I’ve been on a Gordon Ryan kick lately. Specifically his guard passing. I’m trying to get my guard passing sharpened up (sometimes it feels non-existent), so I’ve been studying a lot of guard passing on YouTube. I found this great list of videos analyzing Gordon Ryan’s guard passing.
What’s particularly interesting to me is that to pass in the style of Gordon Ryan, you put your hands on the mat, distributing your weight to your hands while your legs and hips float freely, allowing you to pummel your legs around your opponents.
I’ve always that you should stay heavy on your opponents legs when passing, but this style of passing is opposite of that. I guess in practice the style of passing will change depending on how you want to pass, and what your opponent throws at you. It’s nice to have options.
Click here if you want to goto the full list of videos for the Gordon Ryan Guard Pass Study.
BJJ Heroes has a great analysis of Gordon Ryan’s grappling style. This is a good read: Analyzing Greatness: The Versatile Game Of Gordon Ryan
Perhaps the most notable area of specialism we are seeing in Jiu Jitsu at the moment is a direct result of the increase in the popularity of submission only and ADCC ruleset events. We are seeing more and more people choose this route of specialism; if your goal is to compete in ADCC or submission only events, why bother putting on the gi, or learning how to pass guard when you can jump on a leglock? Gordon Ryan is probably the most feared man in submission only, nogi grappling right now, but the verdict is out on whether we can say the same of his gi game.