First Things First
Welcome to Open Note Grappling.
Every Tuesday morning I send out a breakdown of the best combat sports action. In less than 10 minutes you'll learn how the top fighters win and anything else fighters, martial artists, and fight fans need to know.
The 2026 ADCC World Championships finished last weekend and I finally finished going through the most impressive performances. Here we’re going to talk about some of the interesting technical innovations I saw.
Before we dive deep into jiujitsu nerddom, I want to invite you to an event next week.
I’m hosting a webinar with my friend Chris Wojcik. He’s an author, professional jiujitsu competitor, and he’s in the early stages of his starting his own gym. We’re going to discuss everything from teaching to systems for scaling the gym of your dreams.
If you want to turn your passion for martial arts into a career this is for you.
Click here to RSVP. And if you have any specific questions you can reply to this email and we’ll add them to the agenda.
Now let’s get into it.
Table of Contents
Daniel Schuardt’s Shin Breaker
The best part of ADCC is always the upsets. You make ~100 of the best grapplers in the world fight for money and some crazy shit is bound to happen.
The moment of 2024’s ADCC was Michael Pixley throwing Nicholas Meregali directly onto his shoulder en route to securing a d’arce. Well it looks like the shoe is on the other foot this time around.
Pixley got submitted in the first round of this ADCC World Championships by Daniel “The Man Child” Schuardt.
Schuardt is playing a low half guard. He drives his knee into Pixley and turns away from for a g roll. Pixley falls over, briefly looks at attacking a leg lock, and then starts to get up. But Schuardt has already passed Pixley’s leg cross body to set up his ankle lock. Pixley is forced to submit.
Daniel Schuardt - Michael Pixley
This wasn’t the only time Schuardt found this submission. He caught his next opponent Eoghan O'flanaghan with it as well.
Both Schuardt and O'flanaghan are trading ankle locks. Schuardt is fiddling with his grip to lock O'flanaghan’s foot in his arm pit. Once Schuardt has the grip he wants he gets onto his outside hip to bridge and rotate through the break.
Daniel Schuardt - Eoghan O'flanaghan
Okay so what’s going on here? Why did these high ankle locks work?
1 - Schuardt starts by securing the cross ankle in his arm pit much higher than a normal achilles lock.
2 - Then Schuardt reaches his secondary arm over his primary wrist and grabs his own waist, under his primary elbow.
3- With the foot completely locked in place Schuardt bridges and twists to invert the ankle.
One of my gym's members drops in at Kingsway to get rounds with bigger guys. He said this particular ankle lock feels like your shin is about to explode.
Schuardt calls this the Mussolini lock because he was watching Italian brainrot reels when he learned the grip. I'm serious.
Now let’s move onto the division below.
Fixing The False Reap
A niche leg locking position known as the false reap took over jiujitsu a handful of years ago. This technique has you throw a leg in front of your opponent’s primary leg as you go under them. When done correctly you enter a breaking position.
Here is how the false reap is generally taught.
One of the primary problems with this position is that the top player can easily put their weight down to prevent the bottom player from going underneath them. I don’t really use nor teach the false reap for that reason. I might have to change how I view the technique after this past weekend.
Two -88KG competitors were able to modify the false reap and rip their opponents’ legs apart.
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