The Folding Guard Pass for No Gi and MMA

The folding pass is a bread and butter guard pass that everyone should know.

That’s because the folding pass can be used in BJJ with the gi, submission grappling without the gi, and in MMA where guard passing is often mixed with ground and pound.

Here’s an excerpt from The Pressure Passing System with 4 x World Champion Fabio Gurgel breaking down how this exact pass can be used in no gi sparring…

Folding Pass Mechanics

Fundamentally when you’re doing the folding pass you force both of your opponent’s knees to one side and pin them down with your hips.

Then you put weight onto your opponent and take advantage of his reactions.

Sometimes you’ll be able to climb directly to mount… sometimes you’ll insert your knee between his legs and only then climb to mount… and sometimes you’ll pass directly to side control.

Demian Maia is an amazing fighter and has often been called the best grappler in the UFC.  This makes sense because he’s a black belt under Fabio Gurgel, which is probably also why he’s so damn good at the folding pass in MMA.

Here’s a gif of Demian Maia forcing his way into the folding pass position, splitting the legs, and then easily climbing to mount from there.

You don’t always have to climb to the mount with the folding pass.

You can also circle around to side control and/or take the back from the initial position.

Here’s an example of Fabio knocking both of my legs to one side when I’m in butterfly guard, controlling my legs and hips, circling one way to achieve the split leg position and then circling the other way to my exposed back.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

The folding pass vs the butterfly guard as demonstrated in a no gi context. First @fabiogurgel pushes both of my knees to one side and drops his hips on top of my legs while securing my hips. Then he circles to my front, splits my legs with his right knee, and then decides to finish it by circling to my back. A very powerful guard pass that works in gi based BJJ, no gi submission grappling and MMA. #bjj #guardpass #grappling

A post shared by Stephan Kesting (@stephan_kesting) on Apr 26, 2020 at 9:47pm PDT

I hope you found this useful.  Please incorporate this pass into your top game immediately!
Stephan

P.S. Click here if you want more information about The Pressure Passing System featuring 6th degree black belt Fabio Gurgel.

This style of passing is great for older guys who don’t have the energy to run around their opponent all the time.

Pressure passing is used at the highest levels of competition, which is part of the reason that The Pressure Passing System was a runaway bestseller on Grapplearts.com…

The post The Folding Guard Pass for No Gi and MMA appeared first on Grapplearts.