Knee slice is one of the highest guard passes in BJJ. It works really well against bottom half guard players that like to either play knee shield or to drop their shield play a Lucas Leite style underhook half guard.
Xande Ribeiro plays a more conservative half guard game where he likes to keep his shield up and he never lets his opponents come to close.
When you play half guard, the worst thing you can do is letting your opponent get passed all of your line of defenses (feet, knees, arms) and start to pass your guard with a knee slice. It’s even worse if they add extra shoulder pressure.
Xande says that the weakness of the knee slice is that it allows the bottom guy to have a focus point. Xande never lets his opponent go deep into a knee slice by keeping a strong knee shield and diamond shape frame with his arm on the opponent’s shoulder. His bottom leg is used to “paddle” and to be repositioned on the opponent’s hip to return to a safer closed guard.
Xande Ribeiro has a tested formula for Guard Retention that he has developed since his white belt days. He calls it the Diamond Concept Of Defense. This system has allowed to not get his guard passed in 13 years in high level competition!
His guard has only been passed twice in competition in the past 29 years and this was by BJJ legends Roger Gracie and Marcelo Garcia. His guard retention is the stuff of legends.
Check out the details to this knee slice prevention. This works wonders:
