Judo Chop: Demian Maia’s Hybrid Grappling Game

Demian Maia has long been known as one of the very best jiu jitsu practitioners in the world, and he has been on a 2-year, 6-fight winning streak that has featured masterful grappling performances. His most recent submission of Carlos Condit on the UFC on Fox 21 card turned heads. Condit is well known for being a very able, dangerous grappler and Maia submitted him in just under two minutes.

Maia’s grappling game has always been strong but in the years since his loss to Anderson Silva, he has been working very hard on improving his wrestling. Those improvements have fed into his ground grappling and the Condit fight was a prime example of that.

The fight starts off in on open guard square up – Maia in southpaw and Condit in orthodox (1). As Maia pressures forward, both paw at the air and Condit switches stances to mirror to Maia (2). Condit then spends some time circling, trying to avoid being trapped against the cage where Maia wants to the match to be in order to take away Condit’s ranged striking game (3).  As Maia starts to pressure more, Condit switches stances back to orthodox (4).  As soon as Condit’s left foot steps forward, Maia shoots in for a single leg, going under the extended left hand of Condit (5). The speed and smoothness of this reaction suggests a shot in response to the left coming forward is a trained reaction. This is important because technically speaking the shot itself was not particularly clean and ‘s explosion into it was not outstanding. What made that shot so effective was Maia’s timing, he recognized that Condit was shifting his weight and that it would delay defensive reactions and was immediately able to close the distance without threat of counter offense.

This idea of closing the gap efficiently and for free on the feet because shooting in is the weakest part of Maia’s takedown game, but once Maia is in his takedown finishes are top notch. Maia secures a tight hold on Condit’s left leg, with his head on the outside, known as a high crotch (1). It is at this point were the evolution of Maia’s wrestling over the last six years become evident. Maia continues to drive forward, pushing Condit to his right, potentially looking to switch to a double leg (2). Condit reaches his right hand over and begins to start digging for a crotch grip of his own, possibly looking to work a switch (3).

Maia then begins to chain wrestle, constantly changing directions on Condit, driving Condit to his right looking to switch to a double leg, and then switching to Condit’s left to a takedown known as a crackdown. Here is a current Assistant Coach of the Arizona State Wrestling Team, …

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