Adults: Kneecut to Inside Camping to Sleeve Pass
Warm-up
Jiu-Jitsu Chess
Player A
Player B
Win Condition(s)
Back to the Mat
Player A
Player A is standing and trying to get Player B’s back to the mat OR trying to circle and get chest-to-back.
Player B
Player B is attempting not to get put on their back. You are not allowed to place two hands behind you. We’re not trying to do a backwards human wheelborough. Just make frames and fight grips.
Win Condition(s)
If the top player gets the bottom player to their back, switch top and bottom.
Outside the Feet
Player A
Player A is standing and trying to disengage and get to the outside of the feet. From here, they’re trying to get their foot connected to the hip. Here’s the thing: to win, though, you have to get a foot to each hip. So, one, two. Remember, outside the feet AND the foot connected to the hip.
Player B
Player B is on their back, and their objective is simple. No sweeping. Just keep your partner in front of you and try to make connections to keep them from getting their foot to your hip.
Win Condition(s)
If Player A gets to each hip with their foot, that’s a win, switch top and bottom.
Main Class
So, when passing, overall, there are several concepts to keep in mind to decide how we’re going to pass. The first question is, knees together or knees split. If the knees are together, we smash. If they are apart, we cut through the middle. But, what do we do if they’re in the middle zone where they aren’t really together, but they aren’t apart enough for us to pass? When they’re in that zone, we can try to get the knees together or split, OR we can go outside of the legs and not deal with them at all. When we go outside of the legs, our objective is to get their hips to face away from us. That is going to be our solution today.
From the kneecut, we’re exploiting the space in between the legs, so the legs are split. We want to maintain that space, which is why we staple with our inside leg and place our forearm on the inside of the hip. When we transition to finish the pass, we want to go past the thigh and get our underhook. But sometimes we can’t get into an underhook to finish the pass, because they thumbpost our shoulders to keep us out, and then they pummel and insert their knee in a kneeshield. So, now their knees aren’t together, and they aren’t really apart. If we continue to hammer into the kneecut here, we’re just going to get pushed away or worse, lose the position and get reversed.
Instead of hammering our heads into a wall, we’re going to go around the wall to the outside. Our outside hand is going to go to their hip, and we’re going to make a grip, and our inside hand is going to go under their bottom knee, and make a grip.
From here, we’re not going to drive forward; we’re going to slice down the shin to get our trapped leg out. Now, if their knees were closer together, this is a place where we could implement a smash, by smashing the knees together and hopping over. But let’s say our opponent has a good guard, so they’re going to maintain a higher kneeshield to stop the smash.
Once our leg is out, we’re going to place weight into our hands by coming up to our feet. Remember, once we’re outside of the legs, our objective is to start getting their hips to face away from us.
From here, a flexible guard player might be able to pummel back inside, which we’ll deal with next. For now, let’s stop here in this perpendicular position. And for our finish, our lead leg should be above their close knee.
Finish with the Sleeve
Okay, so we’ve gotten to a perpendicular position. If we stay here, our opponent might be able to hip out and start pummeling their legs in. Or, they might be able to start inverting and pummeling their legs in.
To stop this, we’re going to look for a grip on the sleeve. Where we grip is important. We are not gripping on the elbow. We’re gripping on the seam, near the armpit.
From here, our lead leg is going to take a step toward the head. We want to load up our elbow against our hips, and use this grip to lift their shoulders. That’s why it is important we grip at the armpit, on the seam. If we grip the elbow, their hips can still come up, and their feet can reach us. If we lift up their shoulder, now their own shoulder starts to block the ability of their feet to come in.
From here, we continue the lift, looking for the back and turtle. So, we’re essentially forcing them to turtle.