#366 Guard Passing Tier List | I Ranked EVERY GUARD PASS

I suck at jiu-jitsu. How do I suck less? Hey everybody, this is Josh McKinney and I just want to welcome you to the newest episode of the I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu Show. And let me ask you this, how would you like to be able to pass the freaking guard? Are you tired of being stuck? Are you tired of having to go for ankle locks, which you suck at also, because you just cannot pass the guard? And even worse, are you getting swept and submitted constantly? Then this episode is going to change your jiu-jitsu. This episode is going to change your perspective completely and it is the way that we are going to look at a tier list of guard passes. This I promise by the end of this episode, you are going to see guard passing more clearly than ever before. Um, people really liked the guard tier list that we did two weeks ago and the reason that they liked it was because I just really showed the reverse of my guard passing perspective. I basically looked at it as the top player and said, these are the guards that are easiest for me to beat and that is how I did the tier list. And so, um, with this, we're going to actually really get into that information that has made all of these tier lists possible and that is how we can pass people's guards, how we can pin them. And so just like the last two weeks of tier lists that we've done, um, we have a criteria for you guys. And the criteria is actually simpler for this week than ever before, even though guard passing is more complex than anything else that we ever talk about on the show. And so the criteria is this, the three things that we ranked these, when I say we, I mean Josh and all the voices in his head, but the three places that I ranked my, uh, these guard passes are on risk, finishability, which is a made-up word, and versatility, which isn't a made-up word. And we are going to look at all three of those and then we're going to start to dig into what passes are going to get put into what tier. We have just like we have the last few weeks, we have seven different tiers that they can be in, ranging at the lowest from the F tier, where you don't want to be wasting your time, it's dangerous, it's stupid, and it's not even useful. All the way up to the double S tier that you can build an entire game around and what you are going to find in this episode, and this is the big secret reveal that I should have saved for the end, is no single guard pass itself is all dominant. No single guard pass itself is going to beat every guard that you deal with. But there are some guards, guard passes that are so high level that they can almost pair with any other guard pass. And that is really what pushes certain things to the top is their versatility, not just whether or not they can be used for gi or no-gi, but can they just be added to other passes? And that's what really pushes these things up to the top tier. So the idea behind it is, if you could focus on these top tier positions, one day, or these top tier passes, one day when you decide to add an A tier, a B tier move even, it's much easier because that B tier and A tier move will usually be a new way for you to set up your double S tier guard pass anyway. And so, um, this will really, I think, help people with a lot of wasted time and there is so much information on this. So I hope this is, I hope this isn't just one episode of the I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu Show. I hope this can be used by you guys as a tool to know how to pass the guard better. And, um, imagine a world where we could actually had, people had good guard passing. Seriously, for a second. People would stop arguing about wrestling versus guard point because it wouldn't matter. It would just be like, well, if you have good guard passing, you would just pass the guard. You wouldn't stress about it, right? The action, the whole like, uh, penalties and stalling stuff, it would start to get thrown out the window because the top player would also want to pass the guard for the reward of ending the match quicker and submitting their opponent and getting through the danger zone and holding their opponent down. But the problem is the skill level in guard passing in general in the jiu-jitsu space is so low compared to the level of guard play. The level of guard play is so high right now and then even a lot of rule sets are favoring the guard player. They're keeping the top player from being able to disengage at all or take a step back at all, which for the longest time was just part of survival in on top in people's guard. It was part of playing on top in people's guard. But now it's being recorded, uh, it's being rewarded to only step forward. And so how can we look at jiu-jitsu right now, look at jiu-jitsu in the past, what's worked for so long and then try to predict the future of jiu-jitsu and say these are the moves that we should be working. And that is what I hope to deliver to you guys today. And let's go ahead and make sure that we understand the criteria. So first off, we have our risk. How long are you in the danger zone? Okay? That is a big part of the risk. The danger zone of the guard, when you start to engage somebody's guard, the danger zone is when your upper body starts to get at a distance that their legs and arms can attack you at the same time. Can fight you at the same time. If you are further away than that, it's very hard for people to do stuff. If you get past that distance with your torso, like let's say you, you know, this is an excessive distance, this is an excessive example. Let's say you're smashed half, right? You're past that distance, right? There's so much less danger. Not that people can't get swept from smashed half, but compared to when you're a foot away from smashed half and your chest over hips on this person, they have butterfly sweeps, they have arm drags, they have so much threat. And that threat typically comes from the amount of distance. That decides how much hand fighting has to be done, how much leg pummeling has to be done, and how rewarding it will be. So the longer that you're in the danger zone, or there's also the example of their arms and legs can attack just your legs, also an example of a danger zone. But both thoughts generally start from that chest over hips, they start to get too much control of your body situation. The less time we're there, the more effective that pass is going to be consistently. My proof is you look at the highest level passers in the gi and no-gi, they get through that middle ground. They either stay too far away or they stay too close, okay? So that is the first part of risk. Does it cost a lot of energy to attempt? Is this a pass that needs to be attempted 30 times to work and it takes some energy every single time from both the top player and the bottom player? That again, it hurts how consistent the move can be. Right? If you, if it requires a ton of energy, what if you're tired? Can you still do it? Some guard passes require more timing and more, uh, just ideal weight distribution than they require energy and speed. And so that is a big part of the risk too. And then of course, is there an injury risk associated? Very few guard passing, um, guard passes, I, in my opinion, risk injury, but there are some that we will talk about. Now, we'll look at the next part of the criteria, finishability. Does it need a secondary pass to be effective? This is a huge part of the criteria for how I'm using it. I'll explain why I did the criteria this way as we get through the episode. But does it need, meaning there are some passes that are really good setups, but they always have to end in a knee cut. Could you do that pass without knowledge of knee cut? Probably not. And so it probably pushes knee cut above that pass, right? That can almost be a setup for your knee cut, which is a super high tier position. We will go into it. But does it get close enough to actually pass your opponent's guard? Do you get chest to chest? Right? Because if you don't get chest to chest, you're not in side control. If you don't get chest to chest, you're not in mount or better, right? Chest to face, you're not in those positions. Even if they belly down, you don't take the back unless you have the right head position, which is going to be chest to back, you know, in between their ear and shoulder. And so does your pass actually get you close enough to pass or is it more defensive? If it's more defensive and that's how you want to build your game, totally fine. If it feels that way, totally fine. But this criteria is about passing the guard. It is not about surviving the guard, okay? Um, and then on top of that, does it allow you to pass the legs without getting stuck to them? That's the whole thing about the upper body and the lower body when it comes to us passing the guard, is we have to beat the legs to control the upper body. If it takes so much control of our whole body to beat the legs, it's very hard to take that control and then apply that control to the upper body, okay? People escape certain and have much more powerful counters, um, to the guard passes that send your whole body against your opponent's legs, okay? So, um, and then versatility, obviously, we're not doing self-defense. Why, listen, if somebody throws you in a closed guard in a fight and you were just like, for whatever reason, you're at a bar and then like he starts to set up like a cross collar choke or something, I would just tap and be like, hey, bro, no harm, no foul, and I would just leave, right? You don't need to be passing that guy's guard. You guys probably have enough in common. I actually heard a story once. I don't know that it's true, but I heard a story once from a student who said that he got in a fight, um, and it's not my student. This was a student like, uh, of one of my, I think this would have been my coach's student at the time. But anyway, he got in a fight. It was a dumb reason. It was like, got cut off in traffic. This is like in the grass on the side of the road fight, okay? And, um, and the guy had MMA training. He was like a blue belt that's telling me this story. And he said he checked this guy's leg kick and, um, like, which was an interesting thought. He's like, this guy threw a leg kick on me, weird. So then he shot a double leg and took the guy down. He said the guy starts to lock up a Kimura. And he said, and he starts to defend the Kimura. And the guy said to him, do you do jiu-jitsu? The other guy says, I'm a blue belt. He says he feels him slowly start to let go of the Kimura, like, basically seeing like, are we cool? He lets go. They don't say a word to each other. Again, I wasn't there, but this is the claim. They don't say, it's like a very slow release, but they start to disconnect and they just kind of give each other the nod. They get back in their cars and they leave. I've heard that before. I don't know that it's true. Here's one I do know that's true. There's a, an Instagram reel that I saw where a guy's trying to be like, yeah, I'm a, I'm a blue belt in jiu-jitsu, I'm a blue belt in jiu-jitsu to like a, um, uh, like kind of like a bouncer. It seems like a nice restaurant or something like that. And the bouncer's like, oh, you're a blue belt, you're a blue belt. And he pulls out his background of his phone and he's a black belt and he's like taking a picture with a few other really high level black belts is his background. Random thoughts. Let's get into guard passes. So, number one guard pass. Number one, not the number one, the best guard pass, but it is going to be a double S tier to start us. We're going to start with the Toreando pass. Toreando pass, there's a wrong way to do it, but very, very, very, if any, passes could a day one white belt learn. Drill for six weeks, sorry, not drill, positional spar, whatever you want to call it. Only obsess about that for six weeks. Go with an all right, not an amazing, but an all right black belt and pass their guard. They would get beat down from side control, of course. But it is one I heard this information from Sean Williams years ago and I have found that to be true. You can just add this to somebody's game with the right understanding of getting close. The problem that most people have with Toreando is we talked about this in the, um, uh, in the criteria is that sometimes they stay too stuck to the legs. It's very valuable to learn the no-gi Toreando. Um, Gordon has a video he just did recently that is it just explains how you don't have the luxury of holding on to people's pant legs. But I found that that works better in the gi too because it allows you to push the legs out of the way and then get close. If you hold on to the pant legs too long, when you get close, guys will almost kick their legs and you stay connected to their legs and it pushes you back. And again, distance, getting chest to chest is how we finish our guard passes. Right? Um, yes, we have to get into the elbow knee space when we do it too, but that's what that Toreando setup typically lets us start to do and lets us start to fight in. But the number one in the double S tier and we will have six that will land in the S tier. You could argue that it's five and that one of them is should just be tied together. I don't know. Let's, let's not even get into it. I, but I like, I think, I believe we have six. Um, and then we have, I don't think we're going to have as many that are going to make people angry as the submissions one. There's just too many submissions and it made it, it made it too hard. Um, let's look at the X-pass. Where does the X-pass go on this criteria? So, I'll explain as we get it filled up a little more, kind of how I have the rankings laid out when it comes to building a game. Maybe at the end we'll even just talk about how to build a game using this list. And so, um, the X-pass may offend some people, but we're going to start it off in the A tier. We're throwing it in the A tier for right now. I think that's where it'll stay. Very overpowered grips. But if you think of the pass by itself, you need other passes for it. You need, honestly, you need knee cut. You probably even need a knee weave, which we'll talk about in a little bit. But you at least need knee cut, right? You need something else off that. It's not just going to work by itself. And that's what puts it in the A tier. It's not garbage. That's not what I'm saying. Don't get mad. Don't at me, bro. Um, if you want to, I mean, of course, you can comment something if you want to at me. That helps the algorithm even if you're mad. I'm totally cool with it. I might even argue back with you. Um, but let's move on. Let's move on and I thought, let's start with, you know, early on, let's hit you with the two double S tier moves. So we can really get on the same page of like, hey, what's this, what is the highest level of guard passes? The next one we're looking at, number three, double S tier move, ye old leg drag. Man, leg drag. Gi, no-gi, again, I think that there's so much value in learning the no-gi grip of the ankle and learning to leg drag with just more your body movement in your angles versus leg dragging by just grabbing the pant leg and yanking. Not that that doesn't work amazing. Not that you can't build a whole game around it. But I think there's even more value in, um, like in the clip that I'm doing, the just doing it with hand on the ankle and being able to just move as little as possible to beat that foot and then close the distance. Because that's really what the position is. It is you beating their foot. That's what most of guard passing is that people struggle with is you getting their feet off you so you can just get close enough. And leg drag does it from a different angle than basically any other guard pass. And, um, yeah, that's what puts leg drag in the double S tier. Super overpowered leg drag. Now let's move on to cartwheel pass. Let's put it exactly where it belongs in the F tier, in the garbage. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. Oh, Josh, but I've hit the cartwheel pass before. Yeah, you were in kids class when you hit the cartwheel pass. No one good hits the cartwheel pass on someone good. Yeah, yeah, you could probably hit the cartwheel pass on people who suck, but really, if anything, if the, if you see success in a cartwheel pass, what it really should show you is lack of success in guard retention, okay? Throw the cartwheel pass in the garbage. Now's a great time to mention, if you don't like what I'm saying and you're too mad for the comment section of YouTube, you know what you want to say would get banned. Please, please, please give me a call. 951 hot take. Even if the hot take is negative towards your boy Josh, I'm cool with it, bro. It's like, I just, it's good content, you know? It's interactive. It's fun for me. It's way less fun for me if, you know, nobody listens. I would rather at least people listen and be mad. And so, if you're a cartwheel pass guy, let me hear about it. 951 hot take. Or of course, if you have any other thoughts, we're going to drop a 951 hot take, the first ever hot take voicemail episode that we have ever dropped next Thursday. So be sure to be here. Um, and be sure to not cartwheel your way in here. It's just ridiculous. I don't even know why we're talking about it. Single under pass. So, I'm going to let you in on a little secret that big cotton does not want you to know. Don't even get me started on big polyester. But right now, we are in the middle of a secret war. It is between hemp and cotton. One of them shrinks, isn't durable, and holds bacteria. The other is hemp. And the beauty of hemp, not just is how durable it is to make a gi out of, to make a backpack out of, to make a fanny pack out of. The beauty of hemp is that it is anti-microbial, meaning that things are not growing and living inside of your gi. And that is a beautiful thing to know because you can know that with your nose. Your gi doesn't stink. You are not the stinky guy. And our friends at Datsusara are the company for hemp jiu-jitsu. They have gis that are made of hemp. They have some of my favorite bags, have some of my favorite fanny packs. Again, all made of hemp. They don't hold odor. They are super durable. They look really cool. You get all kinds of compliments on them. And if you use promo code I SUCK at DSGEAR.com when you check out, you get 10% off of your purchase because they love the I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu Show just like you do. And so be sure to check them out at DSGEAR.com. Single under pass. I could have went up and people would have been happy, mad. I could have went down and people would have been happy, mad. I could stay the same and people will be happy, mad. But single underhook pass, I'm putting it in the A tier. I think again, like the S-pass, or X-pass. Holy smokes, too many passes. Like the X-pass, I think you can use it to compliment some of the most important passes, but by itself, I don't think you can build an entire jiu-jitsu game around it. Um, and even use it to compliment with just some of the other A, A tier, um, uh, uh, guard passes. Maybe even some of the B tier guard passes. We'll see where things end up. But that mindset to me with, uh, uh, with this makes the most sense is like, A tier for the single underhook pass. Once we start to get into some of the S tier, I think I'll get more people to agree with me. But why not get halfway through the double S tier since that's the only reason we're here anyway? That's the only thing we care about anyway. What about, I mean, really, if we ranked this top to bottom of the double S tier. This is triple S tier. This is quadruple S tier. This is 100 S tier. This is the only guard pass. This is the only guard pass. The knee cut, baby. The knee cut, baby. Come on, man. Um, you guys should check out, uh, BJJFanatics.com. What did they call that? I had a different name for it. I think it's called the knee cut road map. I think that's what they, they changed the name. I had a different name for it. It came out a long time ago, but it's literally just a way to knee cut through every guard that exists, um, using the right hand fighting and stuff. It's a really good instructional. I think we recorded it six years ago now. We recorded it pre-COVID. Um, I actually remember when we went to that, uh, to record that instructional, Kyle, um, walked onto the plane and this was before we knew COVID was going to be, you know, the problem that it was and it was just very, very early news. And, um, you know, not reading the room, Kyle was like, smells like coronavirus in here, right when we got on the plane. And people didn't think it was funny then. And, uh, we were like, huh, that's weird. But we went and filmed our instructionals. Actually, don't buy that. Don't buy the instructional. I just lied to you guys. I have a free seminar that I did. And then you'll know if you like the instructional. I have all kinds of other instructionals too on guard passing. It's pretty much the only thing I know. But I have a free seminar that I did. I put out on YouTube, um, and it is titled, and like my proof that it's good to you is that it is titled the greatest guard passing seminar ever or of all time. Something like that. Which is a very, very, and then I think the, the thumbnail says like, guard doesn't exist or something like, I don't know, something totally crazy. And no comment is negative on it. It's just all like, oh, this was super helpful. Thank you. And so, if that doesn't tell you to check the greatest guard passing seminar of all time out, I don't know what will. Now let's look at, here's the problem. I could have done a tier list of knee cuts. There are a million types of knee cut. And when you really look at it, it is the finish of a lot of the other passes that we're going to do is a version of getting to the upper body, getting an underhook, getting some type of occupying some of the space between the far side elbow and ribs, right? Whether it's an underhook, whether it's you're using your elbow with a lapel grip, something to pin their far shoulder. And then you knee cut across. That is the finish of so many guard passes. So it's hard to start to separate and it's hard for me to not just be like, okay, you have torpedo knee cut, back leg knee cut, you have knee cut from this guard, you have knee cut from this guard. And so that's why I just thought, let's keep it in the double S tier because at the end, like I said, this ranking system, I think will help even somebody who already has good guard passing or all right guard passing, help them actually understand guard passing as a whole a lot deeper. And so, um, hopefully that's what happens. So now we're going to look at what we called the reverse knee cut. This is one of the only knee cuts I differentiated because it really isn't a knee cut. You're not knee cutting through the legs. It's when somebody has your, so like basically they have your right leg trapped and you knee cut with your left leg because your left leg is free across their belly. And you look to dig an underhook on the far side. And so, um, I think it's a good position. You don't see it hit very often. Um, it's actually going to end up, I don't want to say that I invented it, but I actually invented this position too. I invented this pass probably in like 2015. Um, whenever Lady Gaga was popping a lot was on like every radio station. Um, and the reason I say that that's when it was was because it wasn't called the reverse knee cut when I invented it. We called it the Lady Gaga. And I did it for years and then just got away from it. It just didn't, my game stopped just being all knee cuts. And so then this, when I realized that, I was like, I was just trying to niche my game down too much with this reverse knee cut. I don't think it hits as much. Unless it's available, then it's still cool. Um, now let's look at the back step. The back step pass, dang. Ah, man. RIP Leandro Lo. The limp leg, the back step. That's kind of what I'm talking about is the, uh, man. I don't think people know this one as well. But, bro, I got to put it in S tier. And not that people don't back step, but the real, the true limp leg back step, uh, Marcelo Garcia's really good at it too. Um, he kind of just, that was his way of dealing with De La Riva at least from his YouTube channel 15 years ago. Um, when I used to really study that position a lot. Um, but that limp leg knee step, uh, uh, uh, limp leg, um, back step from De La Riva. I think we're putting it in S tier. I was thinking about A tier on it, but honestly, got to honor Leandro Lo, bro. You've got to, right? That was the, the goat, brother. The goat. And I know, look, if you weren't around, if you weren't around, if you weren't around, maybe you don't understand. But if you were around in the 2010s to 2020 in the jiu-jitsu scene, if you were in the building while he competed. If, if you were like me, I was one match away from Leandro Lo one time. We're in the same division. And I, I mean, I, I lost to a guy and then he got thrashed. But getting to see that dude sitting on the side of the mat, getting to see how he carried himself. He actually fist bumped me in the bathroom. We were both changing. Um, but the goat, bro. The limp leg, the low limp leg, just the low system. If you want to try to master that, John Thomas BJJ, bro. The stuff that Redheaded John has put on YouTube. And this is like, just backstory for me, random fact when we shouldn't be discussing this stuff. But, uh, random fact like, uh, when John and I in 2012, we're probably training together. Um, probably 2012, 13, 14. Probably in that area, we trained together just a ton. We studied a lot of the same jiu-jitsu. He taught me just so much stuff about jiu-jitsu. And most of it was what he was dissecting from watching Leandro Lo. And we both, he taught me how to dissect, dissect good grapplers and, um, that was really what I based a lot of my guard passing on for years and years and years. Um, and then getting to see him use it effectively against so many different people. And just the, it was, it was just aura, man. That was really what it is. When people talk about goat, that was what it was. It was just aura. He would just at the end of matches just be able to do things that no one else could do. He would just do things that were ignorant. He would beat so many guys that were unbeatable. Goat, RIP Leandro Lo. Now let's look at over under pass. Let's look at another legend. And don't mean to offend this person, very much alive. But let's look at the over under pass. Two legends will insult with this one. Um, over under pass, B tier move. Over under pass B tier move for me. 951 hot take. If you have anything to say, 951 hot take. I don't know if you guys remember being in the 90s, 2000s, um, but there were letters on your phone. And they're still there. You just have never had to use them. Um, you know, since T9 stopped being a thing, you stopped having to use them. And so you can, if you spell the word hot take after you dial area code 951. Who knows what area code it was, but that's just the only, that's the only way I could get the words hot