Mata-Leao Combat Sports

🥋 TESTIMONIAL THURSDAY 🥋

Meet Carly Jeffers! 🙌

What keeps her coming back to Mata Leao? Two things: the new techniques she gets to learn every single week, and the friendships she’s built along the way.

That’s the magic of this place — you’re constantly growing your skills while building a real community around you. 🔥

Want to experience it for yourself? DM us “TRIAL” and let’s get you started.

Here’s a slick Achilles ankle lock that I love to do off the leg drag pass.

The key to pulling this off, is trapping their hip with the knee on the ground pushing into their hip. This stops them from sitting up and pulling on your arm to defend. It’s quick.
If they extend their leg to defend by stiff legging, you can sometimes get a lateral knee bar or just spin into a regular knee bar. 💪🏼💥

Triangle Armbar

Here’s a quick instructional on how I like to set up a sneaky Triangle Armbar or choke from topside turtle position.

The finish can be either the triangle choke or the armbar. This is a powerful submission as you are utilizing your legs to pull them into the position.

This is what learning looks like: messy, tiring, and full of second attempts.

We’re not trying to raise kids who breeze through everything. We’re raising kids who know how to push through the hard part
— on the mats and off.

That’s what we’re building here, one rep at a time.

Shoutout to Vess Zarghami for sharing his story with us. Vess earned his blue belt back in the early 2000s, then had to take a long hiatus as life happens to all of us.

A couple years ago, he walked back through our doors with an incredible will to keep training and chase down his black belt.

At 56 years old, Vess is hands down one of the toughest guys — if not THE toughest — his age that we’ve ever had on our mats. He’s an amazing training partner and an even better friend. 💪

We can’t wait to wrap that black belt around your waist, Vess. Keep up the great work — excited to see what’s next in your journey! 🔥

Every black belt on our mats started as a white belt who felt completely lost in their first class — including us. Muay Thai, BJJ, wrestling, it doesn’t matter. Nobody walks in “ready.” They walk in willing, and we take it from there.

That’s the whole job of a coach: meet you exactly where you are and build you up from there, one class at a time.

So if you’ve been putting it off waiting to feel ready — stop waiting. Come train. We’ll get you ready.

📍 Mata Leao Combat Sports, Portland
👉 Link in bio to grab your trial

Knee Shield to Knee Tap

In this video, Coach Jeff breaks down a sweep from half guard — though it’s really more of a wrestle-up from the knee shield position.

This isn’t just a solid sweep on its own — it’s a gateway. Once you land it, you’re set up for a ton of follow-up attacks: back takes, inverted armbars, rolling armbars, calf slicers, deep half guard entries, kneebars, and more. The number of options this position opens up is huge. 🔥

Drilling this one in class this week — come get some reps in!