Easiest Passing System For Both Gi & Nogi BJJ

As a BJJ practitioner, you should know about the BJJ passes that will take you out of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu submissions. You should learn to escape when stuck in any position while playing against a BJJ opponent in a BJJ match. Most people focus on learning BJJ moves and BJJ techniques to take down their opponent. They do not focus on mastering the BJJ passes.

The BJJ white belt should understand that learning only the BJJ moves and BJJ techniques can't make them a winner in BJJ. You can't be perfect all the time. No one is perfect in BJJ. No single player has won all the matches and has never been in a submission against a BJJ opponent. To be a master of BJJ, you have to learn both things. The first thing to do is master BJJ moves and techniques to take your opponent to the ground. The second thing is learning to pass or escape when stuck in any submission move.

These two things are the core of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. As a white belt, you should focus on learning and mastering these two things by practicing repeatedly until you are confident that you can take anyone down and escape or pass from any move. This article will focus on learning the easiest passing system for both Gi and No-Gi Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

• We will explore one of the simplest and easiest BJJ passing systems for Gi and No Gi. The name of the easiest BJJ passing system is the “side smashed knee slide system.” You can also call it the “A B passing system.” The reason is simple: you will use both passes one after the other until you successfully pass the BJJ submission move against your opponent.

• If they resist the knee slide, you can go to the side smash; if they resist the side smash, you can go to the knee slide, and vice versa. You can do this for so long that even your opponent will get tired of these two moves from you.

• He will resist your one move, and then you will make the alternative. This will get him triggered, making it easier for you to escape. If you learn this passing system, you will easily escape your BJJ opponent. 

• Both passes involve forcing your opponent's leg flat on the mat, but in opposite directions. If you enter with your right foot into your left as the knee slides, the side smash is to your right.

• For the knee slide, you need to use your knee to bring your opponent’s leg flat on the mat, and for the side smash, you use your chest to bring your opponent’s leg flat on the mat.

• Your opponent can only resist one way at a time, making it easy for you to use their resistance against them and ease the momentum they provide. He cannot resist both of your passes. Even if he manages to resist and stops you from escaping, you can make the alternative pass again. That’s why it is known as the A B passing system.

• You will learn all the details on how to make the easiest passing system a success, and you will get an in-depth look at the headquarters passing position, the knee slide, and the side smash. 

A B passing system consists of the following:

1. Headquarters passing position

2. The knee slide

3. The side smash

• Let's start with the passing position to set these passes up from headquarters. In the simplest sense, headquarters is “when you have one of your opponent's legs between your legs.” One leg of your opponent is outside, and the other leg of your opponent is trapped between your two legs. One leg inside and one leg outside. This is known as the headquarters position. There are four main ways to get there.

• You can enter right into the knee slide using your knee if your leg is flat on the mat. But if their knees are pointed upwards, you need to answer by placing your inside knee on their outside leg.

• This controls their hips, which has many benefits. It prevents the guard delivery and the lasso guard. If you enter with your knee just in the middle, it makes it easier for them to get a knee shield.

• It can also hurt your opponent's sensitive areas. You should keep your chest slow to control them and limit their mobility. There are various grips you can take in the Gi. You can have a collar in a BJJ Gi; in a No Gi BJJ, you can have the side of the rib cage. All four ways to obtain the headquarters pass are discussed in detail below.

The first way is by putting your opponent on their back on the mat or ground. You can enter the guard with one leg when you put your opponent onto their back from the sit-up guard. Follow the step-by-step approach below to make a successful headquarters pass.

• Put your opponent onto their back.

• Enter the guard with one leg between the opponent’s two legs.

• The headquarters pass is done.

The second way applies to the opponent lying on their back on the Mat or ground. You can enter when your opponent is on their back by controlling their feet first and stepping in with one leg. Follow the step-by-step approach below to make a successful headquarters pass.

• Note when your opponent is on their back on the Mat.

• Control your opponent’s feet.

• Step your one leg in between your opponent’s two legs.

• The headquarters pass is done.

The third way applies to the situation when you are in the guard position. You can step over one of their legs when you are already in the BJJ guard. Follow the step-by-step approach below to make a successful headquarters pass.