take. Um, but dial that. Let me hear. Tell me about how mad you are where I dropped the over under pass. Now here's the thing. I know what some of you true I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu Show fans, you true Josh McKinney fans are saying, but Josh, Murilo Santana beat you down. It's like, yeah. But he passed my guard with a different pass. One of the double S tier guard passes that we'll talk about later. He didn't pass me with the over under. What can I say? You know, not to trump you guys. Didn't mean to flex on you guys like that. But, um, yeah, that's where we're keeping over under. And really, as per part of our criteria, you get too stuck to the legs. Defensively, it's an amazing way to be able to deal with some of the toughest guards that you'll deal with. But it's not, when we're looking at guard offense and we're looking at again, the way the rule set is being pushed in jiu-jitsu now, going forward is what is going to get rewarded and staying in place, they're going to be mad about. I think it's silly. Do I think that that's the way that it should be? No. But it's the way that it's going. Now let's go with one that I would argue is probably going to be the least known guard pass that I'm going to show, or talk about, I guess, show also. Um, if you're not watching the video version of this on YouTube or Spotify, you should because not only are there pictures this time, but there are short videos showing each pass because you can't show a guard pass in a picture. And so, um, okay, so you only have one to two days per week to train jiu-jitsu. Can you still be a competitor and win? Well, with Zero to Hero, you can. Oh, that's not what you have. You have three or four days a week to train. Oh, well, then you would just need Hero and Hiding. That is easy. You could be a great competitor. Oh, you want to try to be the best competitor in the world? You want a professional level? You need to go Hero Mode. Well, the beauty of all three of these is all three of these six week jiu-jitsu camps that will teach you exactly how to prepare for your next tournament. All three of them are free and included in my new ebook, The Competitor's Journey. This is where I take everything that I have learned from the last 18 years of competing in jiu-jitsu, the last 10 years of coaching competitors, and I apply it into three very simple six week jiu-jitsu training camps that you can take and apply to your jiu-jitsu training right now for better success at your next tournament, less injuries, and even a better mindset. All you need to do is go to simplifyingjiujitsu.com/comp and you can download The Competitor's Journey absolutely free. Let's get back to the episode. Uh, let's look at this, I call the De La Riva step over. Um, this is, um, I think, uh, Craig Jones calls it something about maybe De La Riva doesn't exist. Um, Henry Akins calls it pass the guard. Um, and then you'll be like, but what's the name of it? And then he'll look at you and he'll be like, pass the guard. You'll be like, okay, coach. Um, but super, super effective. And it's so shocking. It adds to so many other, um, different passes. And I think that that puts us in the S tier with the De La Riva step over. Um, if there is one random pass to learn from this, if you haven't heard of a bunch of them, and you've heard of all the S tiers, or the double S tiers, I think that De La Riva step over probably is it. It is so effective. Now, now we'll anger some more people, I guess. Um, yeah, I guess that's the only thing that we could be doing right now. So we're going to do the double under pass. And again, this is not me saying it doesn't work. I know that anyone who sees the screenshot of the tier list, I know, so, I don't even know why I'm talking to you about it. You get it. You get what I'm telling you, but the people who don't, who scroll to the end of the video and are like, oh, I hate this tier list. Um, they're going to be mad about the double under. But the reason that I don't have the double under higher, if, if defense was the only priority, it's a double S tier. If not getting submitted is the only priority, in versions of this, the other versions we're going to look at, it's just playing behind the knees is the best way to survive. It just is. And it's the easiest way to learn to survive. But it's not the most effective for finishing guard passes. It's not the most effective for passing the guard. And that puts the double under pass in the B tier. In the B tier category, I know people are going to be mad, but it's okay. You'll get over it. 951 hot take. Um, now let's look at knee staple pass. So, I think a lot of people don't really care for this pass because it's hard to get the right leg position, um, to actually hold somebody there. But to me, it is at least A tier. And that's where I'm putting it right now. I could even see the knee staple as an S tier move. And let me tell you why, Dave. Here is the thing. There is two options that are offense. There are two offensive options. There are two ways that you can move forward when your opponent that is playing guard gets a foot on both sides of your hips, okay? Like whether they're in like a scissor type position, whether they just have an open guard and their feet are on both sides of your hips, whether they're in De La Riva and that foot starts to go to the outside. The only offense that I can do that brings me forward is a knee cut or a knee staple. It's valuable to know both of these. It's way more valuable than no knee cut is just more common. But knee staple can still be very, very effective when paired with knee cut because some people defend one and it opens up the other. And so, um, yeah, knee staple pass. I think I'm putting it in the A tier. I think you could easily argue that it is an S tier, but I would also argue that when it's done a lot of the times, it ends up turning into a smashed half guard. It ends up turning into something else. So that's why we keep it a little bit lower because it ends up pushing to one of those S tier positions anyway. And so that keeps us, keeps these things differentiated a little bit more. Um, now let's look at cross pant leg pass. So this for a while in the gi was so overpowered and I feel like it's starting to lose, um, how often people are doing it, right? It's very similar to, um, a leg weave. It's just you don't have the leg weaved, but you have that same kind of pant grip or you could go even down on the ankle. But people use it to set up knee cut, they use it to set up knee weave, but what they don't do is pass directly with it most of the time. They use it to set up their other stuff. And so that's what keeps it a little bit lower. I know as a grip, it's probably an S, a double S tier grip in the gi. But it does not accomplish the things that you'll eventually