Today, while working with John, we covered sitting guard versus standing passes like the matador pass. This gave me a great chance to go over everything I’ve seen discussed recently on a UG thread about countering the toreando pass.

John and I did the butt scooting drill that I’ve described before (when I put together a lesson using nothing but Marcelo and Stephan’s DVDs), only this time we didn’t just work to get to x-guard, and we could use any tactics and grips we wanted.

Butt Scooting Basics

• Sit up and lean weight forward.
• Butt scoot using feet to move.
• Tuck feet in and open knees wide.
• Arms out, palms up.

This is all as Marcelo and Leo Kirby showed in their videos.

Basic Problems and Counters

• Running around – Butt scoot to follow and always face them.
  
• Shoving the head – Ignore, since I should be leaning forward enough to counter it.
• Shoving the shoulders – Parry if they put enough weight into it to knock me back, otherwise ignore.
• Grabbing the knees – Break the grip.
• Grabbing the ankles – Break the grip.

With the basics covered, we had several tactics to counter the standing passes, especially the bull fighter.

Grab the wrists.

Actively grabbing the wrists can cause fits for the person trying to pass. It’s extremely difficult to pass without freeing one’s wrists first, since all of the grips needed are preemptively blocked. With wrist control, it is very easy to armdrag at almost any time. Going for the wrists is usually the first line of defense (and offense) since you can reach out and grab their arms before they can get grips.

Grab the collar.

Reach up and grab the collar. The other hand posts back behind you to help you move and not get flipped back. A cross collar grip is good for pulling them into collar chokes. A same-side grip is better for stiff arming them. Snapping down and coming to knees for here has much the same effect as armdrags.

Grab and hook the legs.

Scooting forward to grab and get hooks on the legs lead to shin-to-shin, butterfly and x-guard. These lead to all of their own sweeps.

All three of these tactics could be used together. Going from wrist control to a collar grip, and vice versa. Switching to a collar grip when they got too close as you tried to grab the legs.

If I could end it here, saying “And that’s all there is to it”, it’d be convenient. But unfortunately/fortunately, I had a few other counters that don’t neatly fit into the above classifications.

If he leaned towards me enough as I was moving forward, I’d reach up and get underhooks to pull him down. This was just to keep him from running around freely. From here I usually got hooks and went to x-guard.

Several times when he grabbed my pants, instead of breaking grips, I hugged tightly around both of his arms then whipped up to me knees as I used my bear hug to sweep him.

A couple times I skipped everything else and just drove forward into single legs and ankle picks.

So what worked best? Well… Everything.

John did really well with grabbing the wrists and getting the armdrag. He used armdrags to pull me down to my knees, take my back or enter single legs. After reminding him about it, he also used the wrist control to pull my arm in as he stepped on my hip for spider guard. He said he didn’t really like the collar grip and preferred wrist control, and I felt his wrist control was better.

I did okay with grabbing the wrists but I felt stronger with a collar grip. I had trouble keeping the wrist grips, and I felt rushed to regrip, while I could get the collar grip and securely hold it for much longer. While I did armdrags, I preferred using the collar grip to snapdown into front headlocks and single legs as he tried to run past. Whether I was controlling the wrists or the collar, I looked to grab and hook the legs for butterfly and x-guard.

So everything worked, and it really just came down to a mix of spur of the moment reactions and personal preference.

I think that as long as you know a variety of counters and tactics, and you do enough isolated sparring to gain skills in them, you’ll find that they all work, and you’ll learn which work best for you.