BJJ TECHNIQUES

Knee Slice Pass – One of the Most Important Guard Passes

If you want to get good at BJJ, then you need to learn the basic guard passes that are available in the game. That being said, there are a number of them that you can easily learn. And the best thing is that they are all high-percentage moves that will work out in many of the cases. So, one of the best ways to pass an opponent’s guard is to use the so-called knee slice pass ( knee cut pass or knee slide pass). If you want to learn what this move is all about, then you can do so by reading the rest of this article.

Executing the knee slide guard pass

The best moves in BJJ are the simplest. And such is the case with the knee slide guard pass – this is one of the simpler BJJ moves that you can make no matter what skill level you’re at. Your opponent needs to be sitting or lying down with his guard open and you need to be standing up in front of him. This is the basic setup for the knee slide guard pass.

The first thing that you need to do is grab his knees and then use both your hands to open up his guard even further by pinning one of his hips to the ground. And then what remains for you to do is to slide your knee over your opponent’s hip – the one that’s pinned on the ground (hence the name “knee slide guard pass”. After this, it will be very easy for you to finish this move and get into side-control.

Stopping Knee Slice Pass

However, if you’re opponent knows a thing or two about BJJ, then he will know of a way in which he can block your knee slice pass. The best way to block this move is to put an underhook at your opponent’s nearest arm while he struggles to slide his knee over your fallen hip. If you manage to put an underhook in, then you will be able to get into what Eddie Bravo calls a “dogfight”. You’ll have big chances of winning the dogfight and getting into a better position – so this underhook can, in fact, reverse your opponent’s attacking move.

On the other hand, if you want to prevent your opponent’s block of this move – then there is only one thing that you need to. And this is a mantra that’s taught in BJJ schools all around the world – yet many people still forget to implement it. KEEP YOUR ELBOWS CLOSE. The closer your elbows are to your body, the stronger your base setup will be. The further they are, the easier it will be for your opponent to use this setup and do something he’s not supposed to do.

But if you keep your elbow close to your body, then your opponent won’t be able to slide that underhook in as easily.

Attacks from the knee Slice Pass

The best thing about this move is that it’s highly versatile. Sure, you can use it in order to comfortably pass to side-control and leave it at that. But you can also use it for doing submissions and ending the match right there and then. We have established that if your opponent wants to block this move, he will try and go for an underhook. In such a case, it’s your job to counter this move by grabbing his extending arm. And he has two options. The first option is for your opponent to try and pull his arm towards his head. This will leave him very vulnerable to a Darce choke – ending the match right there.

Or he can try and post his arm to his side – in that case, you have the perfect position to fall into side-control with a Kimura lock. Finishing the Kimura from here should be a cinch – unless your opponent is a lot stronger than you are. Either way, you will get to a comfortable side-control position with the opportunity to try and finish your opponent with either a choke or a Kimura lock. If you want to see all these moves in action, then we suggest you see Firas Zahabi’s demonstration in the video below.

Power of the Knee Cut Pass

We hope that it’s clear to you by now just how powerful the knee slide guard pass can be. But of course, you won’t be able to learn to do this move overnight. It may take months of vigorous practice before you start to see an effective increase in your knee slide guard pass success rate. But in all events, it will be all worth your while. Once you get the base of it, try and implement some of the moves that we talked about above – the Kimura lock and the D’Arce choke. The fact that you will be able to immediately transfer your focus from passing the guard into a submission attempt means that you will become an unstoppable force in BJJ sparring and competition.

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