B.J. Penn and Northwest FightScene

Here's a nice write-up on a B.J. Penn grappling seminar held in Oregon back in July. Two of the techniques, which are shown pretty well in this write-up, are especially interesting to me: the guard pass--or more accurately the opening of the guard before the pass, and a way of going from stacking to take-the-back.

There's a nice twist on the standing guard pass that BJ uses. Not only does he use the L-stance (north leg parallel to body, south leg perpendicular) pretty much as Saulo emphasizes. But also he keeps the north leg tight against the guy's hip, driving his knee down and into the thigh on the one side as he turns toward the opposite leg's knee.

It's like a stand and twist movement, pushing down against that knee on the one side and twisting against the leg on the other side. B.J. put his down hand (north side hand) on the bottom guy's throat, which is something I'm not so comfortable with even though I've seen more and more jiu jitsu guys using the throat to hold the guy's upper body down (i.e., Jacare's second fight in the 2005 ADCC).

In any event, I want to try that stand and twist, as opposed to the "walking around" motion that Saulo talks about. The solution is probably a hybrid of the two. But in addition to the Knee Drop and the Wrist Cuff, this would be a nice "opening the guard" technique to have at my disposal.