Eddie so unique is his ability to think outside of the box when it comes to Brazilian jiu-jitsu. This is also what makes him such an innovator.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu was itself an advancement of the Japanese form of jujutsu. The Gracie family is responsible for leading the way and Brazilian jiu-jitsu today is recognized as a separate form of jiu-jitsu.

What Eddie has done is to continue the advancement of jiu-jitsu. His style of no-gi jiu-jitsu is distinctly different from jiu-jitsu practiced with a gi.

I like the way that Eddie explains it. He made the observation that both Judo and Greco Roman Wrestling have the same end goal, to take your opponent down. But because judo players wear a gi and wrestlers do not the way they accomplish the end goal is very different.

The judo player is going to use the opponent's gi collar and sleeve to control them and to set up throws and take downs while the wrestler is going to use over hooks and under hooks. Same end goal, two very different ways to accomplish it.

The same principal applies to jiu-jitsu.

In the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championships Royce Gracie was destroying everybody. As time went on and people became familiar with Brazilian jiu-jitsu we started to see a shift. Brazilian black belt world champions started to get pounded while on their backs in the guard position.

Eddie was sharp enough to look at what was happening and articulate the problem. He made the observation that everybody training Brazilian jiu-jitsu practiced with a gi and used the collar and sleeves to set up their attacks. The problem was that when they went into MMA competition where their opponent had no gi on, their whole game went out the window.

This revelation led to the development of his Rubber Guard/Twister system of no-gi jiu-jitsu.

I can tell you that it takes a lot of time and dedication to master the rubber guard. For one thing you will have to develop a certain level of hip flexability to be able to perform some of the advanced techniques but is that different from other martial arts such as Tae Kwon Do or Karate?

I think the one thing that I benefited most from training with Eddie was the understanding that jiu-jitsu is continuing to advance.

If you want to learn more about Eddie Bravo and see some of his techniques in full color then check out his books below. Mastering the Rubber Guard and the Twister are very innovative manuals on no-gi brazilian jiu jitsu.

When I was training with Eddie the main focus of his teaching was the Rubber Guard. Jean-Jaques Machado nicknamed Eddie "The Twister" because of an old wrastlin' technique that Eddie brought with him from high school wrestling into jiu-jitsu.

We did do some twister work while I was training with Eddie but I think he was more into developing the rubber guard at the time.

The rubber guard is more of a system than it is one particular position. Within the system are the positions: mission control, New York, and chill dog just to name a few.

The main objective in this guard system is to break the opponents posture down and lock him into place with your leg over his back, held in place by curling your leg, which is hooked with your wrist and squeezing your knees together.

Once you have your opponent broken down you can begin to work for a submission. The rubber guard does not allow your opponent the space or the posture they need to punch. At the same time you have one hand free that you can use to punch if you are in an MMA event or self defense situation.

There is just no way that I can fully describe the rubber guard with words. Eddie's book above Mastering the Rubber Guard is the best source for learning this innovative system.

I will say one more thing about the rubber guard. It is a system that takes a lot of work and repetition to get down. You can learn the positions easily enough but it takes time and development to be able to apply them.

Because of this many people may try what they think is the rubber guard and when it doesn't work the first time they give up on it and say that it is a myth or that it gives you bad knees or anything else they can think of in order to dismiss it.

Ok, I have to correct myself. Above I said that Eddie's book Mastering the Rubber Guard was the best source to learn some of his innovative techniques.

Well, I recently saw his DVD set of the same name and I have to say that it is a must have if you are serious about learning the Rubber Guard. The book accompanied by the DVD set is the best way to learn Eddie's system.

It's like you're right there at 10th Planet learning in class. The only difference is that Eddie usually cracks more jokes while he is teaching. But you will get a sense of his humor with some of the extras in the DVD that I will let you see for yourself when you get the set.

To fully understand how some of the techniques are done you need to get Mastering the Rubber Guard DVD set !

As I said above "the twister" was an old wresting move that Eddie brought with him into jiu-jitsu. He would try to work the move in class when sparring and Jean-Jacques would try to get him to forget about that crazy "twister" move as he called it.

I remember learning the twister and banana split in junior high and high school wrestling.

I liked the moves back then but with the twister you could not pin both of your opponents shoulders to the mat. He would always be able to keep one of his shoulders off the mat.

Since pinning both of your opponents shoulders to the mat was the goal in wrestling I never spent too much time with it. Besides that, it was illegal in competition in our conference.

It was the same thing with the banana split. You could get back points with the move but you could not pin the opponents shoulder to the mat.

In jiu-jitsu it is a different story. Eddie spent time adapting the moves into jiu-jitsu and submitting a lot of people.

Eddie's signature move, the twister, has come to be illegal in most jiu-jitsu and grappling tournaments at this point.

The twister system is still worth taking a look at because it is a pathway to taking your opponents back so that you can finish them with a rear naked choke and there are a number of other submissions along the way.

