Key Takeaways
- A No-Gi BJJ DVD that offers a blueprint for passing guards based on Mikey’s own guard strategies and experience.
- Offers details on engaging, mitigating dangers, and passing on the inside and/or outside.
- Features explanations of concepts such as baiting, dealing with walls, and attacking with boxes.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 9 out of 10.
BREAKING THEIR GUARD MIKEY MUSUMECI DVD HERE:
Guard passing is a term that I have been struggling with for years, as it doesn’t really capture the essence of dealing with guards. Guard breaking seems to be a much better description, ideally followed by leg passing.
While it seems easy when put together like this, it is far more difficult in practice. leave it to Darth Rigatonni to simplify it, focusing your attention on exactly what is essential in guard passing. Let’s go deeper into what the Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD has to offer.
Breaking Guards Down, Wall by Wall
Whenever you find yourself in a situation that requires you to pass the guard in BJJ, what is your main focus? People will give different answers, but for the most part, they all boil down to the same end-range goal – get a pin by ending up above the bottom player’s waistline.
There is no dispute that this is the ultimate goal of a guard pass. However, focusing on it often makes you miss the key details that actually allow you to achieve this goal, essentially preventing you from achieving it.
These finer details of passing are the layers of the guard, which exist in any guard anyone is going to play. The bigger the distance between you and the guard player, in fact, the more layers you have to deal with.
Anyone in the BJJ world, from the Gracies to John Danaher and, of course, Mikey Musumeci, has their own way of moving in stages as guards toward the end goal of pinning. I find that the concept of walls, first made popular by Ryan Hall, is optimally and effectively explained in the Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD in a way anyone can understand, even day-one students.
BJJ Ambassador Mikey Musumeci
Mikey Musumeci turned out to be one of the loudest ambassadors of professional Jiu-Jitsu these days, and it is not a role many associated with the American. The super-kind and chill small guy, known for his exceptionally effective game and the ability to beat giants, has had quite a year.
Mikey was one of the pioneers of the ONE Championship pro-grappling era, spearheading the effort to popularize BJJ using MMA platforms. You know that it worked when the UFC followed suit and launched their own pro grappling league, baiting Musumeci to join them as their ambassador.
It wasn’t hard for Mikey to jump ship, seeing as ONE stripped him of his world titles on account of missing weight, which was a first for the super-professional Musumeci. Perhaps the UFC was already whispering in his ear.
Rumors aside, Mikey has now been making his trade on the UFC Fight Pass Invitational while racking up new instructionals. His latest one, the Guard Passing Mikey Musumeci DVD, is a bit different from all his previous work, showing that Mikey can pass guard as well as he can play it.
Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD Review
The Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD delivers over two hours of Mikey Musumeci guard passing magic, divided into four distinct volumes that all center around crucial concepts that we’ve seen Mikey use:
Part 1 – Layers of Guard
Mikey kicks this DVD off by addressing guard structure first, and what he refers to as the walls of guard. It makes it easy for him to put into perspective what a pass is, and how you should approach it for maximum efficiency.
Speaking of passes, the Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD defines two main avenues of passing, outside the legs and inside the legs, which has been a prevalent concept in the last couple of years. He also covers example applications of each as it best suits specific scenarios.
Somewhere around the hallway point, Musumeci addresses the concept of walls, which is crucial for this instructional. According to it, his passing efforts usually run into two walls, each presenting a different problem to solve.
These walls involve distance and are marked by the ankles and knees of the opponent, respectively. Mikey even goes further to break down the main components of each wall, as well as how to begin removing them. Examples such as Torreando’s passing help put things into perspective.
Part 2 – The Box Concept of Passing
Mikey’s concepts for playing guard used boxes to categorize different attacks, making it easy for him to reach into a specific box based on the situation he is in. He now sticks with the box concept again in the Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD, but he flips the attention to passing.
The first box you’re going to learn about in this instructional is threatening with submissions, used by Mikey to accentuate his passing efforts. Stuff like heel hook exposure and neck exposure make up the meat and bones of this box.
Also featured in this part is the back attacks box, something that is a signature of Mikey’s game as much as leg locks are. Here, he introduces the reverse Torreando grips for No-Gi, which seem to be an interesting way to shake things up and surprise the guard player.
Part 3 – Removing Knee From Chest
One of the main issues you’ll face when passing is the half guard. The last frontier that stops you from getting to a pin, after you pass the walls and manage to defend all attacks, is often the most frustrating.
In this portion of the Mikey Musumeci Passing DVD, the focus is on dealing with the knee on the chest by utilizing all the concepts laid out before. Mikey offers combo inside and outside passes, featuring the knee cut, duck under, long step, and double arm frame passes.
Part 4 – Baiting
The top skill of any high-level grappler is the ability to bait their opponent into their game, covering their true intentions with misdirects. Mikey puts this strategy into a concept box and delivers the essentials of setting it up for passing in the final volume of his Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD.
What you can expect to pick up from this volume is the art of baiting people with outside passes so you can get inside ones, which represent the shorter route to your final destination. Side passing is up first, with the cross step getting lots of time and attention, from dealing with frames to securing the pin against guard recovery.
Toward the end of the DVD, Mikey provides several different bait combos, but not as deeply as the cross-step pass. The Torreando features again, along with my favorite, the crazy dog pass, as well as a folding pass iteration.
Early Pinning
What is the point of guard passing? Okay, the name is kind of a dead giveaway as to the final goal, but what you’re most likely missing by focusing on it is a crucial aspect of what your priorities should be as you are passing.
Namely, if the guard player can get away from you, get up, or keep you very far away, they’re not playing guard by definition, meaning you can’t really pass, can you? The first thing to think about when trying to pass the legs for a pin is to focus on keeping the guard player in a position where you can attack them – a.k.a. in a guard.
This is why high-level grapplers often force half guard – it gives them only one guard to pass, as opposed to leaving the bottom person space for transitions between guards. In other words, pinning begins a lot earlier than the moment you pass the legs.
You actually need to look at passing positions as pins that keep the bottom person on the bottom FIRST, and THEN allow you to tear the walls of their guards down and pass. This concept, while not directly addressed, is the essence of the material in the Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD.
DOWNLOAD HERE: BREAKING THEIR GUARD MIKEY MUSUMECI DVD
Break it Down!
So, now that you know that guards have walls, it’s time to focus on breaking them down! For those with no idea where to start, the Breaking Their Guard Mikey Musumeci DVD has everything you need! If you already understand the concept, then this instructional has top-level competitive strategies, such as baiting, to help you ensure an almost flawless execution of every pass you attempt.
How the UFC Plans to Dominate Jiu-Jitsu – Mikey Musumeci Reveals All!