have to do with a knee cut or a knee weave anyway. And so great entry, great way to beat the feet. But I think we keep it in the S tier. Not double S on that one for sure. Now let's look at the surfer pass. Um, this one we're going to the C tier. We're going to hit C tier surfer pass. Here's why. Um, I think that it comes from a reaction that probably shouldn't happen as much. And so if you started to build a game around it, especially as a competitor, people would see that you have a game built around the surfer pass and they would be like, well, I'm just not going to let them control my sleeve and do the surfer pass or I'm not going to approach them seated. So it's just very, very beatable. When you learn it, it can be very effective. And so I don't, I could easily put this up into the B tier. I could easily say that the surfer pass is a little bit better than I'm giving it credit for. But I think that here's my problem with it. For a lot of people is it will cause, it will give you success early, but not as much long term. And so to me, that ends up hurting you in the long run because you get addicted to it and you're like, well, this works. You're like, oh no, this only really works on blue belts. And there are versions of it that work probably differently. I understand, but, um, and I'm sure that there are people that have gotten it to a really high level. But I just don't think that it hits the criteria as well and I just don't think that it is as worth some of the other, um, uh, is as worth investing your time in as a lot of these other guards. 951 hot take if you disagree. Uh, let's look at the, ooh, ooh, this is one, this is probably the most unknown. If it was just, again, if it's just about passing the guard, then this is going to be a B tier move, okay? And that's what this is about. But if it was about stalling and playing the game and chilling out and hanging out and being cool, the double under lapel guard pass. I don't know any other name for it. I can't find the video. I was looking for the video today. I cannot find the video. Keenan used it, I want to say against Maragali. Um, but I know he's used it in against other people. Maybe they called it the squid pass. Maybe that was what it was. Huh. But here's why. You can't, you can't Google lapel guard pass. Everything's about passing lapel guards. Even I won't get into it. But it's infuriating. But that little lapel weave, the double under lapel weave, you undo your opponent's lapel and then like you're not doing double under with your head close. You're able to stack the crook of their knee with their own lapel and then you feed it to the other hand and it's all tied up. And then you go like this way and that way and boom. Cool, cool, cool move. Cool move. But doesn't really affect pass the guard, doesn't really hit the criteria as much. Sorry, B tier. Sorry. Sorry to sell you on it. But if you're just trying to chill, and keep in mind, and this is 100% honest. I have hit every single one of these things. Every single one of these guard passes, I have hit multiple times. Even the Sao Paulo pass. I have hit the cartwheel pass multiple times. Yes, I was a child and it was in kids class. But I have hit the the cartwheel pass too. Every single one of these, I have tried and am not BSing you on this stuff. This is where I, this is what I've boiled it down to. And this is where I'm at. And those like that, that lapel double under pass, so effective, so frustrating, but you go with a guy who's good at keeping you from getting that lapel and understands that position pretty well. If you built your whole game around it, your whole game is about to crumble. And so, basics, man. Knee cut the guy. Don't worry about it. Just get right through that guard. Don't worry about it. Um, go around the guard, Toreando him. Now let's look at another way to go around the guard. Called this, and this might not even be the right name, but we called this reverse leg drag. It is the counter to the leg drag counter. You do a leg drag, the guy throws his leg over your head, you catch his leg with your arm, you run to the other side. Okay? That one. Cool move. People love to use it for warm-ups and stuff because it's a lot of movement. Um, puts it in the A tier for me. It's like, again, you could do it. Definitely can't build your game around it because you need to leg drag first, of course. But there are a lot of guys that are great at the leg drag that you never see do that. That they never finish that pass. Obviously, that can be a good pass, but a lot of the times now, if you look, um, if you watch high level guys, it's hard to explain. I'll verbalize it though. Um, leg gets thrown over the head and a lot of times, they will actually continue to pass the exact same way as if they're going to north south, right? So they go to leg drag, that leg gets thrown over their head and they catch it. And instead of running to their right, they just keep running to their left. Almost like they're forcing north south because they've already beaten the bottom leg anyway. And so, you're seeing that kind of get, I don't know, to me at least, high level guys are phasing that out a little bit. Um, people still use it a lot. Like I said, people love it to warm up. But we'll throw the reverse leg drag, or if you have a different name for it, we'll throw it in the A tier regardless. Now we're only down to our last two. And obviously, we have one more double S tier spot. And so we are between the hip switch and the cross body half guard pass. Sometimes the butterfly pass, but the cross body pass where you're facing the legs with your torso and you're generally laying across like the face and armpit of your opponent. It's a good way to pass half guard, good way to pass a lot of things. Hip switch typically comes from a knee cut, typically comes from a certain reaction. Not really as much reverse De La Riva. It's usually when your opponent's driving and trying to get more to their opposite side. And you can usually drop all your weight on their, what is about to be their top leg and switch your hips really quick and your leg pummels out and then you can either get side control or a back chase. Which one do you guys using the criteria think is going to be in the double S tier? Guess below. Oh, it's too late. Spoiler alert. Double S tier on this. I, I gave it away a little bit. I said the hip switch, you need the knee cut, right? And I love a good hip switch. Very athletic move, very beautiful move. Some of my favorite highlight videos of myself are me hitting hip switches. I've hit them a lot in competition. Here's the problem. They are not as consistent and sometimes you miss them and then you land on both knees and then you're in an attack, right? And so the risk to reward to the hip switch doesn't hit as much