When I was training with Eddie we did a little bit of twister work but when I checked out his book Mastering the Twister I was like yo, where did all this come from? It was obvious that what I learned in class only scratched the surface of his twister system.

Not too long ago I was having a conversation with a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt about the gi/no-gi debate.

I was saying that if you are planning to compete in no-gi tournaments or MMA events then you need to train regularly without the gi. But if you are planning to compete in sport jiu-jitsu and you just love gi techniques then you need to spend most of your time training with the gi.

His response to training without the gi was "then where's the tequnique?"

The point is that there are different techniques with and without the gi. There is crossover of technique for sure. Whether you are training with or without the gi you are still grappling. But you can't do a cross collar gi choke, no matter how good you are at applying the technique if there is no collar.

The difference between a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu and a purple belt isn't necesarrily the number of techniques they know but how tight their technique is among other things like feel and timing.

The rubber guard and other techniques that Eddie has developed apply this principle of tightness otherwise known as the "clinch."

An example of this would be the traditional Brazilian jiu jitsu half guard vs the lockdown. The traditional half guard is loose compared to the lockdown and allows your opponent to move around while the lockdown is tight and holds your opponent in place while destroying their base.

So, to answer the question, there is the technique. No-gi is the new frontier. There are knew techniques being developed by guys like Eddie Bravo and Marcelo Garcia. I have even developed a number of techniques of my own that I hope to share some day!

Ok, you can check out some of the no-gi techniques that I have developed. One of the techniques that I have developed is called the Right Angle.

One day in class at 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu Eddie Bravo, Jason Chambers and Einstein were talking about this position ( see pic. # 3 ) which is a common counter to the double under pass. The problem is that most of the time it becomes a stalemate until the bottom guy lets go of the position.

Eddie was standing there looking at the position and he said "there has to be something there." That was all that was said and then everybody continued to train.

I thought about the position more after I left class. There had to be more there than just a mad scramble to get back to guard or letting your opponent pass your guard. I developed the Right Angle which is a submission counter to the UnderDog Pass.

Click the link below to see the technique.

Before classes begin everybody is pretty relaxed. People would talk and stretch to prepare for class. I would always spend some time to warm up my knees because I injured both knees pretty bad in the past.

Eddie would usually sit and talk with everybody and stretch to warm up his back.

When it was time to start class he would call everyone onto the training floor. 10 Planet Jiu-Jitsu trains at Legends in Los Angeles which is Randy Coture and Bas Ruttens gym.

Eddie would teach 3 or 4 techniques per class. He would demonstrate the technique. Sometimes he would have other people demonstrate the technique while he talked about it.

After showing the technique we would drill going back and forth with our training partner for about five minutes and then on to the next technique.

From there we would usually go to situation drills. For example we would start in half guard and the bottom guy would have to sweep the opponent and the top guy would try to get the mount or side control. Then Eddie would say go and you would go live until one guy accomplished his goal.

By this time we would be warmed up from the drills so there wouldn't be many injuries.

After doing situation drills for about 15 minutes Eddie would say "let's spar!." The rest of class would be free sparring from that point on.

One of the best things about Brazilian jiu jitsu is that during sparring you can go at it 100%. This is good because you will know if your techniques will work in a fight.

You will be able to develop the right timing and feel to execute in a real situation. This is unlike other striking arts like Tae Kwon Do or Thai Boxing.

Every night at 10th Planet Jiu Jitsu is Abu Dhabi night. Everyone is trying to finish their training partner by submission.

The competitive nature of the training is good and bad. Good because you learn how to defend yourself and submit a live opponent. Bad for learning and growing by adding new techniques to your game.

It is important that you have good training partners that will respect the tap out. There is nothing worse than a guy who is trying to hurt people in the gym. 10th Planet didn't really have a problem with this. Everybody is pretty cool there.

At 10th Planet you are likely to have anybody come in to train. Besides Conor Huen, Scott Epstein, Dan Hardy.... that train there on a regular basis you could see anyone.

Of course Bas Rutten and Randy Coutoure teach there periodically as well as Mac Danzig and Karo Parisyan.

A lot of fighters from Japan would come through wanting to spar Eddie. I remember one kid from Japan was getting tapped out so many different ways by Eddie that you could see the confusion on his face.

I had an opportunity to spar one of the Japanese fighters. From the Pyramid I transitioned to the Triangle and he posted his forearm across my waist to posture up so I turned that into a Duda to get the tap.

I also got a chance to spar with Gilbert Melendez when he came through 10th Planet. I didn't know who he was or that he was an undefeated MMA fighter at the time but I found out real quick.

Gilbert caught me in the tightest Triangle that I have ever been in. He has really sharp jiu jitsu skills.

UFC fighters such as Rampage, Cro Cop, Yves Edwards, Jason Miller, Manny Gamburyan... could be seen training there on any given day.