• Pull the guard on your BJJ opponent.

• Step on one of his legs.

• Push your one leg in between your opponent’s two legs.

• The headquarters pass is done.

The fourth way to do the headquarters pass depends on the position of your legs. When both your legs are on the outside of your BJJ opponent, you can pummel one of your legs to the inside. Follow the step-by-step approach given below to make a successful headquarters pass this way.

• Keep both your legs on the outside of the opponent’s legs.

• Pummel your one leg to the inside between your opponent’s two legs.

• The headquarters pass is done.

• The system uses a thread in the side smash to open up the knee slide. But first, you must understand the knee slide itself. For a good knee slide, you should keep your hips glued to your opponent’s body the whole time. Slide your knee from your opponent's thigh into side control.
• The arm on the same side as the knee that does the sliding should grab their head, sleeve, or tricep to keep them on their back. If you are going for the knee slide and can't choose if you want the head or the elbow, remember they both do the same thing. They keep your opponent on their back.

• Your other arm doesn't necessarily need to have an underhoo . You must ensure they can't get a deep underhook on you. A deep underhook is an excellent counter to the knee slide, and it's the enemy of the knee slide.
• A shallow underhook is fine. However, you should try to prevent it, too. If they get a shallow underhook, you just have to keep your opponent on their back; otherwise, it could become a deep underhook.
• A deep underhook allows your opponent to take your back, sweep you, or wrestle you. If your opponent gets a shallow underhook, you should prioritize keeping them on their back. An underhook for yourself is ideal because if you have an underhook on your opponent, they don't have one on you.
• You don't want to let people get under your skin. It is not the end of the world. If it's shallow, you should just deal with it. The easiest time to take an underhook is when your opponent raises their elbow from their body.
• This is a mistake. They should be keeping their elbows tight with t-rex arms. You can also grab the rib cage or lapel. There are many other gripping options. If you grab the lapel, you should grab the near-side lapel, not the cross-side lapel.

• The mistake most BJJ white belts make is switching from the near-side lapel to the cross-side lapel, giving their BJJ opponent the underhook. If you overshoot your slide, you risk your opponent using all the available space. It is best to slide out just enough and back your hips up, turning your opponent's hips away.
• This ensures there is no space for your opponent to re-guard. If your foot gets stuck, you can pry it out using your other foot or bring your knee to the other side for mounts.
• You can also knee slide with the other leg or execute a rolling back attack. You should keep your elbow on the inside to prevent the knee shield. Keep it tight to prevent underhooks. These two counters will kill the knee slide.
• Your opponent getting the knee shield is usually a result of you not keeping your elbow tight or answering with your knee in the middle. If your opponent does get a knee shield, we can counter them with the armory pass by smashing them with our shoulders and grabbing their upper body to prevent them from extending away from us.

If you can't grab your head or triceps, a sleeve is the only option, preventing him from extending his body. If they can extend their body away from us, it will make it difficult for us to get the pass. Every good knee slider should also have a good arm. To counter the knee shield, you can quickly lift their leg and establish an inside position with their elbow. This is a cool trick that works well.

• Let's look at the side smash. It is called the side smash because in this pass, “you smash your legs together to the side.” You need to use your chest to smash your legs down to do this. This way, you can apply all your body weight.
• If you try to use your hands, it won't work. Your arms aren't strong enough. Suppose you need to use your hands to adjust the knee positioning quickly. That's okay, but you must use your chest to smash your legs together.
• With your inside leg, you must take a wide step to staple your opponent’s leg. A staple is when your toes are on one side of the leg and your knee is on the other. Ideally, you want to keep your head underneath their chin for additional pressure to control them.
• It's not always required or possible, for example, if they're framing on your head or you're not in a position.
• From here, the only thing that can stop you from passing is their inside leg, which can hook your leg with a butterfly hook. There are four main ways to address this:

• One way to do this is by using your elbow to push the leg down to prevent the hook from tracking you.

• Two, you can use your hand to push the leg down to prevent the hook from tracking you.

