Thank you Bruce
Printable View
Anything Marcelo or Mendes is def my go to when it comes to passing. That is a perfect video of the Marcelo series. I have a lot of other passes and trix(flyovers/gallups/duckunders), but they are all being setup within this series, or the Mendes lace and leg drag. Like everything- base, timing, control, and movement are crucial. If you're missing the subtleties these passes are easy to stop. If you grasp the subtleties passing becomes much simpler.
Beautiful
Very Sick pass, and thanks Herzog! All good points
One of my friends at Jiu Jitsu has a guard that I find extremely difficult to pass. Higher level guys pass with less difficulty obviously because I am a noob, but the thing that gets me is that he basically pulls his knees up to his shoulders anytime I try to pass.
He seems to get those knees in and up faster that I can legdrag and step over or whatever. I don't know. My passing is not getting any better from rolling with him, but my personal guard game has improved noticeably since I started paying attention to how he is keeping me out and started applying it.
But yeah, he has great fetal position flexability, meaning he can basically pull his thighs to his chest/knees to shoulders fairly tight and extremely quickly, making it hard to get through, around or over.
I've had a little success with some knee slicing and a little with single unders, but really I think its just my passing that needs work in general.
Kurzy: correct me if I'm wrong, but I've been studying that video of Marcelo's passing and "I think" the reason for the hand on the stomach/ ab is for controlling the hip. And if you can control the hip, he might find it harder to bring that knee up to his shoulder or get in that fetal position.
Sometimes you just can't pass the guard all at once. I def prefer to stand and pass cleanly, but sometimes you just gotta smash their guard. Being able to stuff bfly guard or jump into half with an underhook then smash are very useful skills. One of my favorites is to jump directly into twister smash pass on guys like you described. You completely separate his upper and lower body and negate his ability to retract his knees.
I also like to leg lace guys with good hips ala Rafa Mendes. Once you learn to move while still controlling the lace and keep pressure you drastically decrease his mobility and again, his ability to go fetal.
Lot of pros to smashing, opposed to standing. The biggest is they can't get under you. All kindsa bad shit happens then.
Biggest con, is its almost guaranteed to be a fight if he's good. Which means work. I don't like work, but I'll clock in cuz papa's gotta eat.
As usual, I think sound fundamentals in both strategies compliment and open up opportunities for each other.
Anything flying or rolling, I overuse. And love it. Main problem with this I've found is new guys doing what they think I'm doing and end up with a poorly timed and non setup positional suicide. I failed a lot before I finally got timed and oriented, but I never just rolled for tha fuck of it. Lotta white belts doin this now, and although I never taught it, it's my fault we have people rollin like idiots. I guess they'll be fine.