Gordon Ryan recently decided to share some of his Jiu-Jitsu skills in a training session with former World’s Strongest Man Martins Licis. While Ryan has been at the top of the no gi grappling world for several years now, Licis has occupied a similar spot in Strongman competition. Licis has competed in events since 2015 and placed 6th at the World’s Strongest Man tournament in the very next year, before finishing 4th in both 2017 and 2018. It was 2019 that he finally won the prestigious title and he has since added several more achievements to his record, like the Arnold Strongman Classic in 2022.
At 6’3” and weighing in at over 350lbs, there are very few people on earth who would make for a more terrifying sparring partner than Licis. It’s nothing that Ryan hasn’t experienced before though, as he actually has quite a lot of experience teaching and rolling with physical outliers. He famously submitted legendary Strongman competitor Hafthor Bjornsson when they had a friendly sparring match back in 2022, and he’s spent even more time with elite strongmen since then. The most notable example of this for American audiences came in 2023 when he trained with the most decorated American strongman competitor ever, Brian Shaw.
Gordon Ryan started his Jiu-Jitsu session with Martins Licis by teaching him how to do both the kipping escape and shrimping escape from bottom mount. Ryan then explained how Licis should control someone from mount himself, before breaking down how to set up and finish the arm-triangle choke from there. It was definitely an interesting watch, but it was also a great insight into some of the fundamentals of the sport as explained by one of the best to ever do it. Ryan didn’t actually roll with Licis during their training session but that’s pretty understandable given that he’s currently recovering from a knee injury suffered at ADCC 2024.
Gordon Ryan uploaded the footage of his Jiu-Jitsu training session with World’s Strongest Man Martins Licis to his official YouTube channel:
