Never Get Stack Passed Again with Tom DeBlass' Help

By Todd Shaffer, July 27, 2020

If you've watched any of Tom DeBlass' instructionals or attended a seminar, one of the principles that he comes back to again and again is that when you're on the offense, your job is to take up space and conversely when you're on the defense or trying to get out of a bad spot, your number one goal is to create space.

True to form, his breakdown of Stack Pass Recovery in the video below, ultimately boils down to this advice. Check out the video, excerpted from his recent series FRAMING DOMINATION and then we'll break down some key points afterwards.

Always looking for the simplest way to describe a technique or position, Tom DeBlass would say that a guard pass is simply the guard passer achieving a position where their hips are past those of their opponent (being passed).

With the Stack Pass, the guard passers goal is to elevate the bottom player's hips as high as humanly possible to eliminate the ability to be mobile and use them to thwart the pass. By lifting the opponent's hips up and driving their knees towards their nose, the bottom player is essentially stacked into an extremely uncomfortable position, so uncomfortable that the bottom player sometimes accepts the pass as a less painful alternative to being stacked.

To stop the Stack Pass, the first goal should be to make the hips as heavy as possible by driving the feet and legs towards the floor making it as difficult as possible to fulfill the stack. Once the legs are made as heavy as possible, the next step is to involve the arm and the frame that it creates against their knee or hips.

By placing an extended arm into the opponent's hip, it prevents them bringing their hips tight and taking away the space which is the goal of the offensive player. The offensive player's goal to finalize the pass is to drive the pair of stacked legs to one side, getting them out of the way and allow their hip to connect to the bottom player's hip or beyond to secure the pass.

With the space creating frame built into the hip or knee of the guard passer, the defending player can then use that space to regain their guard as their legs are turned to the side. And additional bonus tip from Tom DeBlass would be to use the knee of the under hooked side to point to the ground and be extremely heavy, making the push of the leg across the bottom player's body almost impossible and again buying time to reguard.

So keep the simple principle from Tom DeBlass in mind throughout your jiu jitsu development and it's going to help you not only in the dreadful stack pass position, but in many other situations. If you're on the offense, your first goal is to remove space. If your on defense, your first goal is to create space.

No one can change your game faster than Tom DeBlass with his straight to the point technique explanation. For more on how to use frames to your advantage and your opponent's disadvantage, check out FRAMING DOMINATION! You can get yours here or at the Buy Now Link below.

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