2 – Pass Defense/Guard Recovery Matrix

Pass Defense/Guard Recovery Matrix

An Action-Reaction Matrix refers to a grid of responses matched to what the opponent is doing.
Have your drill partner make the various pass attempts in the chart below and match your counters in a relaxed, easy tempo (slow), and gradually go faster as your reactions improve.
A lot of the beautiful art of Jiu Jitsu comes out in the flow of pass attempts and guard recoveries, counter for counter. 

It’s often said that when you get the hang of Pass Defense and Guard Recovery is when Jiu Jitsu really starts to be fun. Before that you’re getting crushed most of the time as a beginner. For Stripe 1 your task is to learn how to escape the worst positions – Side Control, Mount, and Back Control. For Stripe 2 your task is now to prevent those positions before they happen by defending the Guard Pass and the Back Attacks using your Knee Shield, Turtle, Shoulder Roll, Underhook, Single Leg, Sit-out, etc. It is very important to realize that once our opponent passes and establishes Side Control, it’s going to be much more energy to break free and escape, so we should do everything we can to Defend the Pass before it becomes Side Control or Mount. This is largely a matter of reaction time to recognize how they are passing and what the correct counter is, so the above mentioned flow drill is key for developing that situational recognition speed.

Also remember that if you think of yourself as a top player and don’t necessarily want to play guard – the better you get at recovering your guard, the faster you will be able to get off bottom and therefore, spend more of your time on top. 

Knee shield
Underhook/belly down
sit-out to prevent front head lock/sprawl
turtle sit-thru to guard/shoulder roll
Shoulder roll
technical stand
Stack pass defense
hugging (smash) pass defense

Knee Shield

As the opponent attempts a Cross Knee Pass (without framing hand positions setup,) or if they push down your leg and step over to force Half-Guard, the best/most basic way to deflect their pass attempt and to recover Guard is the Knee Shield. This position can also open up transitions to Scissor Sweep or Technical Stands. Additionally, the situp structure of this position allows for Kimura opportunities during Guard recovery. 

Knee Shield ½ Guard → Frame and Sit-up to elbow → Cross Arm Cover/Foot on Hip → Sit-thru to Guard → Posture Control (arm around back)

Intermediate Jiu Jitsu Fundamentals – The basic elements of pass defense and guard recovery series.

Underhook/Belly Down

Whenever your opponent starts to get to Side Control, especially when smashing and sprawling to walk around our Knee Shield, our last line of defense is to get in the Underhook and turn our chest toward the mat to prevent the Side Control from pinning us, and our opponent getting 3 points for the Guard Pass. Much of the time we can go directly to the Single Leg Reversal, or we may have to defend the Front Headlock, or they run to our Turtle and we have to defend our back and recover from the next position – but we defended the immediate danger of the Guard Pass (getting pinned on bottom in Side Control!) Since there is an immediate submission threat from Side Control and more so from Mount, it is important to recognize that it’s always better to defend the pass, even if we don’t get to the Single Leg and reverse them. As soon as we feel our opponent getting past our knee we should automatically shoot the Underhook in and go for their leg.

They are passing to Side Control → Underhook/Belly Down → Single Leg

Underhook Escape (Bridge & Shrimp to Belly-Down) > Single Leg > Shoulder Bump & Far-Leg Finish on the Knees > Hugging Walkaround Pass W/Leg-Bind > Head Position Details > Elbow Tap > Cross Face & Snow-Plough > Shoulder Smash to Americana

Elbow-Corner Bridge > Reverse UnderHook Elbow-Pummel > Shrimp to Belly-Down > Hands Clasp Single Leg > Run Sideways in Helicopter if They Stand

Upper body mobility is important for JiuJitsu, and you can see here how having adequate flexibility in the shoulders allows us to hang onto the single leg clasp much longer than otherwise. If the sprawl is very deep, but we’re flexible enough to hang on, then we’ll be able to put weight on our forehead-post while we quickly adjust our knee positions to build back up.

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Sit-out to Prevent Front Head Lock/Sprawl

Any time we go belly down to defend the pass there’s the potential that they sprawl out our Single Leg and we get to the Sprawl v.s. Turtle scenario. It’s important to train yourself to hit the Sit-out right as your grip breaks (around one leg), and not allow them to settle into the Front Headlock (FHL) and control you. If they are able to control the FHL, they may attempt a FHL choke such as D’arce or Anaconda, or use the FHL to spin to a Back Attack. Simply hitting the Sit-out right when they are sprawling you out is a great early prevention for all these attacks, and puts you in a dominant position if you’re quick about it – attacking their Turtle on the knees. As always, shuck hard with your elbow to throw their weight off behind you. 

We go Single Leg → They Sprawl → We Sit-out, shuck hard → Side Turtle Ride/

Double Leg from knees

They run from front Sprawl/FHL to our Side-turtle → Shoulder Roll → Guard 

On our Side Turtle Ride → We attempt Shoulder Roll → They Block → Sit-out to Guard

WORKS ALMOST AS WELL EVEN WITH THEIR HANDS CLASPED ON THE BODY-LOCK!

Review the Front Headlock

FRONT HEADLOCK

Turtle Sit-Thru to Guard/Shoulder Roll

When we’re on the knees under their Sprawl, if we use the Sit-out to defend FHL, worst case scenario is that they run around our Turtle position to attack our back. The easiest way to recover Guard is (of course) to hit the Shoulder-roll in transition and deflect their motion into your Guard. However, if you’re not in time they may use all of their pressure to block you from Shoulder Rolling. As with many good Jiu Jitsu moves, when we encounter peak resistance we will flow with their force by suddenly changing directions – we Sit-thru under them to our Guard, utilizing their pressure to our advantage. Turtle should be considered an important part of our Guard and be developed for Back-take Defense. 

They run to our side turtle → Attempt Shoulder Roll → They block with their weight → Sit thru to Guard

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Shoulder Roll

When the opponent tries to pass to the Knee-Ride (especially with the Leg-Shuck) and any time they try to jump over your Guard to behind you (your off-side) the Shoulder Roll is the best counter. Often you may find yourself landing directly into a Triangle attempt instead of Guard, or they may stand up during your movement in which case you capture an ankle and go to Tripod Sweep from Open Guard. This movement is incredibly powerful and essential; most students find it difficult at first and quickly become naturals at it. When first learning the motion you may feel worried about your neck in the inverted position, however, in action you will use the power of your legs to bump their weight off you and if the shoulder roll is done correctly you will not roll over your neck.

They attempt Knee Ride → Turn away and Shoulder Roll → Guard 

They Hop-over to pass to your off-side (facing away) → Shoulder Roll → Guard

Shoulder Roll → They Stand Up→ Open Guard/Catch Ankle → Tripod

WHAT IS THE SHOULDER ROLL?

The Shoulder-Roll is known to be one of the most difficult positions to initially learn, but one of the easiest to get the hang of once you do and most usable in anyone’s game.
The best way to initially learn it is to practice deflecting the knee ride attempt by having your training partner throw leg shuck pass attempts, trying to knee-ride you off the leg shuck. Since the leg shuck motion throws your hips facing away, it can be impossible to shrimp ourselves back to a standard shrimping guard recovery pathway by simple virtue that our hips are in the wrong direction at that moment! This makes the shoulder-roll pass defense necessary in order to get back to a safe orientation that protects your back and protects you from being pinned in side-control.
There’s some important vocabulary you need to know – “Strong Side vs Off-Side” in guard recovery and passing, and the “Running Escape”. The shoulder roll is an “Off-Side” guard recovery, meaning that the opponent is passing to somewhat behind you. This refers to where you are facing away from them. The strong side of your defense is where you are facing towards them, as in standard shrimping to guard, the knee shield, and the technical stand. However, as you orient yourself to one side, you also create some degree of back exposure. Especially as you move to make a technical stand or build up to a posted arm, expect an opponent to use deceptive timing and fakes to move towards that back-exposure aka your “off-side” – and that’s when you need to have off-side defenses ready.

Details on stiff-arm posting in the pass defense vs knee ride situation – setting up our shoulder roll EARLIER as their knee is coming around the corner to put the weight on us.

WHAT IS THE RUNNING ESCAPE?

