It’s not a secret that BJJ practitioners lack takedowns in general. For many years, and even today, in a lot of academies people would start rolling from the ground, so the aspect of learning and teaching takedowns was completely abandoned.
In support of this are the usual IBJJF, and many other tournament rules in which it is allowed to pull guard without penalty. If you can simply pull guard and continue from there why would you even bother learning takedowns? Makes sense!
Usually, people would practice takedowns here and there before tournaments so they know at least something about it, but it was way beyond their focus.
Today, the situation is changing due to NO-Gi Jiu-Jitsu becoming more and more popular with rules that will punish you for guard pulling.
The process of learning takedowns can be extremely slow for BJJ practitioners as it requires a different method and approach when compared to the Jiu-Jitsu way of learning.
Let’s see what John Danaher has to say about speeding up the process of learning takedowns:
“Many of the most popular standing takedowns in Jiu-jitsu can also be used as sweeps from guard positions on the ground. This really helps the Jiu-jitsu students speed up the process of learning them as standing takedowns.
If you already have a strong Single Leg Sweep from open guard, it won’t be so difficult to lead a single leg takedown from a standing position.
Once you learn standing setups and elements of stance and motion etc, everything is quite similar.
Quite a few takedowns have very significant overlap with commonly used guard sweeps – double legs, Tomoe nage, sumi gaeshi, collar drags, ankle picks – these (and others) all are excellent takedowns from standing as well as excellent sweeps from the floor.
By focusing on these overlap takedowns, the Jiu-jitsu student can shorten learning time by taking what is already familiar and applying it in a different context. I’m sure that many of you have been applying these moves as sweeps for many years. It will be easier to apply them from standing once you make the necessary additions than learning an entirely new takedown that has no relation to the ground game you are so familiar with.
If you’re looking to develop a good standing takedown game in a short timeframe – ask yourself what some of your favorite guard sweeps are and whether they can be applied in standing position – a surprising number can – perhaps they can be your short cut to developing some takedown skills” – wrote John Danaher on his Instagram Profile
