Sucks to say, but my guard passing lacks mucho...

[Fred in Houston]

I need some pointers. 9 times out of 10, I can open someone's closed guard. Most of the time, I'll go to half-guard and then pass from there and am pretty successful at this.

However, sometimes the opponent prevents me from going to their half-guard by either getting their knee in or doing something else, forcing me to pass the legs another way. Some guys have awesome open guards and I just can't get past it using the moves I know. Another situation is if I am standing, I am horrible at passing.

I need some methods to try. My memory is horrible these days and I always find myself thinking out each step of a move, instead of just flowing. These pauses get me in trouble. As a new purple, I abosolutely should be able to pass the guard better than I can and need to work on it something serious.

All help is appreciated. Look forward to the flames that will likely be thrown my way.

 

[ShanghaiBJJ]

My feeling is that learning to become a good guardpasser is deciding if it is time to learn a single pass in more detail or to focus on combining passes. Because you need to do both at some point in time.

 

[El Beebo]

My own guard passing improved after I started drilling guard passes solo in my living room, shadow-wrestling style. For a few weeks, every day/night I worked a couple of breaks (one standing, one sitting) and a couple of variations on the same pass with a lot of attention to detail and got a lot of reps in. The variations were in Draculino's first DVD/book combo. My guard passing improved dramatically.

 

[TheIronGiraffe]

Drill your knee slide pass, double under pass to death. I drill some stuff on a yoga ball and it helps with clearing your legs so you don't get stuck in half.

 

[El Beebo]

Drill your knee slide pass, double under pass to death. I drill some stuff on a yoga ball and it helps with clearing your legs so you don't get stuck in half.

Would you mind elaborating further? I'm interested.

 

[TheIronGiraffe]

@ Ell beebo
Kind of hard to describe so bare with me. Picture almost a baseball slide on your hip. So you are standing and you slide between the legs while keeping pressure on them. The ball is unstable so it kind of simulates a body. Id look on youtube for some better examples..its helped me quite a bit with applying top pressure in general.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I would recommend focusing on passes in which you stand and trap the knee to the ground with your hands. Not the best way to pass the closed guard, but very effective at all levels with passing the open.

 

[nerraw]

Some guys have awesome open guards and I just can't get past it using the moves I know. Another situation is if I am standing, I am horrible at passing.

Work on your standing passes. It's much easier to pass open guard from standing. It will be uncomfortable at first, but will pay off big time.

 

[Chum Slam]

Passing guard is hands down the most important aspect of Gi work. Just drill and drill and drill some more!

 

[Fred in Houston]

Thanks. I guess hearing it from others is what I needed. After I compete this weekend and next weekend, I'll begin to focus solely on passing the open guard. I'll make it a point to let my opp get back to open guard even after passing so I can work again and again.

Hopefully I'll be able to update with some success in a few months. I need to pick one particular method and drill it. Just don't know what to pick.

 

[wOg]

Hopefully I'll be able to update with some success in a few months. I need to pick one particular method and drill it. Just don't know what to pick.

It doesn't much matter which one you pick (I mean, it does, but not SO much that you have to fear picking the "wrong" one).

My suggestion would be to choose one that you have been taught by your instructor (easiest to get tips and tiny details to improve) or one that you have seen done several times effectively by your favorite jiu jitsu fighter/grappler (easiest to be inspired by and, hopefully, to see over and over again on YouTube or your own DVD collection).

I use the Reis/Tozi/Sao Paulo/Chim pass a lot. Everybody in my academy knows it is coming. But it is still very effective because I've spent more than a year intensively studying and training it.

I'm willing to be that the same is true for most things in jiu jitsu. Drill it often enough and you'll be better at delivering it than most of your opponents will be at countering it.

 

[Foppa21]

My feeling is that learning to become a good guardpasser is deciding if it is time to learn a single pass in more detail or to focus on combining passes. Because you need to do both at some point in time.