What do grapplers mean when we say “Running Escape,” and how is this different from the shoulder roll? The running escape is actually a complex series of moves that includes the shoulder roll, which all happen in rapid succession to escape a hard pinning position that is already set wherein the opponent has completely blocked your strong-side escapes, or run your hips to face away.
The difficulty of escaping the knee ride or side control with the running escape once the pin is set (meaning the weight is down on you, preventing you from moving easily) is MUCH GREATER than if you use this pass defense early enough, as shown in this drill structure where the knee ride is deflected before it can stabilize on you.
So drill this pass defense first, and then we’ll be able to easily get you doing the running escape from a full-on knee ride or side control, and you’ll be breaking our of some very tight situations successfully by the end of this JiuJitsu course level!
The shoulder roll, running escape, turtle back defense, and belly down escape are all closely related. Once you have some muscle memory with the shoulder roll, we’ll be looking at each of these situations in detail to understand the concepts and principles at play.

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Technical Stand

It is also essential that we utilize the Technical Stand as part of our Guard/Pass Defense. In our team we focus on developing our Sweep attempts to Get-up combinations and using the Technical Stand to access our Sprawl → FHL → Back Attack pathway. This reversal pathway can also be accessed during their Guard Pass attempts, due to the fact that the top player will commonly get their head and shoulders low enough to the ground while applying pressure that you can sit up and put your head higher than theirs (allowing you to get up to your feet). This is especially the case when they are trying to smash past your Knee Shield. The quickness of the getup motion, the reflex to do it, and the power of the proper mechanics of the motion are absolutely critical for Jiu Jitsu to work as a self-defense/fighting system. Try to develop the reflex of shooting your hips back for the Technical Stand when their hips shoot back to drive forward and smash. Generally the Sprawl → FHL → Back Attack path is more effective when done by surprise after suddenly escaping to your feet with a Technical Stand from defending  Guard Pass.

Additionally, frequently you will almost succeed in a Technical Stand attempt but use a combination Sit-thru to Guard to recover as they drive back into you. These maneuvers are a big step towards having a dynamic and fluid game.

They smash Knee Shield → push their head down → Technical Stand → Sprawl → FHL

We Technical Stand attempt → They drive us back down → Sit-thru to Guard 

Getup Guard Progression
1. Basic Tech. Stand from Guard
2. Tech. Stand to Sprawl Front-headlock, FHL –> Back –> RNC (Hadaka Jime)
3. Tech. Stand –> FHL –> Anaconda Choke (Kazure Kata Gatame)

Review Technical Stand

Stack Pass Defense

In general, we can expect stack passes in JiuJitsu. It’s one of the most common ways for an opponent to try to pass our guard, but if we’re using Shoulder-Roll Guard Recoveries, then we can expect them more regularly. Just keep in mind, for self-defense it’s very important to recognize that if we’re defending the stack pass, we are effectively defending their ground-punching potential as well, and this is working to our advantage in a fight! If you’re shoulder-rolling to defend your back, then getting hit with a stack-pass attempt… Just think how much better it is to be defending a stack-pass attempt instead of defending a Rear-Naked-Choke attempt while you escape the back!! In a Points BJJ Competition, keep in mind that with if we defend the back AND the stack pass, there’s no points being scored on us at any time!

So simple – when you are stacked on your neck, just use a backwards roll to escape to your knees!

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Hugging (Smash) Pass Defense

One of the most common pass defense situations is when we get taken down in a double leg takedown and our opponent is hugging our legs to prevent us from getting up as we attempt to re-stand. Or any time we are standing out from bottom position and they hold our legs, we’ll be right into the hugging pass (also called smash pass); one of the most common ways of passing the guard. The idea is to pull their arms up off of your legs, so that you can maintain your butterfly hooks and block their pass. However, it’s important to note that once you defend the hugging pass and pull up their arms, they may STILL transition to a bodylock pass if you don’t connect your hands into a frame in the double-overhooks clinch! This is one of the most important details of the move!

Any time our pass defense fails – we go right back to our escapes.

Remember that in a competition if you escape within 3 seconds the opponent doesn’t get the 3 points for the guard pass, so that is your moment to explode and get right to work. You’ll hear us yelling ‘Don’t let them settle!’ – the escapes just get harder and harder the longer you let your opponent settle the position. And, of course, escaping is a lot harder than pass defense/guard recoveries, so battle hard to stop their pass because it’s only going to take MORE energy to escape if they do get to side control.

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REVIEW YOUR ESCAPES

Lvl 2 Basics: Escapes & Defenses
LVL 1: Bottom Escapes & Guard Game
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JIU JITSU LEVEL 2