• Third, you can use the in-step of your other foot to push the leg down to prevent the hook from tracking you.

• Fourth, enter into mounts using a dope mount or a variation depending on how your opponent reacts.

• It may create a different passing scenario, like when your opponent tries to address the half-guard, you can backstep. As they do or if they try to turn on their side, you can go to the body lock and take their back.

• The matador or toreando pass (known as the toreando guard pass) is a very old BJJ passing technique. It is often called an old-school technique. This is confusing because it has a lot of variations. You may not know which variation to learn or which is most effective.

• Let's discuss its most well-known and most common variation. In this variation, you will do two things: firstly, grip the ankles of your BJJ opponent firmly. Fake throw them in the way where you will be going. You just have to fake-throw in that direction.

• Secondly, you will throw the ankles on the opposite side. After faking throwing the ankles in one direction, throw the ankles in the opposite direction.

• Next, after throwing, move towards his face and punch a big right hand on his face. This is so simple and easy. It still works, but most think this idea won't work now. But it is still helpful.

• Another variation is a little bit complex to understand. But let's just discuss this.

• In this variation, you will get control of the knees of your BJJ opponent. Remember, in both variations, your BJJ opponent is lying on the mat. Hold the knees of the BJJ opponent strongly with both of your hands. Even if he grips your sleeves , it will not cause any issues.

• If he pushes you with his legs, you must move away from him while holding the BJJ opponent’s knees. Then, put your opponent’s feet on the mat. You aim to separate the legs from your BJJ opponent’s torso . Once you do this, circle him and spear him. Put your head over his chest and take the side control.

• So these were two variations of the toreando pass, one being old school and the other one being advanced.

• The double under guard pass, or double under pass, is another easy passing technique you can learn. First, let's discuss what the name means. Double means that you are holding both of your BJJ opponent’s legs. Under means that you will be under him while implementing the technique. It is simply known as a double pass.

• To apply this pass, first, have control of the legs of your BJJ opponent. Open the legs so that one of his legs will be on your right side and the other on your left. Pull your opponent closer by holding him with his legs. Keep your BJJ opponent’s hips on your legs. Grab his collar. Your hand must be on his collar, and your other hand must grab his pants. Just like toreando a pass, move to the side and side mount him.

• Let's discuss a small grip variation with a double underpass. There are tons of variations, but we will be discussing just one. We will stick more with the basic type of stuff. It is once we've broken the guard. Again. Make sure that you don't go under one at a time.

• Go under and then lock the arms. Once we lock them, lock the hands, and once we lock the hands, reach across to the neck. As soon as you go up under any guy who's been training for more than a few months in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, they start scooting away.

• They make space, kneeling and anchoring their body to the mat. It is tough to actually get that lock. Focus on first pulling the hips up and then locking. You can grab the belt or the pants, or you can also grab the upper thigh. If you grab the upper thigh and if he pushes his knees out, it helps a little bit because now you can pull up very quickly.

• Whether it's the thigh, pants belt, or whatever you decide to grab. Pull their hips up off of the ground. After that, complete the side mount.

• You must be in the BJJ closed guard position to do this pass. You don't have to take any grips in that position because it will be useless at this point. You have to double up at this position. Double up means that both your hands should be holding the shoulders of your BJJ opponent. You must press the opponent’s shoulders tightly so that he can't move his shoulders to stop you from making any move.

• Once you have doubled up, the next step is to “come up.” By this, you have to come on top of your opponent while lifting your opponent’s hips with your thighs. These two steps, i.e., double up and come up, require a lot of flexibility and a little bit of strength. You will fall sideways from your BJJ opponent if you don't have enough strength and flexibility.

• So once you have done these two ‘ups,’ the next step is moving back. Move back a little bit. You must do it slowly, demonstrating strength and flexibility to keep your BJJ opponent in control. Continue moving back until you are again on the mat.

• After completing these three steps, you will be in such a position that your leg will be in the middle of your BJJ opponent. You have to keep your balance while doing this. These three steps, double up, come up, and move back, are tricky. People often can't do this, and they fall on their BJJ opponent's right or left side. 

