Ryan Hall: Everything Has Changed

Posted by Marshal Carper

Mon Nov 16, 2009 8:07 am

Ryan Hall at ADCC: Barcelona.

Ryan Hall made his name in the grappling world as a Lloyd Irvin prodigy. Tournament after tournament, match after match, he pulled guard, and by rotating between traditional guard and inverted guard, often-times with monkey-like speed and agility, he would catch his opponent with any one of his 200+ triangle set-ups. It was fancy. It was flashy. And it was winning him tournaments.

“I don’t believe in it anymore,” Hall said.

The techniques and the strategies that were winning him NAGA tournaments and Grappler’s Quest tournaments weren’t effective against elite level competition. Hall said that his old approach to Jiu-Jitsu was fundamentally flawed and that he was only successful with positions like the inverted guard because he often enjoyed a significant skill and knowledge advantage over his opponents, which hid the weaknesses of his game.

Hall likened his experience to what it might be like to play basketball with LeBron James: “He could beat [me], probably, with no hands because not only is he physically better suited for that game, but he’s technically so much better and so much more skilled than [me] that he can do whatever he wants… Just because you can stand on your head and triangle me when you’re really good and I’m not doesn’t make it a good strategy when both of us are at a high level.

“The idea is [that] just by competing at the high level, the only things that will work are the proper movements, where as if I competed at a low level, that’s when you’ll see people taking shots they shouldn’t take, driving the lane when they shouldn’t, making all sorts of strategic and technical mistakes that only work against lesser opposition.”

What movements do work at the highest level?

“Before, I used to roll around and triangle people a whole bunch of times but if the guy was really good, maybe, maybe not,” Hall said. “But now, it’s get on top, pass, mount, choke. Get on top, pass, mount, choke.”

Ryan and Hall and one of his 50/50 students.

Hall frequently referenced Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles and Roger Gracie as grapplers that he is now seeking to emulate. Gracie, especially, exemplifies the strategy that Hall now believes is best.

“Why is [Gracie] able to go to the mount and cross choke every single person?” Hall asked. “Everyone knows it’s coming, and it’s not a trick, and there’s not even any sort of flash to it. It’s funny: the best way that you know that Roger may not be being entirely honest when he’s asked what makes him so successful is that he’ll tell you, ‘I’m just doing the same thing as everyone else.’ ‘Roger, why won’t you put out an instructional DVD?’ ‘I just use basics.’ ‘I see… so that’s why everyone mounts and cross chokes their opponents into oblivion every time?’ I would argue that there are things that aren’t visually apparent that are very, very different between what he does and what the rest of us do… In my mind it’s not even a question at this point. There is a small, small handful of people doing this, and it’s not some sort magic. I truly believe that they know something that other people don’t that they’re not particularly willing to share. I’ve been trying to figure it out for the last couple years, and I feel like I’m starting to make progress little by little. I’ve gone from not being able to pass the guard to that being the absolute strongest part of my game and the cross choke from mount being my number one finish.”

Being on top is key. According to Hall, the guard, as a strategy, is not effective against elite level competition because it puts the bottom fighter at a major mechanical disadvantage. Because of this, Hall believes that the guard will eventually disappear and be replaced by takedowns and top positioning. That’s not to say that the guard won’t be used in the event that a fighter does end up on bottom, but the days of a fighter immediately pulling half guard will cease to exist.

Next: the Fundamental Level of Jiu-Jitsu >>