Can you do the over-under guard pass in no gi?
That’s a good question, and there’s nobody better to answer this question than my friend Bernardo Faria, a multiple time BJJ world champion known for his crushing over-under guard pass.
As the name implies, the over-under involves getting one of your arms over his legs and your other arm under his legs. In the gi you would typically grasp his same-side lapel with your underhooking arm and his pant leg with the overhooking arm, which locks you to his hips incredibly tightly.
Once you’ve achieved this basic ‘over-under’ position you pike your hips up, drive hard into his belly with your shoulder, and gradually walk your legs around until you end up in side mount.
This pass puts a tremendous amount of weight and pressure onto your opponent’s legs, so even if he manages to block your progression, stop the guard pass and put you back into the guard it’s only temporary – you can just try the same thing again, tire his legs out a little more, and eventually you’ll manage to pass his guard.
Bernardo is mostly known for his successes and championships while competing in events like the Mundials and the Pan Ams with the gi. But he has also done a LOT of no-gi training against some very talented grapplers.
In fact he was invited to compete in the 2015 ADCC competition which is the most prestigious no gi competition in the world and was looking forward to showing the world how well his game adapted to no gi. Unfortunately for him (and us) he broke his foot in a freak accident while teaching a seminar just two days before competition itself (he talked about this and a lot more in our most recent podcast together – click here to read or listen to that interview).
Bernardo’s foot is now 100% and his over-under guard pass is still equally sharp in gi and no gi.
Here are two videos on my Youtube channel that Bernardo sent me. They both show you the over-under pass.
The first video covers the adjustments you need to make to get the over-under pass to work in no gi. Same effective guard pass but no grabbing of cloth required.
The second video shows the same over-under guard pass in a gi context where you can grip the lapels and pant legs.
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The post How to do the Over-Under Guard Pass in No Gi appeared first on Grapplearts.