Standing Passes vs Pressure Passes, Which Do You Prefer? Why?

[James Whiston]

Standing passes, I like using explosive power movements while pinning the body and moving round to side (marcelo style)

[VJ Bella]

Those are great passes. But let's say you're one of the smallest guys at your gym, and everyone you train with is really good at butterfly guard. Would you still go for the same passes? How do you prevent them from out muscling you and prevent the leg extensions? For me I've found knee slices to be effective, but I think my problem rests with the issue of closing the distance in an effective way.

I'm not a big guy either Ross. 5'9 175. The leg extensions actually make the pass easier. When he extends his legs slightly loosen your grip around the thighs an move your arms to right above the knee area (bundling his legs). From here simply hop over his legs. An get to the twister pass position asap

[Ross Davidson]

Ooooooooooooooo very nice!!!!!! This is gonna help me sooooooo friggin much!!!!! Thanks man!!!

Also, when you're flying over, do you do anything to deal with them stiff arming your back, or does this not really matter when trying to get to twister side?

[Mike Nall]

Catcher's stance passing. It is one of the corner stone passing start off positions in my gym. The stance is here in this video, but all the details and options in passing are something you have to pick up or I guess call my sensei at Summit City Submissions in Fort Wayne and hope he is willing to share with a non team member. I don't mean to be a withholding Watkins, but some things are gym sacred even in the age of the internet when it comes to Jiu Jitsu and it is not my place as a grateful student to give everything away.

This video is interesting. It helped me a lot with me no-gi knee slice passing, but one of the reasons I think it's weird is that Rafa Mendes often talks about why it's beneficial to pass squatting or even combat base or both knees for no-gi, since you don't have as many gripping options to prevent them getting under your base for X, spiral, deep half, and a bunch of other guards.

It's interesting because if you watch his ADCC matches or him sparring on his website, he mostly passes standing in no-gi with a lot of leg drag, toreando, and back steps, despite him teaching a lot of stuff like this.

Ross Davidson, Cobrinha I think is the best knee slice passer in no-gi. I'd study all of his ADCC and NoGi Worlds stuff from 07 to now. He uses it all the time and I try to imitate that style. The pressure on it is so heavy and he's great at using it to step 180 around the head for back takes, far side armbars, or locking up darces and guillotines.

If you have a good darce/guillotine/anaconda/JNT game one of the things Cobrinha does that I really like is he stays heavy in the knee slice position but lets them keep his foot trapped in quarter guard. That way when he attacks those chokes they're so busy trying to fight to keep their guard in place that they're sticking their own hips in place. So it's way easier for him to get a submission or if he decides to switch to the pass, he's basically all the way through and just pulls his foot through and spins around to the back.

Jeff Glover, Bill Cooper, and Marcelo Garcia, Rafael Lovato Jr, and Leandro Lo would be the other 5 I really study. I'd say check out Gui Mendes but he rarely does any no-gi stuff. But he's probably the best pressure knee slicing passer at the lower weights. Anything you look up from him though is probably going to involve the brabo (lapel darce) grip. You still might be able to get something from it.

BJJ Scout has good videos on Lo's knee slice (gi and no-gi) Bill Cooper's EBI match is good to see his knee slice. Glover's rolled up episode with Budo Jake is good, and so are his ADCC matches from '11. The best way to see Marcelo's knee slices are on MGinaction so those are harder to find.

[VJ Bella]

Ooooooooooooooo very nice!!!!!! This is gonna help me sooooooo friggin much!!!!! Thanks man!!!

Also, when you're flying over, do you do anything to deal with them stiff arming your back, or does this not really matter when trying to get to twister side?

No it matters. If they are really committed to stopping the pass on that side I usually hop to the other side mid pass an it usually catches them off guard. I don't always go right to twister pass here. Sometimes I just go to traditional side.. after I hop over their legs I use my far side arm as a block in front of their hips (to stop them from following me). Sometimes going straight to knee on belly works too.

[Jon Watkins]

All the great coach's choose to disseminate their techniques and their team's don't seem to suffer at all for it.

I would have to disagree. I think there are small details and entire techniques most gyms keep under wraps as long as possible. You see the tech or detail everywhere after it has been hit at a big tournament, but sometimes that is a year or two after it has been fully developed in training.

[natekleinfeld]

Check out this pressure pass. This one has worked great for me against high level grapplers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7dGm0KCcTY

[Slick Rick]

I feel like there's too many variables with standing passes when I'm rolling with really reactive, energetic people. So I feel like pressure passing is a lot more dictative for attacking. At the same time, I'm pretty athletic, so it would be nice to get more out of my athleticism. Thoughts?

Definitely get good at both Ross. Earlier this week we showed some nice standing passing. Mix those up with your close quarter pressure passing and you should be able to keep your opponent busy. No one pass is a be all end all of passes. The guys that are passing are going under, over, left, right, and directly through people. This is where you will be when everything comes together brotha.

[Brandon Mccaghren]

Definitely get good at both Ross. Earlier this week we showed some nice standing passing. Mix those up with your close quarter pressure passing and you should be able to keep your opponent busy. No one pass is a be all end all of passes. The guys that are passing are going under, over, left, right, and directly through people. This is where you will be when everything comes together brotha.

Bingo.

You will learn to let go of something that ain't there and move on to the next.

I think passing can sometimes be a lot like striking. Sometimes, you're throwing jabs looking to open him up. Other times, you may be blitzing straight ahead.

[Eric Schuettenberg]

I like pressure passes. I like to smother my opponent and not give them any room to create a scramble