First Things First

In the lead up to this year’s ADCC World Championships we’re going to analyze the game’s of the athletes competing. If you want to read about ADCC’s newcomers so you can learn the skills, strengths, and patterns their games present, the ADCC Rookie Reports are for you.

Today we’re talking about the unique back taking game o Levi Jones-Leary.

ADCC Rookie Report

We’re back with another ADCC Rookie Report! In the lead up to the 2024 ADCC World Championships we’ll be analyzing the runs of athletes that won ADCC Trials for their first time.

How do they win? What makes their game interesting and unique? What opportunities does that game present for their opponents? You can read previous ADCC Rookie Reports here:

• Jacob Couch

• Jozef Chen

• Michael Pixley

• Taylor Pearman

• Owen Jones

• Dorian Olivarez

We’re constraining these reports to only what the athletes showed in their trials winning performances. This time we’re looking at how Levi Jones-Leary adapted his back take game for no gi.

Levi Jones-Leary

Leary is perhaps the most interesting ADCC qualifier of this whole cycle. The -77 KG Australian made his name as a gi player. In Leary’s first year at black belt, he won the Spyder Invitational in addition to the IBJJF Pan American and European Championships. In the process, he took out all-time great Lucas Lepri.

Leary has won more than he’s lost, but he has not quite been able to replicate his early success with more major wins. Recently he’s been adapting his game to the no gi scene.

After making it to the the finals of Polaris 27’s -77KG tournament, Leary dominated ADCC Trials. It’s not simply that Leary won and took out ADCC veteran Jeremy Skinner to get his invite, it’s the seemingly effortless attacks he uses that make him such an intriguing no gi prospect.

What Leary is doing shouldn’t work. The current metagame was supposed to be an answer to his game. Let’s take a closer look at what makes him different.

Back Takes

Leary is not just known as a gi player. His game is highly specialized for gi grip centric back takes.

One technique that is emblematic of gi jiu-jitsu is the berimbolo. The tricky maneuver has you roll beneath your opponent to crawl up their back. There are many ways to modify it, but, generally, it is seen as a technique that is dependent on the grips that the gi provides. Leary completely bucked that trend at the ADCC Trials.

Leary would sit to his butt, put in de la riva and reverse de la riva hooks, and then pull on his opponent’s base. Leary’s opponents were largely afraid of giving him an angle to take their back. That, combined with Leary’s off balancing, forced many of them to square their hips up. This gave Leary the ability to rapidly ensnare either leg so he could attack the back from multiple angles.

Let’s zoom out a bit to examine the positions of Leary’s triple attack a bit more.

1. Leary has used his left de la riva hook to spin around the outside and attack a berimbolo so his right leg drops to hook Takahashi’s inside leg

2. Takahashi defends and stands but Leary is now using his right leg as a reverse de la riva hook so he can spin inside for the kiss of the dragon back take

3. Takahashi defends again but his left leg is close enough for Leary to scoop, enter K guard, and finish the back take in the gif above

Here is an image that breaks this down. Pay attention to Leary’s right leg.

Leary’s leg dexterity is unreal. I’ve never seen someone transition so smoothly between controlling different legs for back takes like this in no gi.

When Leary does get to the back he does not rush his hooks in. Instead, he will often put one hook in and grab the shin with cross grips to slow his opponent down.

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