Adults: Butterfly Smash Pass
Warm-up
Single Leg Balancing
Player A
Player A starts with a single leg. No takedowns, just controlling and maintaining the leg for as long as possible. Start between the legs, but you can switch to the armpit, move around, etc. Take good care of your training partner. Don’t run them into anyone. This is a warm-up.
Player B
Player B, I want you to first keep your balance. Stay moving and hopping, keep your hands on them, and try to find a way to get your foot out. That could be circling and digging underhooks, digging underhooks and stomping in the middle, turning and running, running it out with your hands, whatever you need to do.
Win Condition(s)
Once Player B escapes, switch.
The Connection Game
Player A
Player A starts in a seated guard. Just trying to stay seated. We’ve done a variation of this before. You’re handing fighting here.
Player B
Player B, you’re working to get their back to the mat, and you’re looking to compress their feet to their butt.
Win Condition(s)
If Player B gets Player A’s back to the mat, switch.
Seated Guard Passing
Player A
Starts seated. You can wrestle up, you can sweep, you can attack.
Player B
Player B, keep them seated and look for the pass.
Win Condition(s)
If Player A gets a sweep, submission, or gets up to both feet, switch. If Player B passes, switch.
Main Class
Smash Pass Entry
Starting with a seated player, we’re going to look to both flatten them and lock our elbows into their hips. To do this, we’re going to get the person seated to get on one hip. This makes our job easier and allows us to enter more safely, because it limits his options.
From here, we’re going to get an inverted grip on the leg, and a grip on the same side or opposite side of the head, and we’re going to threaten to pass around the outside. This will make someone who isn’t on their hip, get on their hip, and it’ll give you an opening, even if they’re already on their hip.
From here, elbows come back to our body, and we drive in with our forehead, into their upper body, to help us flatten them out.
From here, we bring our elbows into the hips, and bring our knees to our elbows. We keep our head down and strong. Also, ensure you turn your hands to engage your lats for stronger control.
From here, we’re going to move in a square motion to smash the legs. What I mean by that is that our movement is very much in a straight line out to the side. At the corner, we adjust, and then we move. We’re going to pass to their side, our face is facing.
We’re going to bring our far knee inside, then step our knee, on the side our head is facing, out laterally as we slide our chest down the leg. This helps us flatten the leg.
From here, I’m going to make a fist on the mat, then I’m going to open my foot up, and bring my knee above their knee, while I lever their knee down with my fist arm.
So, that was the side of our square, moving up toward the head. Now, we move left, for the top line of the square, collecting their leg. And we end up in this half butterfly, but it’s not a good half butterfly for him. He’s flat on his back, and his butterfly hook is compressed.
Finally, from here, we’re going to make sure we have a near side underhook and we’ll pause here.
Finishing the Pass
To finish the pass, we need to nullify our opponent’s half butterfly. Yes, it’s not very effective flattened out, but if we try to move from here and give up space, it will become effective. So, to stop this, we’re going to get our own half butterfly and keep our same side underhook. Once we get our own half butterfly, our head moves to the opposite side of our underhook, and our head comes to the mat.
From here, we push the knee down and walk our knee to our elbow, to finish in mount.
From this half butterfly position, if they try to lift, they can only lift straight up and down. We have a ton of base next to his head and on the other side of his body. We push with our half butterfly hook down to counter the lifting of his half butterfly hook. And in fact, the more he lifts, the easier it is for us to pass.