This past Saturday Crossroads BJJ had its first Q & A class and there was a fantastic showing. The class focused on trouble shooting the knee slice pass and what to do when two common counters are implemented as you attempt to complete the pass. The two methods of attempting to shut down the pass we discussed were when you can not successfully achieve the under-hook (your training partner gets the undertook first and when your training partner clamps down on your foot with their legs.
We covered two different methods of dealing with your training partner achieving the under hook first, and then discussed the cues that allow you to determine which method you should attempt. The first method we discussed was when your training partner has not only achieved the undertook but also has broken your posture. From this position we attempt to move to a 3/4 mount, in an effort to cut our knee across our training partners body, flatten them and stop them from working towards our back. We also discussed a foot placement detail to shut down them from putting us back in the guard. After we spent a time drilling this position even new BJJ students were able to stop the bottom player from significantly improving their position.
The second method we drilled was when the top player is able to recover their posture. This was the preferred method of stopping the bottom players under hook because it gave us the option of either move to 3/4 mount or to recover our own undertook and pass to side control. As with any position in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu the more options we have the better because we can keep with our training partner guessing.
If you missed this Q and A session make sure you don’t miss next Saturdays, chances are if somebody is asking a question, you made need the answers too. Plus getting a chance to see what other people are asking, problems they are having in certain positions is always a great way to see how other people are thinking about jiu-jitsu and that will help you understand jiu-jitsu even better.