Why it's called the omoplata
It is the only name in the series that is not somebody's surname. It simply means “shoulder blade” — and out of it came a suffix that produced five more.
BJJ Square · Updated on 08/11/2026
Omoplata, in Portuguese, is the shoulder bone. The scapula. The name describes the joint the hold loads, and nothing else: behind it there is no champion, no challenge match, no anecdote to tell. It is academy vocabulary, settled in a Brazilian gym at a moment nobody recorded.
The technique comes from a long way off
In judo it already existed as ashi sankaku garami, the triangular leg entanglement; in catch wrestling as the coil lock. It entered Brazil between the 1930s and the 1940s and then stayed there, on the margins, for decades: something people knew how to do but almost nobody went looking for.
What unlocked it was a rulebook
In 1994 the Brazilian confederation changed the rules and allowed the position to score points. Until then the omoplata only counted if it ended the match; from that point on it also became a sweep, that is, a tool worth hunting even when it finishes nothing.
In the years immediately after, Antônio “Nino” Schembri turned it from a single submission into a complete guard system, and took it to the top — he won ADCC 2001 with it. From back-up technique to trademark in less than ten years.
Note The 1994 rule change is reported in accounts from within the sport, but I have not found it in a federation document. I give it for what it is: the most widespread explanation, not a verified act.
What we do not know
- Who said “omoplata” first, and when. No source attributes it to anyone. It probably came out of a gym, without anybody paying attention.
- Whether Schembri invented it. He does not say so: he says he was among the first to apply it as a submission, which is a different and more honest claim.
The word that produced other words
Omoplata gave rise to the suffix “-plata”: gogoplata, baratoplata, tarikoplata, marceloplata, locoplata. In the slang it became a way of saying “a submission from that family”.
Note “-plata” on its own means nothing. It does not mean “arm lock”, as you read here and there: it is simply the tail of the word *omoplata*, the end of “shoulder blade”, detached and reused. It is the most widespread error in the jiu-jitsu vocabulary.
The other words you will hear at the gym, explained one by one: BJJ glossary.
Frequently asked questions
- What does omoplata mean?
- Shoulder blade, in Portuguese. It is the shoulder bone, that is, the joint the hold puts under tension.
- Who invented the omoplata?
- It cannot be attributed to one person. The technique existed in judo as ashi sankaku garami and in catch wrestling as the coil lock. Nino Schembri turned it into a guard system in the 1990s.
- What does the suffix “-plata” mean?
- Nothing in itself. It is the final part of “omoplata”, which became a suffix in jiu-jitsu slang to mark a family of submissions: gogoplata, baratoplata, tarikoplata.
- Why did the omoplata only become popular in the 1990s?
- Because until 1994 it only counted as a submission. Once the position could score points it became a sweep as well, and it is worth hunting far more often.
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- Who names jiu-jitsu techniquesAlmost never the people who invented them. Often not even the people who used them. Behind the names of these holds sit four rules that have been repeating for more than seventy years.
- Why it's called the gogoplata“Gogó”, in Brazilian Portuguese, is the Adam's apple. The rest of the word is a piece broken off another word — and it does not mean what everybody thinks.
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