To build on that point. From Joe Rogan's podcast, Eddie Bravo says that in orde rto learn some, you have to love it. So you have to love guard passing for say 6 months and just work it. Repetitions

 

[Fred in Houston]

It doesn't much matter which one you pick (I mean, it does, but not SO much that you have to fear picking the "wrong" one).

My suggestion would be to choose one that you have been taught by your instructor (easiest to get tips and tiny details to improve) or one that you have seen done several times effectively by your favorite jiu jitsu fighter/grappler (easiest to be inspired by and, hopefully, to see over and over again on YouTube or your own DVD collection).

I use the Reis/Tozi/Sao Paulo/Chim pass a lot. Everybody in my academy knows it is coming. But it is still very effective because I've spent more than a year intensively studying and training it.

I'm willing to be that the same is true for most things in jiu jitsu. Drill it often enough and you'll be better at delivering it than most of your opponents will be at countering it.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

wOg, can you post a link to a tutorial / vid with the pass you mention? I am limited on which sites I can view while at work (funny that Sherdog is allowed) so I'll have to view any vids you post when I get home. I may be able to see links with step-by-step pics though.

I plan on repping nothing but passing for the forseeable future. Example, tonight I planned on resting and doing nothing since I'm at weight for tournament weigh-ins tomorrow. Instead, I'm going to go to class and just rep. out my passing with a partner on the side.

 

[HomerPlata]

I need some pointers. 9 times out of 10, I can open someone's closed guard. Most of the time, I'll go to half-guard and then pass from there and am pretty successful at this.

However, sometimes the opponent prevents me from going to their half-guard by either getting their knee in or doing something else, forcing me to pass the legs another way. Some guys have awesome open guards and I just can't get past it using the moves I know. Another situation is if I am standing, I am horrible at passing.

I need some methods to try. My memory is horrible these days and I always find myself thinking out each step of a move, instead of just flowing. These pauses get me in trouble. As a new purple, I abosolutely should be able to pass the guard better than I can and need to work on it something serious.

All help is appreciated. Look forward to the flames that will likely be thrown my way.

Do I detect some subtle troll-baggery at work?

 

[pretzelguard]

i used to sit back and just work my spider guard and go for a sweep or sub off my back until i realised that my top game sucked. now i try and get top position when rolling just to work it. its def improved in the past couple of months. you might want to try it. you will suck balls the first couple of times but it gets a lot better quite quickly. check out roger gracies guard passes. mostly white belt passes but all work on top level guys. truly ridiculous

 

[ThaWizard]

it's alright TS you're not the only one with trouble passing guard, just keep training and you'll get better. I'm not bad at BJJ, but I suck at passing guard, so I've been focusing on passing the guard when I train and I have gotten better lately

 

[Fred in Houston]

i used to sit back and just work my spider guard and go for a sweep or sub off my back until i realised that my top game sucked. now i try and get top position when rolling just to work it. its def improved in the past couple of months. you might want to try it. you will suck balls the first couple of times but it gets a lot better quite quickly. check out roger gracies guard passes. mostly white belt passes but all work on top level guys. truly ridiculous

I don't watch a lot of videos on him but I realized a few weeks ago that my main pass is one that he uses... I purposely pass from close to half-guard a lot of times and then use the gi with the cross-face to control position and I then either pass to side or to mount, depending on what my opponent gives me.

My issue now is that sometimes guys get their knee in so I can't get to half-guard. Or sometimes I am able to stand up out of the closed guard but then have problems passing what is now the open guard.

I'm going to pick one from knees and one from standing and just drill the piss out of them.

 

[Fred in Houston]

Do I detect some subtle troll-baggery at work?

Just saw this... uhh, no. However, as my original post alludes to, with this being Sherdog, I'm surprised a post like this took so long to show up, lol.

You can do a search on my name if you want to verify I'm no troll. Some here train with me and can verify my rank as well. I just suck at passing the open guard and it's starting to annoy the hell out of me, enough so to make a thread asking about it.