Key Takeaways
- A No-Gi BJJ DVD with three volumes, delivering key details on how to modernize a classic passing staple – the headquarters.
- Features headquarters instructions, integrated passing combos using different methods, and contains plenty of drills.
- Provides a full volume of rolling breakdowns focused on headquarters passing.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 8 out of 10.
HEADQUARTERS PASSING SHAWN MELANSON DVD GET HERE:
All your passing troubles are not going to get solved by getting a BJJ DVD that covers the subject. However, some instructionals out there, such as the Headquarters Passing Shawn Melanson DVD, will provide you with more than just bits and pieces that you’re left trying to put together on your own.
Shawn has a very solid DVD here, offering not just a new perspective on a classic passing system that we know works, but also different ways of achieving your goal from there. When passing, he combines several super-effective techniques and constantly changes between them. Interested in learning more? Read on.
The Key Condition for Successful Passing
What does it take to pass the guard? A pin. I can already hear most people screaming that pins come after passing and that I’ve got things backward. But I’m right, and in a minute, you’ll know exactly why.
Pinning is an essential component of passing that happens the moment you decide to get past the bottom player’s legs. If you can’t keep your opponent down, and they can just stand up, then how can you hope to pass their guard?
Therefore, you need to think about pinning people before you begin to battle their legs and conquer the space that leads past their hips. Pinning in this instance is active and dynamic, as opposed to holding someone in side control or mount.
IN fact, you’re already doing it, but probably have no idea when or why. Every time you force a seated guard player to a supine position, you’re effectively pinning them to the mats so you can pass. The Headquarters Passing Shawn Melanson DVD will give you the ultimate pinning position to launch a myriad of different highly effective passes.
Shawn Melanson – The New School
I figured out who Shawn is the first time I looked at a DVD of his, which happened to be his first. He caught my eye, so I kept following his crazy good Instagram content since then, and never regretted it for a minute. Naturally, I couldn’t wait to see what his second DVD was all about.
Before I get into that, a few words on Shawn Melanson for those who don’t know who this rising star is. Shawn has been training and competing for a long while now, with 30 high-profile wins already to his name, more than half of which he finished.
He has a knack for efficiency, which is very evident in the Shawn Melanson Passing DVD we’ll be covering today. As a competitor, Melanson has a great idea of what works, and why, and with his sights also set on pro MMA, there’s hardly a better source these days for grappling efficiency.
Headquarters Passing Shawn Melanson DVD Review
The Modernized Headquarters Passing Shawn Melanson DVD is a three-volume BJJ instructional presented in No-Gi, delivering a very interesting, effectiveness-oriented approach to a classic passing system we already know works:
Part 1 – Drills, Drags & HQ Introduction
The first part of the Headquarters Passing Shawn Melanson DVD, which is also the longest, is divided into two main sections. One covers a set of super useful drills to develop effective guard passing, and the other contains details on the Headquarters and related passing.
In the drills section, Shawn delivers his go-to live training methods for developing a sense for making all the passing combinations that he follows up with. Speaking of passes, lots of dragas and knee cuts feature in this opening salvo, mixed into the drills and laying the foundation for Melanson’s system.
Headquarters info appears after the halfway mark of the first volume, starting with a short intro to the origins of the position and going straight into the integration of the above drills. Shawn covers knee cuts, stacking, and dragging from the headquarters, along with a very cool set of guidelines on how, and more importantly, when to switch between them.
Part 2 – Stacking & Shin-to-Shin Passing
After the strong opening of the first part, volume two of the Shawn Melanson Headquarters DVD does not diminish in quality of the material. Although somewhat shorter than the first part, the focus here is on completing the pass that started in the headquarters, without getting tunnel vision about the direction.
Stacking gets a lot of attention in this part, along with reaction passing, which is the one thing in this DVD that you must pay very close attention to – it brings everything together.
Bits and pieces to help you fill in common issues, such as being stuck in sticky half guards and dealing with shin-to-shin guards, also feature here. The proverbial cherry on top comes in the form of the smash pass, the endgame option to tame even the most defiant guard player. And it all starts with the headquarters.
Part 3 – Rolling Breakdowns
I am a very big proponent of rolling footage in BJJ DVDs, so the inclusion of such a segment automatically drives the score up for the Headquarters Passing Shawn Melanson DVD.
In this instance, Shawn provides an entire volume, just shy of 20 minutes in duration, filled with live rolling examples of everything he covered in the previous volumes. Bonus marks for the narration and breakdown of the rolls, which somehow emerges as the best way to learn Jiu-Jitsu from video material.
Camping Tactics for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu
Patience. If I had to describe an effective Jiu-Jitsu game in one word, I’d just say patience. Of course, something as simple as patience is also the hardest aspect of grappling to master, which in large part, is due to the nature of exchanges during live training.
The most common mistakes made in BJJ are the ones people make just before they reach the end-range of their effort. It can be a submission, a pass, a sweep, or a takedown – just before you get it is also the moment when you will lose out on most of your efforts. And it’s all got to do with timing.
And how do you explain timing? With patience. Wait more. Take your time and capitalize on the moment your opponent is trying to go for an end-range motion. The only issue here is picking a position that you can control while you’re patiently waiting, so that you don’t end up losing all that you’ve worked for.
In passing, one of the best camping positions like this is the headquarters. And, while Lovato Jr. created and refined it, the Headquarters Passing Shawn Melanson DVD takes it to a whole new level.
DOWNLOAD HERE: HEADQUARTERS PASING SHAWN MELANSON DVD
Modernize Your Passing!
As I said at the beginning of this article, the Modernized Headquarters Passing Shawn Melanson DVD is not going to teach you how to pass. You’ll have to do that yourself.
It will, however, provide you with a framework on how passing works, where to start from, what passes you can combine, and when, and several rounds of live examples. Along with the passing drills offered in this DVD, you’re definitely going to emerge a better passer after seeing it!