for me when in a lot of those positions, a knee weave or a side smash pass would probably control the person more and work more effectively. It might not be as fast or as flashy, but that pushes the hip switch to me into the B tier. And that means that our last one, our cross body half guard pass is going to be the last inductee into the double S tier. And honestly, besides the knee cut, that is my favorite pass now. It is so effective. The entry is available from so many different positions, especially as you understand how to create new angles on people. And, um, yeah, I've been using it effectively in competition since I've really been focused on it. And I'll just tell you guys this, it is, it's great. You should do it. If you don't know that one, you should know that one. Um, and, uh, yeah, I will, I did a, uh, a YouTube live and I talked about that one a lot, but the first like five minutes is just me showing that that pass. And I think you guys would like it. That's actually what I had to screenshot because I forgot to add my favorite guard pass until right before I started recording this. So, now let's look really quick at how to make combos from this tier list, okay? So, how I'll look at this is I will give you guys three different combos that you could use and basically make an effective guard passing system. So, you won't have to learn 29 different guard passes. You won't even have to learn six different guard passes, right? You won't have to learn all of the double S tiers. But we will basically go through double S tiers and show you how to take one of them. I guess we'll do six. Screw it. We'll do six different ones with three combos. And I will show you how to, how I would tie these together and why. And so let's start just with the first double S tier and that's Toreando. Toreando will easily pair with knee cut. That's one of the most common things that you see happen with a Toreando. But the cool thing about a Toreando too is it also will pair well with that knee weave or the side smash as your other pass. So you think of it like this. When you are passing the guard and your job is to get close, the thing that keeps you from getting close the most, the hardest thing to deal with is your opponent's feet. Toreando lets you push the feet slightly out of the way and then cover all that space so it's hard for the feet to get in. As you go with people that are good, they're going to either probably get one or the other foot in. They'll get the bottom leg in, which means you can knee cut them. Or they'll get the top leg in, which means you can side smash or knee weave them. I know I just gave you a super double S tier, but let's look at the leg drag, okay? So, leg drag is something that we could probably add with so many different passes, but I think something if you wanted to add a cool trio that would be fun to work and super effective. Would be going instead of adding a knee cut to your leg drag, which I know I'm the knee cut guy and you probably should just add a knee cut to every combo, but I'm trying to make some that don't have, that don't have knee cuts, okay? So instead of adding that, you go leg drag and then you look at that De La Riva step over pass that we talked about. Um, that is one of our S tier passes. And that is with a leg drag because it allows you to start to fight to that side. It's so effective. It's so hard to deal with. And then the third thing that you can do is when that De La Riva step over doesn't work, the ankle gets, your ankle gets grabbed in De La Riva and you can't just jump over the guard very quickly. You can't leg drag the guy's leg across your body. He's being heavy. Well, then you can add the third position, which would be a back step. You can add your back step limp leg to that position. And again, another combo that can be super effective. And I know I'm just throwing random, random stuff at you guys. But, um, you don't have to use these combos the way I'm saying. That is the beautiful thing about this is you can use them whichever way feels right to you, okay? So we can also go knee cut. If I was going off of knee cut, if you said what is the, if there was a combo to work, if I had to take three moves and, um, build the best game, the most effective game, what would be the three guard passes that I would look at? Um, it would, it would probably be that first one I gave you, which was Toreando, knee cut, knee weave. But let's say the Toreando, the dynamic pass of Toreando is just too much for you. You don't feel comfortable with that. And so you need knee weave is kind of, or knee cut is your main pass, okay? Um, knee cut is like the main thing that you're looking at. I think that you could easily build probably the most effective game for beating people consistently with knee cut, cross body half guard pass that we talked about, right? And again, this is understanding angle change. We talked about like how I'm trying to get close. A lot of times the the frames are too good and I have to totally change the angle of my body. And a lot of times I can go from knee cut on one side and then turn my body to that cross side pass and go really quickly and get that pass. And then the other thing that I'm looking at on that is like a knee weave. When I do free my leg and they belly down really hard and so I pummel back into the guard. Maybe, um, people call this like the, the power ride or something like that. Uh, I think, um, uh, Craig Jones has an instructional on that. But that, that same idea of basically stepping back to dope mount to kill the legs. Those three things, super, super effective. Now let's look, actually let's not even do. We've added that side smash cross body to so many things. So let's just look at knee weave. What if I wanted a gi specific thing especially? That would be a good reason to do knee weave. And, um, I think, uh, sorry, not not knee weave. Um, I lied to you. I was going to pair a bunch off of knee weave. So let's do knee weave as our last one. Our last combo and how you could look at this. So again, we need something that will beat the feet. Knee weave itself really doesn't. It's good once you have beaten the feet, meaning my knee pummels in between. Dope mount, knee weave, same position. My leg pummels in between. Something that works really well with knee weave is that cross pant leg pass that we talked about. So those can be your two passes to start is like get really good at getting that cross pant leg, pinning it, starting your first pass. When the leg comes over, you throw your knee weave in and you can get finished on that pass. And then what's cool about this is that third pass, you could add so many different things. You could add a leg drag back. If I grab cross pant leg and the top leg gets too close, well, I just drag it and I get close to him. So