I wanted highlight some specific moves and talk about them, so I thought I'd use this new series called "locked in" to give my thoughts. Today I want to go over leg pin passing. This has become popular over the last 2 years mostly because of the Ruotolo brothers and others from Atos. From what I've heard the first person to do this is Leo Viera, however I can't find any matches or videos of him doing it. Recently it has seen increased use so lets look at different variations and styles.
Keenan Cornelius
Keenan might have been the first person to actually make instructional material on leg pin passing and he shows a quick, but useful overview of it here.
Some people might think that leg pin passing is a small persons move, but it can be used by larger people as Keenan shows. Although he only goes over it briefly you can see how it can be extremely effective to combat spider guard. The first pass he shows can be seen in the video below.
No-gi, no problem. He casually walks through his opponent's guard and works to secure the pass and then choke. Leg pinning doesn't need to be done quickly and one of its advantages is the fact that it gives you a head start.
In this next video he uses a quick leg pin to pass into a leg drag to pass Paulo Miyao's guard.
This is a quick way to get a leg drag that works against people that are flexible and love to put their feet up. Leg pin passes can be used as quick ways to dart past an opponents guard or as a staging point for more methodical passing. Its a shame Keenan doesn't use this more often.
Lucas Pinheiro
In this video you can see Lucas Pinheiro step on his opponents leg to pin it to the ground and then quickly walk to the other side. The leg pin isn't a pass it self, but more of a control that will let you implement your passes with out the threat of counters.
The greatest example of leg pin passing IMO is this match from WNO between Tye Rutolo and Nicky Ryan. Tye uses the leg pin the shut down leg locks, pass the guard and generally just wear out Nicky Ryan. He was able to completely stifle Nick's offense while also staying offensive the whole time. Check out my complete breakdown of the match HERE(with video timestamps). Tye and Kade Ruotolo use this in most of their matches and have had a lot of succes with it. Another great example is his match vs Cody Steele.
Honestly any Ruotolo match within the last year or so most likely will feature them using it. They are the first people I would recommend watching.
Ronaldo Junior
Ronaldo Junior doesn't use it often, but in this clip you can see him use an interesting variation. He's against Lucas Valente who AFAIK had never had his guard passed in competition before this. Lucas has Ronaldo wrapped up in a lapel guard(already hell to get out of) and then Lucas grabs Ronaldo's left leg with his arm. Ronaldo uses his right foot to step on Lucas' arm and peels the grip, Lucas then grabs his right foot and Ronaldo does the same thing with the opposite leg. I'm guessing Lucus wasn't at all prepared for that and Ronaldo takes the opening to spin around Lucas for the guard pass.
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Here is another example of Ronaldo using the leg pin to move from one side to the other while his opponent is inverted. The leg pin allows Ronaldo the time to slowly move to the other side, but also lets him posture up a bit keeping him safe from triangles, armbars, etc. It allowed Ronaldo the time to move into the inverted leg drag position without the threat of submissions and his opponent wasn't able to un-invert. Then he goes for a flying crab-ride to collar choke. If you don't like that do you really even like BJJ?
Instructional Content
The best(only) instructional on this is the Rutolo's "Leg Pin Passing", which I reviewed HERE. Of course you should checkout the video Keenan made which I posted above, but there are also a few others that I think do a good job of explaining the concept and showing some techniques. Check them out below.
Passing Before Grips - Jon Thomas
Leg Stomp Pass System - Jon Thomas
Brutal Guard Pass Smashes the Situp Guard
Well selected clips. I learned a lot and will try to apply it.
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