Kenny Florian has taken the time to break down one of the areas that Marcelo Garcia excelled in throughout his impressive career, the Butterfly Guard. It’s one of the most fundamental aspects of Jiu-Jitsu that shows itself at every single level of the sport, right from the very newest beginners all the way to the best grapplers in the history of the sport like Gordon Ryan and the aforementioned Garcia. Out of all of them, Garcia was the one who really made Butterfly Guard his own and he became synonymous with it over a decade-long career that saw him collect an incredible seven ADCC World Championship medals.
For Garcia, his dominance started seemingly out of nowhere at ADCC 2003 when he was a complete unknown being invited to compete at the very last minute when Denis Hallman pulled out. Over the next two days he submitted five of the best grapplers on the planet and claimed a gold medal in a weightclass that included victories over Renzo Gracie and Vitor ‘Shaolin’ Ribeiro. While he did win a match in the absolute division in 2003, he didn’t yet earn the reputation as a giant-killer that he became known for later in his career.
Kenny Florian recently uploaded the video of him sharing the secrets behind the guard that Marcelo Garcia used to dominate the competition throughout his career to his official YouTube channel:
