TFS#50: The "All Level" Concept

The most common parts of your body you use to frame are hands, feet, forearms, and shins. (You can also use other parts of your body…but let’s save that for another day.)

Frames help create and maintain distance and makes it more difficult for your opponent to progress forward with their offense.

Good frames are energy efficient and should be able to support your opponent’s weight easily.

On the other hand, your opponent is trying to remove or go around the frame. Remember, the purpose of a frame is to stop someone from moving forward.

…But frames are only effective in one direction.

So you’ll want to make sure to change your angle to clear or collapse the frame structure. That’s much easier than trying to bulldoze your way through it.

Let’s study some film as an example, starting from breaking the Closed Guard position.

1. Address The Frame (Lasso)

After standing up from the Closed Guard, the passer begins to address any potential frames.

Here, the guard player has two frames. One, being the shallow lasso, and two, the collar grip. The more important frame to deal with is the lasso.

As you can see, the right leg is being pinned down by the passer to prevent an additional frame.

The passer allows for the Deep Lasso (guard player’s foot goes under passer’s armpit) and dips down to apply pressure on the leg, folding the frame.

Because of the dip, the guard player gives up his collar grip and tries to frame elsewhere.

The passer uses his shoulder as a pivoting point, going around the frame.

Although the guard player still has a shin as a frame, it’s much weaker than his foot.

2. Deny Future Frames (Pummeling Leg)

At this point the passer has “passed the legs” and needs to stabilize the position.

To do this, he uses his knee to keep the far leg pinned to prevent any pummeling.

Once the leg is pinned, the only frame left is the shin. But as mentioned before, the legs are essentially passed so it needs to be dragged out of the way.

The entire clip is short and can be found here (0:47-1:02).

For Your Jiu-Jitsu

→ Can’t make the gym? Blast your body using only your bodyweight in this 7 minute workout.

→ This is how Jiu-Jitsu is changing lives through charity. Read the inspiring article here.

→ If you don’t have a built in recovery process for your training, you’ll need to start ASAP.

Closing Words

I write a lot about passing because it’s my favorite part of Jiu-Jitsu.

Passing can be a difficult subject to study because of how technical it can be. Especially if you want to be a technical passer.

And some times you don’t just remove frames into passes. You’ll remove strong frames to run into a weaker frame, then remove those and run into an even lesser frame…until you get the full pass. Continue to chip them down and they will run out of options.

If you’re smaller or older, you’re probably looking to be more energy efficient—and this is one of the places where you can start learning to conserve energy.

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