Guard passing and submission only tournaments: Quite often I am asked if the skill of passing guard – the skill of getting past your opponent's legs and into upper body pins – is a worthwhile skill for someone interested in submission only tournaments. The idea here is that in a tournament without points scoring, it is not worth the effort of passing guard because one does not receive points for doing so. Accordingly, it might seem a better idea just to go straight to leg locks where there is some chance of outright victory via submission. My answer to this is very clear. It is definitely worth your while to work hard on your guard passing skills and apply them EVEN IN SUBMISSION ONLY MATCHES WHERE GUARD PASSING SCORES NO POINTS. The reason is simple – only when an athlete has well developed guard passing skills can he or she distribute their submission attacks OVER THE WHOLE BODY. The moment you limit your attacks to one part of the body (legs) you have become predictable and thus less likely to break through a skilled opponents defense. As a general rule, I prefer to see my athletes attacks legs predominantly from bottom position. When on top, I like to see them initiate with hard passing work – even in submission only tournaments – so that the whole body becomes a target, rather than half of it. This ensures that an opponent will find it difficult to put anticipatory defenses in place. An unfortunate consequence of the success of my students with leg locks in competition has been a misunderstanding guard passing skills are not necessary for submission only tournaments – this is, in my opinion, a major error. Here, Gordon Ryan works hard to pass the guard of one of his most formidable opponents, powerful world champion yuri simoes, in a submission only EBI tournament Photo by Blanca Marisa Garcia
