Rani Yahya: MMA Grappling for Stubborn Old Bastards
Rani Yahya is only thirty five years old but he seems to have been around forever. Consider this: Leo Vieira is now a fatherly coaching figure in the grappling world. Eddie Bravo and Royler Gracie are both old men. Yahya was their peer and competed in their division when Vieira took the 66kg crown at ADCC 2003. With fighters it is often mileage that matters more than age, so consider that Yahya just fought his seventeenth fight with the UFC and had seven WEC bouts under his belt when the UFC absorbed that company in 2011.
On Saturday night, Yahya met a younger, larger and less worn down fighter in Enrique Barzola and after a strong start, Yahya fell off and only managed a hard fought draw. But in that three act drama, Yahya showed many of the looks that make him unique, some significant new developments, and a number of factors that make his jiu jitsu work for MMA where so many accomplished grapplers have fallen down.
Something which Yahya has done for a long time is use a high crotch or head outside single to take opponents down. This is not completely abhorrent and there have been a number of good high crotch users in MMA, but it is still far from the norm. If a fighter picks up a traditional single leg, the opponent’s defences are largely just undoing the attacking fighter’s controls and getting back to zero. When attacking the single with the head on the outside, a fighter tends to open himself up more to direct counter attacks—the switch, butt drags to the back, the crucifix and most importantly the guillotine choke which, obviously, does not exist as a threat in other forms of wrestling.
Studying the fighters who have routinely applied the head outside single in MMA, they tend to make adaptations to complicate the opponent’s counter attacks. Daniel Cormier, for instance, does a great job of keeping his opponents off balance and will chain attacks from there. You will also notice that the amount of movement Cormier generates once he has picked up the leg also makes it possible for him to attack foot sweeps from the position more than anyone else you will see in MMA.
Jake Shields has also had great success with the head outside single but isn’t able to throw opponents around by it in the same way that Daniel Cormier does. One consideration that Shields seems to make is to keep his ear pressed to the side of the opponent’s thigh. It can look a little odd next to more textbook wrestling examples, but it often prevents the opponent from shooting their wrist through under the throat, parallel to the ground. It makes life a lot more difficult if you have to pull a fighter up your leg before you can attack a guillotine.
Shields and Yahya both use the crackdown to get the opponent on the mat from the head outside single and then they are left in this awkward position where the opponent is threatening their back.
To hammer home how close the connection is between high crotch and back control / crucifix is, consider that Gordan Ryan will transition from the crucifix, to the high crotch crackdown position (where his opponent is the “attacker”), to achieve back control. He did this in ADCC 2019 against Lucas Barbosa to get the points awarded for back control and to free himself up to attack with both hands. Ryan goes into this on his post ADCC DVD and explains that a few inches difference in the placement of the opponent’s inside shoulder is all that separates the high crotch crackdown from back exposure.
(a) Gordon is attacking from the crucifix. (b) Gordon switches to a crotch lift grip and pulls Barbosa’s shoulder clear. (c) Gordon inserts his left hook. (d) Gordon pulls Barbosa over the top of him into a truck position, ready to take the back.
The idea of positional hierarchy would make you think that after the takedown the fighter should be passing the guard. Especially as the crackdown puts you in what looks like a half guard position with only one of the opponent’s legs to clear. But Shields and Yahya will often retreat to place themselves completely in front of the opponent’s hips—giving up either full guard or a butterfly guard variant—and then begin again from zero. Stepping over the opponent’s far leg is a great way to stop them from angling out towards the back, just as stepping the same side knee up will block the progress of an arm drag from the guard. Often Shields could step all the way around and pass the guard on the opposite side of his opponent as he did against Martin Kampmann.
The crackdown is a tremendous way to get the opponent on the mat, but it can really limit you if the opponent grabs a hold. When Dan Henderson wrapped Jake Shields’ upper body, Shields grabbed a wrist with his outside hand and rolled through. In wrestling this would be awesome as his back smashed down on top of Henderson and threatened to pin his shoulders to the mat. In MMA… it just sort of went on for a while with no real effect or direction.
In an ideal world, the opponent doesn’t keep tight enough to the high crotch-er’s upper body. This means the man who has executed the takedown can freely extract his inside arm (b) from its compromised position and switch to a double leg position. Here’s Yahya doing that against Mizuto Hirota. You will also recall it from Nurmagomedov versus McGregor.
