Spring Camp 2024: All Hail Marcelo Garcia; Aggressive Back Retention with Giles Garcia

[@robertcunningham6592]

A man with the last name Garcia teaching back control ... I'm listening ! 👂 💪

[@Giles-Garcia]

Marcelo Garcia is a personal hero of mine, and not just for his amazing Jiu Jitsu but how he conducts himself, I'm very happy to share a last name with him!

[@ciarancoyle8707]

Class stuff mate, greeting from Eire!😃

[@Giles-Garcia]

Cheers mate, glad you enjoyed it! Sorry for the Maggie Thatcher joke 😂

[@john_admin4965]

You guys got MG…..ok you made the big leagues now.

[@KodiakCombat]

Margaret Thatcher fans are gonna love you!

[@Giles-Garcia]

I love that you picked that up ❤ - my bags got swabbed for explosives on the way home, they must have thought I was a Provo! 😂

[@KodiakCombat]

@@Giles-Garcia I had to look up the specifics. When you said it, I couldn't remember why I knew it nor why it was important. At least they didn't cavity search you!

[@kennylovesbjj]

You should reall use your legs to control your training partner, the arms are supposed to attack, not to control

[@Giles-Garcia]

Upper body control should take priority in my opinion - from my own competition experience, and from analysis of elite competitors, I think having a strong hand-fighting game & upper body control coupled with a bloody determination to strangle someone is very useful! I should note that if you do not have control of the upper body, your opponent has more chances to escape or otherwise spoil your ability to finish/prevent escapes than you should be comfortable with. I don't think at any point in the video I explicitly state to never use the legs for controlling our opponent, and if it appears that I've implied that, please rest assured that you should also be using your legs. Again, I reiterate - you should have upper AND lower body control, but I would personally be prioritising upper body control; specifically upper back control.

[@raiklaub975]

@@Giles-Garcia Thank you for your detailed and well-founded answer. Even this explanation alone has conceptual value for me. Concepts are often more important than individual techniques.

[@Giles-Garcia]

@@raiklaub975 Thank you very much! As a strict rule, I only ever teach material that I've experimented with and then implemented successfully over the course of several months (at least) - what I've shown in this video is actually the fifth iteration of my back attack game!

[@LemonNation]

So if you had a choice between lower body and upper body control you think you could control the back better using only your legs vs only your arms?

[@Giles-Garcia]

​@@raiklaub975And as to the whole concepts Vs techniques thing, I think it can be a bit of both. Everyone should aim to have a strong grasp of the concepts, but as you start competing at the higher ranks, technical details are important - for example, knowing and being able to implement an Aoki lock off a straight footlock attempt, or using a claw grip round the neck rather than a hand on your partner's trap for back control retention are details that can make all the difference when rolling with other black belts! I'm a big fan of CLA and making sure every single student of mine has a firm grasp of the underpinning concepts, signposting them and building drills to help them all get it, but it's still one tool out of several in a coach's toolkit. Sorry for the essay!