• Another reason people find this tricky is that the legs of your BJJ opponent are too heavy. So, BJJ white belts are often advised to take a balance ball and start practicing on it. A balance ball is a big, round ball that can be used to practice balance. Once you have learned to maintain balance, you can easily do all three steps.

• After these three steps, you have several options to take him to submission, such as you can take a side mount on him, or you can do underhooks by passing your arms under his arms and holding him with his upper chest.

• You can take it in other variations to take him down. For this pass, known as the knee cut pass or knee slice, you must first do the side mount, then a single underhook. Side mount him and then move your arm under his arm to take a single underhook. While doing an underhook, slide across him towards his head. Next, you can also do BJJ Americana on them.

• Let's just say the guards are already open. So, the first thing you should do after the guard is open is to use your elbow to get your opponent's leg up over your shoulder. People often try to use their whole arm to come underneath. You should use the strength of your bicep; if it gets heavy, it's challenging to get that leg. Getting the leg onto your shoulder using your elbow is much easier. Once you do that, you must get a grip so you can come around and grab them. It doesn't matter how you like to do it. Some people like four fingers, and some people like a thumb. What's important is keeping your elbow tight to his leg.

• You should go ahead and start to lift him. Once you feel the stack coming, go ahead and switch his pants. So, whatever you can, grab his shirttail, belt, or pants. The whole idea is that if you want to lift him and stack him up even further, you should start to circle and end up in control. This can put a lot of pressure on your partner. We must be aware of some things, but most importantly, we don't want to be on our knees during this process.

• If you are on your knees, you are taking the pressure off, and it's much easier for him to defend this position. So make sure you are on your toes driving forward.

• You must also be aware that sometimes people grab a bit higher on the pants instead of grabbing super low. So when you are in this position, all you have to do is grab it and pull in, and now you will take the situation and lock it into a triangle.

• Keep this elbow nice and tight to the hip because if you are not careful, it could be much easier for him to start shifting, using, getting his leg low, and defending.

• So, to keep this up, you must keep it tight and make sure they can't escape his hip from this position. You should arch your back and stay glued hip to hip.

• To summarize, open up the guard and get your grip elbow tight. Take your initial stack. You switch to stacking up higher. Come around, or if you can't sneak the knee, back the hips up so that it's the single under-hook stack pass.

• AB passing system in BJJ is considered the easiest passing system among all the passes. If you try to go for the side smash and face resistance, it makes it easy to enter into the knee slide, and if you try to enter into the knee slide and face resistance, it makes it easy to answer with the side smash. It is an easy yet effective technique to use in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

• The headquarters passing technique is also very simple and easy. Among other passes that are considered easy are the BJJ toreando pass, BJJ single underhook stack pass, BJJ knee cut pass, and double under guard pass. You should try to learn all these passes. Start with the A-B passing system, which is the easiest one. Master this passing system by practicing again and again.

In the BJJ headquarters pass, one leg of your opponent is outside, and the other leg of your opponent is trapped between your two legs. You can do the BJJ headquarters pass by following four ways;

• Try to put your opponent on their back on the mat.

• Your opponent is already on their back on the mat.

• Stepping over one of their legs.

• Pummel your one leg to the inside.

You can enter right into the knee slide using your knee if your leg is flat on the mat. But if their knees are pointed upwards, you need to answer by placing your inside knee on their outside leg. 

• The name of the easiest BJJ passing system is the “side smashed knee slide system.” You can also call it the “A B passing system.” The reason is simple: you will use both passes one after the other until you successfully pass the BJJ submission move against your opponent.
• If they resist the knee slide, you can go to the side smash ; if they resist the side smash, you can go to the knee slide, and vice versa. You can do this for so long that even your opponent will get tired of these two moves from you.

• AB passing system in BJJ is considered the easiest passing system among all the passes.
• If you try to go for the side smash and face resistance, it makes it easy to enter into the knee slide, and if you try to enter into the knee slide and face resistance, it makes it easy to answer with the side smash. It is an easy yet effective technique to use in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
• Among other passes that are considered easy are the BJJ toreando pass, BJJ single underhook stack pass, BJJ knee cut pass, and double under guard pass.