Marcelo Garcia's Takedowns

Over the past couple of months, I've been working with different takedowns in order to figure out which ones work best for me. I know how to do a lot of takedowns, but truthfully, I've never felt like there was any one takedown that I could call my own. A nice Judo toss is always good on a less experienced opponent, but much more difficult to execute on an experienced fighter. I guess I never really felt like I had a high percentage takedown, one that I could almost always count on, or recover from after a failed attempt, and finish it off. That is until now. After experimenting with various Judo throws and wrestling takedowns, I've really become hooked on Marcelo's takedowns. Of course he makes it look easy, but the basic concept of it is that it's a basic arm-drag set up for a single leg takedown. The key is the initial kazushi (off balancing) that sets it up and puts him in a position to attack the leg and either get the takedown or utilize any number of follow up attacks to finish it off.

I've been watching a lot of his videos lately and have included a couple of them here that really highlight this concept. Another point is that he doesn't just utilize this technique for his standing takedowns, he also utilizes these concepts from multiple positions to gain a dominate position or transition out from the bottom.

Watch how Marcelo uses the arm-drag to set up his takedowns. Also, pay attention to how he uses it to come out of the guard to reverse his opponent.