BERIMBOLO

The berimbolo is the inverted back-take technique that defined a generation of competitive jiu jitsu. Developed inside the Mendes brothers' academy in São Paulo in the late 2000s and refined by Atos, the technique uses a De La Riva hook and a deep-collar grip to invert the bottom player under the opponent's leg, rolling them into a back-take while the standing opponent is still trying to find a passing angle. By 2012 it had become the most controversial and most copied technique in the gi competitive game.

The entry begins from De La Riva guard with a same-side collar or pant grip. The bottom player rotates inverted, planting the head and shoulder on the mat, while the De La Riva hook controls the opponent's far leg and prevents them from stepping out. As the inversion completes, the bottom player travels under the opponent's body, captures the far-side hip with the free hand, and arrives at the opponent's back as a single fluid movement. The finish, when clean, places the attacker in side-back-control with one hook in before the opponent has registered that the position has changed.

The technical sophistication of the berimbolo is the multi-step grip sequence and the inversion timing. A late inversion gives the opponent time to spin and pass; an early inversion gives them time to grip and stuff the De La Riva hook. The window is approximately a second, and developing it requires hundreds of hours of dedicated drilling. Rafael and Guilherme Mendes spent years iterating the technique before it appeared in their competition matches, and the Miyao brothers later refined it for the lightweight no-gi era.

The IBJJF revised its rules multiple times in the early 2010s in response to the berimbolo, eventually allowing the technique while disallowing related extreme inversions (such as inverted leg attacks at lower belts). The technique remains the defining sweep of the modern gi game and a staple of every serious lightweight competitor's repertoire. It is rarely used in no-gi because the lack of collar/pant grips makes the setup less reliable.