Coming up through the jiu jitsu ranks as you develop your personal game plan you will gravitate to certain positions based on a number of factors like your body style, age, and overall athleticism. If you are a bigger, stronger practitioner, you may find yourself more likely to gravitate towards heavy pressure passing and side control attacks where your size and strength give you the best control and ability to submit your opponents. If you are a lighter, more flexible practitioner, perhaps inverted guard and lightning quick back takes and submissions are more in your wheelhouse.

Regardless of your individual BJJ proclivities, it’s important to study the game of the athletes at your gym or outside who seem to do the impossible. Have you ever trained with a super light training partner who felt like they weighed 3 tons when they applied their pressure passing? Or perhaps no matter how fortified your base, they were able to sweep you, like you were a dead leaf blowing in the breeze? Lightweight practitioners that bring heavy pressure, or are able to sweep heavier partners with ease are the ones we should be studying.

Check out the video below, with Leonardo “Cascao” Saggioro, one of the long time training partners of Bernardo Faria. As a lightweight, he doesn’t have the strength or size of Bernardo, but he has somehow assimilated elements of Bernardo’s game and made them work for the smaller competitors out there.

Leonardo “Cascao” Saggioro shows a single leg half guard sweep that ends with taking your opponent’s back.

The beauty of Cascao’s game plan is that if you’re a smaller competitor who’s tired of being smashed and looking for ways to sweep those heavier training partners, or even if you’re a bigger practitioner, you can apply these same tools and get the sweeps.  Because as Helio Gracie famously said, you’ve got to assume there’s always gonna be someone bigger and stronger than you.

Being a smaller jiu jitsu player should not be seen as a disadvantage.  If you want to learn the secrets of how this featherweight who trained for years with 5 time World Champion Bernardo Faria adapted his half guard and pressure passing game to match his good friend, check out Leonardo “Cascao” Saggioro “Sweep the World” instructional on sale at BJJ Fanatics here!