Sooner or later, be it in competition or in training, you will come face to face with someone who absolutely loves pressure passing. They take pride in using stack passes whenever they can, and find great joy seeing you squirm under their pressure. In a word or two: in those very moments, it’s no fun being you.
Fortunately enough, there are techniques with which you can counter and make them miserable instead! The legendary Roger Gracie shows one pretty unexpected setup of doing so.

GRIP THEIR SLEEVE AND GRAB THEIR BELT

Beginning from a Half Guard position, from which his training partner is trying to stack him in order to pressure pass, Roger says that this sort of a situation is a very common one. He’ll be trying to initially defend the stack by framing; but when that fails, other methods have to be used.

Roger demonstrates that you need to grip your opponent’s sleeve and feed it into their hip before they get too invested into their stack pass.
Once you’ve done that, you can let them place more serious pressure on you. Why? Well, because you will use their pressure against them! As they get invested into the pass, you need to use your other arm to grab their belt. Make sure that you do this by reaching over the arm which you’ve previously gripped their sleeve on; and that you use your own arm (the one holding their belt) to block theirs.

However, a word of caution is necessary here. It’s important for you to grab your opponent’s belt, even if they don’t immediately use their pressure, emphasizes Roger. This will, once they do use their pressure (and it’s very important that they use it for this setup to work) trap their arm in place; rendering it immobile.
Now is the time to engage into your offensive game.

USE THE STACK PASS AGAINST THEM – AND TAKE THEIR BACK

In this example, Roger’s training partner now grabs a hold of his leg. Roger needs to break this grip, and he does so by preserving the grip he has on the partner’s sleeve and then by kicking his leg out. By keeping the grip on his partner’s sleeve, he also has a much safer position even if the training partner passes the legs and attempts to gain Side Control.

As he has gotten rid of the partner’s grip, Roger can now move his hips out, then retrieve them to the inside position and get his leg up. He emphasizes that, in this situation, the more weight his partner uses – the better.
Now, as the partner’s arm is trapped, Roger can let go of the sleeve grip and he can scoot his hips out; the partner is unable to follow him, as his arm is trapped. He finishes the setup by leaving his leg in-between the partner’s legs and then climbs up to his back – that way, he already has one hook in.

Roger Gracie explains this setup in fantastic detail on the video below:

Master the half guard system that Roger Gracie has developed to sweep, submit, and more with classic, efficient technique!

• Roger Gracie is one of the most respected and successful black belt competitors of all time, and dominated elite grapplers with precision technique.
• Sweep your way to top position with these moves that Roger has perfected over a lifetime of study, including Roger’s signature rolling sweep.

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