Travis Stevens is a 3 time Judo Olympian, an Olympic silver medalist, and a BJJ black belt.
So he’s deadly on his feet but is also really slick on the ground. In fact his ground attacks were a huge part of his very successful run at the 2016 Olympics.
He shared 3 really cool ways to take the back while passing the guard with me, and I was fortunate enough to get it on video for you.
All these methods are linked together by the same concept he learned from John Danaher, namely “If I can see your back then I can take your back”
Here’s his video about taking the back on Youtube.
Check it out – this is really good stuff!
In the video above Travis wanted to show you a concept, not teach you the actual techniques, so he went through them pretty fast.
If you want to get better at the actual techniques themselves here are some additional breakdowns of the back takes so you can start drilling them in your training.
First, here’s the rolling back take as taught by Rob Biernacki and myself…
Next, here’s Travis himself breaking down the second back take from the double underhooks guard pass
And finally, just in case you’re thinking that this stuff is too fancy to work, here’s Travis coming within a hair’s breadth of actually taking the back of Paulo Miyao, one of the very best grapplers in the world, at the 201 Copa Podio in Rio, Brazil.
(The whole match is here but you can see the actual back take by clicking play on the video below.)
Hope you enjoyed this little dive into taking the back with an amazingly versatile and skilled grappler!
Stephan
P.S. I also did a really interesting podcast episode with Travis – click here for more information on how to listen to that!
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