that's a good trio for you, right? Or you could look at your, gosh, you could do anything with cross pant leg. Cross pant leg's pretty overpowered to be honest. Um, you could go back to the leg weave pass too, right? Cross pant leg, you have that same grip. The leg is just weaved inside and then that's your leg weave pass, right? Again, that feeds into the knee weave. Another really effective one. Now let's talk about how do we add our underhook passes? Our double under, our single under, all these other, if the goal is to pass the guard. So, I used the language double underhook pass, or double under pass, single under pass, over under pass. Another way that people called these, another term that they used early on was stack passes, okay? And this to me is way more powerful. But that's just not how people play these anymore. They play them defensively. They are hide in the crooks of the knees. If we think about that whole conversation of distance, if my chest is over his hips, I'm in danger. What do the crooks of the knees do for me? They allow me to push myself out of that dangerous distance, right? They allow me what we call excessive distance. And when I think about passing the guard that way, when I think about like, well, I need to hide, I need to defend. Well, I'm no longer passing the guard. Now, even for those double under, single under passes, they typically require you stacking your opponent to actually gain that elbow knee space and gain the right angle and immobilize your opponent enough to get the pass, okay? They you putting their hips over their shoulders of some sort, right? And so to me, when used by themselves as a, I am just going to get really good at getting underneath guys' hips. Guys will get really heavy with their hips. And it's really frustrating. You end up in triangles, you end up in omoplatas, or you end up just stalled out, not letting any jiu-jitsu happen at all. And, um, the rules are not going your way if that is your game plan. Now, as you start to learn to come forward, whatever pass that you're looking at, especially as you're looking at any of those double S tier passes, and you start to learn to close the distance, what will happen is to defend, people's feet will come up. Their legs will start to throw into those spaces you have been looking for for your double under passes. And so to me, those double S passes will assist in your entries into your double unders, your single unders, and all your others. And when you miss your double under, single under, over under, it's easier for you to then go to that next step of distance and look for your knee cut and look for your body lock and look for your just that next layer of distance, okay? And so, I know it's offensive to people that I put those so low on the list. Those more defensive based ways to play top. But the goal was passing the guard. That's what we looked at today. And that is why the list is this way. And if your goal is to get good at actually getting around the guard, and actually getting into side control, getting into mount, and taking people's back, then in my opinion, this is the hierarchy. This is the way that you look at this stuff. And I really, really hope that you guys got something out of this. I hope that you guys got something out of all three, the trilogy that we did of the I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu Show tier list. I am calling it the trilogy because I promise you, I am not doing another freaking tier list next week. They are a lot of work. People are so mad at me. Everyone's yelling at me on Reddit. It's just like anger everywhere. The comments are crazy. Don't get me wrong. I love the interaction and I will getting yelled at is so much better than nobody talking to you at all, right? And so, um, I'm all cool with it. But it's time to get back to some I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu Show business. We have hot takes. People are angry about things and they need to talk about them. And so if you are one of those people, give me a call. 951 hot take. Send me a text message. If you have a, a question about the show or anything like that, if you want to bring me in for a guard passing seminar, um, that's pretty much all I know how to teach, but, uh, I'm good at teaching that. Um, if you want to do that, you can also send 951 hot take a text message and you will get a reply there. So, um, here is the thing. The other reason we did a trilogy. The other reason we got to just keep it stand alone. And I'm not saying I'll never, ever do a tier list, but at least on jiu-jitsu moves, I think this needs to stand alone. And the reason is, is because if there's one thing that the greatest trilogies of all time have taught us, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Spy Kids, The Bourne movies, Indiana Jones, it's that three is enough. After three, whether we're doing a prequel, whether we're doing a fourth, whether we're doing a spin-off, three typically is enough. The rule of threes, it stands. And so I think that that's where we'll leave these tier lists. Um, of course, there were little things that could have been tweaked, that I could have moved some things up and up or down, but I really do feel like as tools for especially beginners, but even coaches, even people who have to teach beginners, I think that these tools that we have on these tier lists are going to be so valuable for you guys, especially if you listen to the whole episode and you hear how we, why they are tiered that way. That I think is the most important thing is understanding the criteria and why the criteria is important because those principles that we talk about pretty much stay true through all of grappling, not just guards, not just passes, not just submissions. Um, learning how to control people and learning how to do all the things that we talk about. So hopefully you guys like this episode. Thank you guys so much for coming on the, the tier list journey. This was fun. Um, but I can't wait to take things into a so much less serious place and talk about some of your guys's hot takes. Please, please give me the hot takes. Also, last little thing, if you guys aren't busy tomorrow, be sure to check out the Not So Late Show on the Mission 111 YouTube and Facebook page. Um, I will be the host. I won't be the crazy I Suck at Jiu-Jitsu Show guy. I'm actually the, um, uh, board member of a nonprofit and I'll be like, you know, like 10% less crazy and 10% less offensive. But we'll raise a lot of money for, um, a lot of people that are in need. And I would love if you guys were a part of it. But all that being said, that's all I have for you guys today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and I hope that this trilogy hopes you guys suck just a little bit less at jiu-jitsu. Have a great day, guys.