AKA American jiu-jitsu gym coach Leandro Vieira, in a conversation with the Portal Vale Tudo YouTube channel, explained how he took Khabib Nurmagomedov’s ground control technique to another level.
Leading: “Leondrino, you keep mentioning the term “knee control”. Do I understand correctly that this is the position that Khabib constantly used when he did not allow his opponents to turn on their side and stand up?»
Leandro Vieira: “And there is. Once upon a time, I myself liked to pass the guard at the expense of strength and pressure. But then my brother showed me positions with leg drag and knee control. This is a great control system on the ground, which allows you to not spend a lot of effort. That’s what we call it: “KC” – “knee control”. My brother showed it to me, this technique stems from the leg drag. You dump, drag your opponent’s legs to the side, press down his thigh with your knee and go around his guard from the side, going behind your back. Or just stay on the side. Knee control is great for keeping your opponent on the ground with your legs and hips. Thanks to this, you do not use your hands, they are freed up for work on the submission or strikes. Here’s the coolest thing about knee control: the arms are free and the opponent can’t stand up. Thanks to this technique, the stars of the hall began to respect me – DC, Kane, Luke, Khabib. They all wanted to master it, they realized how good this control system is on the ground.”
Leading: “Before, everyone thought that his control technique was from sambo and wrestling. But it turns out that it came from your brother, who taught it to you.
Leandro Vieira: “This technique is called “Leg Drag”. You dump your opponent’s legs on the side and press down on his thigh with your knee. The knee presses the thigh from its side. In this position, you have two choices: you crush his leg and stay to the side, or you go around his guard and go behind his back. There is one position I like about Leg Drag, it is also quite traditional: when you squeeze your knee between your legs and go into the mount. This is the base of control of the knee. What Khabib and all these top guys do. This technique allows you to pick up the back. If you look at Khabib’s style, before he translated the guys, they got up, and he translated them again. He fought a lot with his hands, translated again and again. But then, after a while, his rivals stopped getting up. He translated them and took back. Wrestlers and sambo wrestlers do not take their backs in this way. Therefore, it was very difficult for me to persuade Khabib and DC to take her.
I remember how Khabib told me: “Master, I don’t like to take, attack the back. This is not for me. It won’t work.” But I sat down with him, explained the position, he understood everything and said: “I won’t have time to work it out for this fight, but I’ll apply it in the next fight.” The most incredible and extraordinary quality of Khabib is that he came to each new camp stronger. Stronger than before the last fight. And when that fight was over, he returned to the camp, there were eight weeks left until the next fight, and that’s when he started taking backs and submitting. I didn’t have to say much anymore. Of course, we worked on the details, but he had already begun to attack the back himself and understood this position.».
Nurmagomedov ended his career in October 2020. He won his last three fights in the UFC by submission.
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