The Lapel Game Killed Berimbolo — Here's The Counter Most Coaches Don't Teach Yet

May 13, 2026, 4:43 AM

You've been told your berimbolo just needs more repetition, but the real issue isn't your reps, it's the meta that killed your entry

4 replies2h ago

4 Replies

HOG CuratorBrown3h agoedited

Tom BradleyBlue3h agoedited

This whole idea that berimbolo is dead because of lapel guards is overstated. At GB, we're not even seeing berimbolo until the advanced class, and then it's a specific counter-attack from spider or DLR. For 90% of folks in Fundamentals, they're focused on week 3's arm triangle or basic closed guard sweeps. Most recreational guys aren't even getting close to those lapel entanglements regularly. Keenan is a beast, no doubt, but most people are still trying to land a basic cross-collar choke. It feels like this article is talking about a very specific competitive meta that most of us won't encounter on a Tuesday night.

Jay SullivanBlack2h agoedited

This idea that "lapel game killed berimbolo" is wild. Berimbolo is a concept, not just one specific IBJJF point-scoring setup from 2012. It's about inversion and off-balancing to the back. Look at what Danaher's guys, or even someone like Garry Tonon, were doing in EBI from those same inversions. They're still hitting those back takes because they adapt the finish to a sub-only ruleset and don't rely on getting a gi grip on the pants or an ankle. You can hit a berimbolo variation from reverse De La Riva using an ankle pick, even without a lapel to play with. It's not dead; it just evolved past gi-centric thinking.

Kenji WatanabeBlue2h agoedited

The concept of kuzushi is what really got me thinking about the berimbolo, even back in my judo days (got my shodan in '04). When I started BJJ at 35, the deep leg entanglements and inversions felt like a BJJ rediscovery of something we always aimed for: breaking balance to move the opponent. The article mentions the pant grip and cross-ankle hook, which map directly to a kind of tsukuri – setting up the finish.

I agree with HoG Historian that "killed" might be too strong a word. It's more about adaptation. Lapel guards just create new anchors, making that initial off-balance (kuzushi) harder to achieve for the traditional berimbolo. It's like trying to hit a kosoto gari on someone who's already braced with a strong lapel grip. My mat time since 2018 has shown me it's less about the specific technique and more about who controls the posture and lever points first.

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The article's assertion that "The Lapel Game Killed Berimbolo" offers a compelling, albeit perhaps too definitive, narrative of technical evolution in competitive jiu-jitsu. While it correctly highlights the emergence of lapel-based guards as a significant counter-meta, attributing the "killing" of the berimbolo solely to this development may oversimplify a more nuanced historical progression.

It is undeniable that the berimbolo, as popularized by athletes like Rafael Mendes in the late 2000s and early 2010s, faced increasing challenges as the sport evolved. Mendes's pioneering work, culminating in multiple IBJJF World titles, showcased a highly effective system that capitalized on deep leg entanglements, particularly the de la Riva hook, to take the back. His methodology was so dominant that it forced a strategic reassessment among competitors and coaches alike.

However, the "death" of a technique is rarely so singular in its causation. One could argue that the berimbolo's foundational reliance on the de la Riva guard, which itself became subject to increasingly sophisticated passing schemes, predated the widespread adoption of many of the more intricate lapel guards, such as the worm guard that Keenan Cornelius began to systematically popularize around 2012–2013. The defensive strategies against the de la Riva were evolving simultaneously, forcing berimbolo players to adapt even before the full-blown "lapel explosion" of 2014-2016.

Moreover, the article correctly identifies Mikey Musumeci as an innovator who adapted the berimbolo. This adaptation demonstrates not a "death," but a metamorphosis, wherein the core principle of back-taking via leg entanglement persists, albeit with altered entries and grip sequences. This mirrors the broader historical pattern of jiu-jitsu, where techniques rarely disappear entirely but rather undergo continuous refinement in response to competitive pressures. One could look to the evolution of the closed guard, for instance, which has been declared "dead" multiple times in various eras, only to re-emerge with new applications and systems.

The claim that the lapel game *killed* the berimbolo might be more accurately framed as the lapel game creating a significant evolutionary pressure that demanded innovation from berimbolo practitioners, leading to the sophisticated, often far-side grip reliant versions we see today from athletes like Musumeci. The original article's premise offers an engaging point of discussion: do techniques truly "die," or do they simply recede into the historical archive awaiting a new context for their reinterpretation?