Adults: Pressure Passing to Chest-to-Chest
Warm-up
Mirrored Underhooks
We’re going to be starting with mirrored underhooks. So, I have one, and my partner has one. From here, we have a simple objective. I want to get my hands connected, around my partner, under their arms. That could be from the front, side, or back. Doesn’t matter. I just want my hands connected under their arms, around them. If you get there, reset.
Knee Line Control
Player A
The top player starts with their knees past the feet, and they are aiming to control the knee line. You are not allowed to pass. You are looking for control. Your main objective is to keep their knees away from their chest and keep their feet from getting between you and them. Their best weapon for creating space is their feet. I repeat, do not finish the pass. Just look to control the position and maintain it.
Player B
The bottom player is on their back, attempting to bring their knees to their chest and to get their feet back in between. You can off-balance your partner side-to-side, with elevations, high-legs, etc., in order to make space and bring a foot back in.
Win Condition(s)
Once the bottom player gets a foot or both feet to a hip or the hips, that’s a win. Switch top and bottom.
Chest-to-Chest
Player A
The top player starts in chest-to-chest half-guard. No passing. Their only objective is to hold their partner’s shoulders flat to the mat.
Player B
The bottom player is on their back, in bottom half guard, chest-to-chest. Your objective is to get your feet back between you and your partner. You can off-balance your partner side-to-side, with elevations, high-legs, etc., to make space and bring a foot back in.
Win Condition(s)
Once the bottom player gets a foot or both feet to a hip or the hips, that’s a win. Switch top and bottom.
Main Class
Half-Guard Head Pin
Today, we’re going to work on pressuring into a tripod style pass, from the half guard position, in order to get chest-to-chest. Keep in mind that this pass is super effective at two things: a) passing and b) tiring your opponent. And those are our two objectives for this pass.
Just like our warm-up, we need to keep our partners’ knees from coming to their chest. If we allow them to get knees to chest, then they can bring their feet back in the way, and they can start creating space or attacking. To do this, we’re going to get a grip on their bottom knee with our same side hand. Ensure you keep your elbow tucked in to deny kimura attempts.
With our top hand, we are going to get our palm on their hip. Keep in mind that these grips and not going to be 1, 2, 3. They should be more simultaneous, while we shift our weight.
Once we have our hands, our final piece is our head. If they have a cross frame, we’re going to either circle toward their wrist or under their forearm. Our objective is to get our head under their chin.
Once our head is down, we’re going to go to our toes and bring our knees up off the mat, putting weight into our hands and head.
Our objective now is to pin their shoulders to the mat and walk their hips to be square.
Once square, we need to get our armpit over their top knee and go chest to chest, with an underhook.
Let’s pause here for now.
Finishing the Smash
From chest-to-chest, we have two options to finish.
Option number one is to stay on our toes, and to use our outside instep to drive our knee through the middle and into the mount.
Option number two is to walk all the way across, using our outside leg to direct their legs, so that we can drive our top knee out and over to smash the knees together. From here, we can again bring our outside leg up and in to finish the pass into mount.