The smash pass, taught by Professor Aaron White of Havoc MMA

Professor Binish Sukhija · 4 min read

Some of the best classes are the ones nobody planned.

Professor Aaron White of Havoc MMA in Denver, Colorado was travelling through India — two days in Delhi out of nine in the country — and came in unannounced. He did not ask for a warm-up. He asked whether the team was warm, heard they had already trained an hour, and went straight to technique.

What he showed was a passing system he clearly lives in: the smash pass from headquarters, finished with a body lock that walks you all the way to mount. Then the answer for the moment your partner tries to lift you off it.

Part 1 — the smash pass, from headquarters to mount

Aaron starts in headquarters and steps through heavy, foot past his partner’s belt line. “If my foot is shallow, he can control my knee.” A deep step keeps the knee out of reach and makes a hook hard to insert.

Before passing, he deals with the grips — “never allowing him to pull me hard and break my posture” — breaking the collar grip first. If the partner re-grips, he does not worry about it, because by then he is already moving.

The pass itself:

Put your hip where your knee was. Open up, post a hand on the mat and sprawl the back foot so it cannot be trapped.
Cut the knee over the shin. It breaks the grip, even a pant grip.
Control the far arm. In the gi he pulls it; in no-gi he jams it. “If you do nothing about this, he gets on his elbow… it’s not the worst thing, but you kind of have another problem to deal with.”
Head low, under his chin. Grab the belt or the back and tuck the elbow.
Cover the feet. Try to walk around without covering them and he hooks you, and you are back in guard.

Then the detail that makes the whole thing work. When the bottom player turns in to frame, most people fight him head-on and hand him something solid to push against. Aaron does the opposite. “When I feel him turn, I turn.” He stays low, drives his foot as high as he can towards his own head, clamps the knees together and shoots in like a wrestler — he calls it the frog. From there he climbs to mount, and will not settle there without at least one underhook or overhook.

He ran it once more at full speed, “a little quicker, less explanation”, and that run is in the video too.

Professor Aaron White of Havoc MMA Denver with the full Knots & Collar gi class — adults, teenagers and children in white gis — after his smash pass seminar in Defence Colony, New Delhi — The whole room that trained with him — Professor Aaron White at Knots & Collar, Defence Colony.

Part 2 — bump and turn, when they lift you

The second technique is for the moment the bottom player kicks you up or lifts you from butterfly or a body lock. Aaron’s logic is simple: when he lifts you, his legs straighten, and “the more straight his legs get, the easier it will be to smash them.”

So you go quad pod, bump his knees together, turn your hip and smash. If the top leg will not come over, smash harder or pull it, then climb exactly as in Part 1. “Anytime you’re getting lifted overhead, this is a pretty good move to try.”

That is the part worth stealing, whatever your game: the lift is not an attack to survive, it is a gift of straight legs.

The coaching, and eight live rounds

The video keeps his coaching during the drilling — “keep your hips up”, “lead from the knee”, “put these together and put a heavy weight on them”, and the one that sits underneath the whole system: “the number one main thing is you want to get on top.”

Then all eight live rounds, uncut, with Aaron rolling against our team.

The Knots & Collar gi team photographed with visiting Professor Aaron White of Havoc MMA Denver on the white mats of the Defence Colony studio, New Delhi — Eight rounds later, Defence Colony, New Delhi.

Why a surprise visit is worth more than a scheduled seminar

Nobody prepared for this. There was no poster, no sign-up sheet and no fee. A black belt walked in while the room was still warm and taught what he actually uses, and twenty-odd people — adults, teenagers and children — got a system from Denver on an ordinary Delhi afternoon.

That is the quiet argument for keeping the door open. People who train travel, and jiu-jitsu transfers across every language and border without being translated. Our mats have had visitors from Denver, Moscow, Belfast, São Paulo, Kazakhstan and Kathmandu, and every one of them leaves something behind in how the room moves.

Thank you, Professor Aaron, for the class and the rounds. You can follow him at @aaron_accomplished, and Havoc MMA at @havocmma_.

Come and train

We teach gi and no-gi seven days a week in Defence Colony, South Delhi, and the first class is free. If you are passing through the city and you train, message us before you arrive — the mats are open.