Highly respected MMA and BJJ coach Firas Zahabi was recently on the Joe Rogan Podcast where he shared an interesting story about his training sessions with Marcelo Garcia.

Joe Rogan and Eddie Bravo had already discussed in the past that the great champion Marcelo didn’t believe in Kimura because he said that it was a power move, and also he didn’t like teaching arm in chokes because such as the Darce/Brabo.

Firas talked about it and shared a story:

“I remember going to train with Marcelo Garcia. We were doing just a one and one training session and he was telling me that he doesn’t like Darce, he doesn’t teach Darce andthat he doesn’t believe in Darce… I remember telling him that his arms were short but if he had a guy with long arms, wouldn’t you tell him to do Darce? He will say no no no.

He also said that he didn’t like leg locks, that they’re no good which is crazy. Imagine that a Palhares walks into your gym and you tell him dude don’t do leglocks but that’s his game… He Tapped Out Rico Rodriguez with a heel Hook in Abu Dhabi but he will tell you that it shouldn’t have worked. He was telling me that he didn’t want his guys to wrestle and I was like why? When you faced Jake Shields, you did a single leg and you took him down. He was like, he shouldn’t have fell. So your wrestling is good, and he was like no no no you shouldn’t wrestle a wrestler. I get what he’s trying to say but there is a time and place where I would wrestle a wrestler, when I see a vulnerability. I think he’s changed over the years but when I rolled with him he was at the top. So I was like who am I to question him. He knows what he’s doing. He also told me that he didn’t like Kimura because for him it was a strength move. He also doesn’t like arm triangle
If you look at his career all the things that he doesn’t like or the things he’s been caught with. A Darce from Braulio and Drysdale, a Kimura from Jacare…”

While his reasoning might not make sense to many, Marcelo who fought mostly at middleweight, was always facing the top competitors and also facing much heavier opponents.

For him, these moves would be valid on opponents that are the same size as you, however he believes that one should focus on techniques that work equally well against opponents of all sizes especially bigger ones, hence why he doesn’t like those moves. If that makes sense…

Submit from anywhere with these weird Darce chokes made up by the innovative and creative ADCC medalist Jeff Glover.

• Learn the best ways to lock up and finish the darce choke with Jeff’s special variations, including the darce, the marce, and the farce.