Alias · Guard Passing
Knee cut
Also known as Knee Cut Pass — the canonical term used on this site.
Training background: standard no-gi terminology
Descriptive — knee slicing across the opponent's thigh
Knee cut is the descriptive no-gi shorthand for the knee-cut pass — a guard-passing technique in which the passer drives one knee diagonally across the opponent’s inner thigh to clear the leg line and arrive at side control.
Etymology. The “knee cut” descriptor flags the cutting motion of the passer’s knee across the opponent’s leg line — the knee slices from the inside of the thigh outward, clearing the leg as it goes. The shortened form is more common in spoken vocabulary and competition commentary than the full “knee-cut pass” or older “knee slice” alternate. The label predominates across no-gi instructional material from the 2010s onward and is consistent across coaching lineages.
Mechanics. The pass uses the knee as the fixed point against the defender’s inner thigh — the rotation of the passer’s body around that anchor point clears the leg line while the upper-body connection (cross-face, underhook) prevents the defender from re-establishing guard. Moving the knee removes the anchor; the pass collapses without it.
Cross-reference. “Knee slice” is the older alternate label. Full mechanical coverage on Knee Cut Pass.