That Dang Deep Half
The connection between single leg and half guard has always been apparent. Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira used to grab a painfully slow single, get sprawled on, and sit through into half guard. Demian Maia, Rafael Lovato and Michelle Nicolini have all attempted a single leg, sat down to half guard, and then come back up on a single leg in the course of the last year. Robert Drysdale has said that when he teaches half guard to wrestlers and MMA fighters he tells them to forget the guard part and think of it as a single leg that needs finishing. Our man Rani Yahya has been linking his head outside single and the deep half guard for the best part of two decades and if you take the time to enjoy his 2003 ADCC match with Leo Vieira you will see Yahya going between head out single and deep half, all while balancing the threat of Vieira’s guillotine.
The Vieira match will also show you why Yahya can go to his head outside single with impunity. Even grapplers who don’t go out looking for the deep half guard will admit it is a terrific way to turn the tables from an incomplete back take or mount attempt. Leozinho was a tremendous guard passer and back taker and he was on monstrous form that night in 2003, in fact Yahya was gasping for air and struggling to keep up, but still Yahya was consistently clawing back the threat of deep half from disadvantageous positions.
Deep half guard has always been a divisive topic in MMA because it is so seldom used well. Most of the damage comes in attempting to get to the deep half. Think of the number of times you have seen the bottom fighter underhooking his opponent’s waist and fair leg, and then getting sat on and elbowed into smear across the canvas. Shogun Rua against Jon Jones, Bigfoot Silva against Cain Velasquez, Pequinho Nogueira against Jose Aldo, it probably happened in one of the last five fights you watched before reading this.
True deep half—the sweeping position itself—is marvelous whether you’re wearing four ounce gloves, heavy duty pajamas, or spandex tights. A lot of things are called deep half now—especially with grapplers like Bernardo Faria having success from a “half deep half” or a “shallow deep half”, but the deep half for our purposes is the position in which the leg is turned into a lever, extended from the opponent’s hip. In this position the bottom fighter is free to turn back and forth, threatening to come up on the single leg or to attack the back.
The modern half guard game favours the Lucas Leite style of half guard a good deal more. This is when the opponent’s knee is forced to the knee cutting side of the half guard, to the inside of the guard player’s body—this is why you will often see it in battles between knee cut passer and guard player. It is this style of half guard that Demian Maia and Rafael Lovato use so effectively in MMA, coming up to a dog-fight position. In contrast to this, the traditional deep half guard is easiest to enter when the opponent’s knee is taken to the outside of the body. Among the good guard players in MMA, a few use the deep half guard as a follow up attack, changing direction from the Leite style half guard. Brazilian sorceress, Michelle Nicolini performed this transition against Angela Lee.
A basic entry to the deep half that was used by Yahya and Jeff Glover back in the early 2000s was to sit up into a head outside single position from seated open guard. From there Yahya could pull the opponent down on top of him but ensure that their knee went to the outside of his body. This is something like pulling the top fighter into mount, over your shoulder—you give yourself a lot of room to come out the back door.
There exists a danger in coming up to a head outside single from seated guard: a quick opponent can step around and threaten the back as Marcelo Garcia can often be seen doing in his rolls. Yet one of Yahya’s first succesful chains of offense against Barzola came off a head outside single from his back. As Barzola stood in Yahya’s guard, Yahya upkicked, then used his right ankle to hook a shin to shin connection. This allowed him to pull himself to the leg as Barzola was backing away.
Yahya pulled himself into a head outside single position, then as he drove up into the fleeing Barzola, Yahya switched to a traditional single and worked his way up to an underhook from there. Yahya successfully transitioned to a bodylock and threw Barzola by as Barzola attempted to swing him by the whizzer.
While the deep half guard is a tremendous sweeping position, one of the concerns for MMA has always been the head placement—directly under the opponent. The old answer was “keep moving” and to keep the opponent’s hands on the floor. But in the Barzola fight Yahya was demonstrating a very modern sweeping position as he deliberately passed Barzola over his head to the reverse half guard.
Reverse half guard has always been a favourite of guard passers. You can sit into it backwards from half guard, or midway through a knee slide pass—as Marcelo Garcia does—or you can get to it by hopping over the opponent’s head from deep half guard. Now some bottom players in jiu jitsu have begun to score impressive sweeps from the reverse half position and will actually put themselves there deliberately—most notably Masahiro Iwasaki and Jake McKenzie. Here is McKenzie sweeping an opponent from the true reverse half guard, where the opponent’s outside leg is the free one.
And here is Iwasaki, from a slightly different position more like the Faria half-deep-half, but demonstrating why he’s such a fan favourite. From both positions the goal is to get good grips and bridge the opponent towards their back, something you can’t do as easily when in regular half guard with the opponent facing towards your head.
By popping his head out after entering the deep half, and then locking his hands around Barzola, Yahya was able to put himself in a position where it was difficult to strike him effectively. Yahya was exhausted in the third round and very much the nail to Barzola’s hammer, but he was still able to hide himself from much of the damage by putting himself in this awkward position.
In terms of sweeping, Yahya wasn’t that effective. In the gi there are sleeves to cling to and Iwasaki almost always passes the lapel between the opponent’s legs before executing his bridging sweeps. Without the gi, Yahya was largely limited to rolling up on the head outside single—when he wasn’t absolutely knackered. When Yahya simply waited it out and Barzola got frustrated, Barzola lifted his weight to try and free his knee and almost dragged Yahya into a takedown. Note the prompt re-entry and how Barzola was able to hammerfist Yahya until the moment his head popped out the back.
In order to move Barzola’s weight and get up, Yahya also attempted to insert a butterfly hook, then found himself reverse mounted and coming up on the Joseph Benavidez style reverse single leg. It was weird, but he got top position out of it. Barzola actually worked this position out well towards the end of the fight. He had threatened the kimura several times, and Yahya would roll himself to put that arm to the mat. When he did so, Yahya’s legs opened and Barzola was able to attack a kneebar.
Mastering the Art of Not Dying
If you saw the Barzola - Yahya fight you will know that the third round was a disaster for Yahya. His gas tank could not keep pace with Barzola’s and he was struggling to get the pay off on his sweeps even when he was fresh. What Yahya was able to do was keep himself relatively safe from harm even when he was largely spent and a couple of those looks are well worth further study.
Any time Yahya ended up on the bottom of side control, he tended to make sure his inside shoulder was free so that he could roll to the turtle when he got the chance. Often he accomplished this by shooting his cuff over Barzola’s back and wrapping Barzola’s head during the pass.
When Yahya found himself in a more traditional side control, being struck in the face, he went to a classic: the x-hands. By framing with both forearms inside the cross face, Yahya could try and pass Barzola’s hand over his head and roll through each time Barzola cocked his arm back to throw an elbow.
This idea is a must-have if you like Marcelo Garcia’s sit up escapes.
When escaping disadvantageous positions, Yahya seemed to fake Barzola out with the empty half guard several times through the fight. The empty half is the bottom man draping his inside leg over the opponent’s trailing leg from side control. Luke Stewart used the empty half to bridge and elevate the great Andre Galvao into a reversal.
More often you will see the bottom man lift the opponent’s leg and try to insert a butterfly hook underneath himself. Either way, the empty half can be a little gimmicky and the top man will often turn his hips towards the bottom man’s head and knee slide his leg free.
Eddie Bravo using the Empty Half to regain butterfly guard in Mastering the Rubber Guard.
Yahya used the empty half as a distraction, draping his leg over Barzola’s just momentarily, before bridging back in the opposite direction and exploding up to his knees. And he did it time and time again.
Let us bring it full circle by considering Yahya’s unusual take on the turning into his opponent from side control. Traditionally, you take an underhook, bridge and shrimp or scissor your legs, and you come up on a single leg. There are a couple of dangers here: the kimura as you dig for your underhook and the opponent running around to your back as you sprawl belly down being the most significant.
Here, again, Yahya uses the head outside single / high crotch, but from the bottom of side control. Instead of digging an underhook, Yahya thrusts his hand between his opponent’s legs and grabs the thigh that is nearest his head. Then he begins turning in as usual. Armen Tsarukyen was able to come up from bottom side and get to his feet against Islam Makhachev using the same technique.
Go back to the Vieira match and even in 2003 you will see Yahya reaching through Leozinho’s legs to attack the head outside single as Vieira is securing side control off a pass. In fact Yahya, much like a Catholic priest, is constantly on the hunt to grab some inner thigh. Against Barzola, just as against Vieira, Yahya’s answer to being stuck on the bottom was to build up to the turtle, throw an arm back between his opponent’s legs, anchor to the thigh, and turn to face.
This might seem like rather a lot of attention to give a performance that was lucky to scrape a draw. It is a slow week and there’s not much on the horizon because of Coronavirus, but more than that, Yahya’s performance embodied the part of martial arts that has always been most interesting to this writer: how do you make the most of what you’ve got when you’re slowing down, getting weaker and falling behind?
Yahya has never been a big fan favourite but he has always been an oddity and remained competitive with some of the best fighters in the world. Even in the twilight of his career he hasn’t been stopped since he fought Joey Benavidez in WEC back in 2009. He held the record for most sweeps in the UFC for a while and I imagine he is still in the leaderboard. And we haven’t even mentioned the fact that he’s one of two men in MMA who regularly finished the north south choke. Even though Demian Maia had a rough go of it on Saturday night, one Jiu Jitsu old timer was still out there being weird and getting away with it.
If you are at a loose end in quarantine and need something to distract you from the end times, take a look at Jack’s extended Anderson Silva study.
