Xande Ribeiro's Power Knee Slice: A BJJ Breakdown
When we first shared Xande Ribeiro's power knee slice on Jiu Jitsu Style just before Christmas 2015, we barely wrote a word to go with it — and honestly, we didn't need to. Xande was BJJ royalty…
Words: Jiu Jitsu Style
When we first shared Xande Ribeiro's power knee slice on Jiu Jitsu Style just before Christmas 2015, we barely wrote a word to go with it — and honestly, we didn't need to. Xande was BJJ royalty then and he's BJJ royalty now: multiple-time world champion, two-time absolute king, owner of the most famous guard in the sport — the one nobody could pass for the best part of a decade. When a man like that shows you his favorite way of passing other people's guards, you press play and pay attention. A decade on, with Xande retired from competition and a whole generation raised on his teaching, the clip has aged into exactly what we suspected it was at the time: a fundamentals lesson dressed up as a technique of the week.
Watch it: Xande Ribeiro's power knee slice.
What Xande actually walks through in the clip is a grip variation on the high knee slice pass, used for when your opponent is turned to face the outside. As he says himself, the grips are largely a matter of preference — there are a few ways to do it, and the smart move is to switch between them and find which one works best for you.
How Xande Powers Through the Knee Slice
Xande approaches at a bladed angle with his right arm and leg toward the opponent and always keeping a connection with his elbow and his leg. He steps his right leg between the opponent's legs to start the pass. The problem comes when the opponent brings that near knee straight up: it's hard to slice over a knee that's standing tall.
So he grabs a deep cross collar behind the opponent's head — four fingers in the collar, thumb out — and pulls himself up and over. That leverage and body weight drive the opponent's knee back down to the mat. His left hand grabs the same-side sleeve and pulls it up to stay tight and strong. Now the opponent is flat on their back. From here Xande uses the collar grip to push the head slightly away, then drops his hips and starts sliding over the leg. He can take knee on belly right away, or bring his right elbow from the collar straight to the floor and settle into side control.
The Second Grip Variation
The second version swaps the grip: instead of four fingers in the cross collar, Xande puts his thumb in and leaves his four fingers out — a punching grip. He plants that hand on the mat to lift himself over the opponent, which lets him set his right knee down next to their side, just underneath the armpit. He controls the same-side arm the same way, gripping the sleeve and pulling.
The punch grip is the point of the variation. It lets you push and pull, and gives you a stronger cross-face through the cross collar. If the opponent tries to turn into you, you can instead push on their chest toward their far armpit to keep them flat on their back. From there it finishes exactly like the first: turn your hip out and slide the knee all the way through to knee on belly or side control.
That's the "power" in the power knee slice, and it's the part beginners get backwards. They treat the knee cut as a race — slice fast, hope for the best — and wonder why they keep getting knee-shielded, underhooked, and rolled. Xande treats it as a sequence of pins. Kill the knee, win the cross-face, control the sleeve, and the pass is just the last thing that happens. It's the same philosophy that made his own guard unpassable for so long, applied in reverse: position and pressure first, movement second.
See you on the mats.
Originally published in Jiu Jitsu Style, 24 December 2015. Refreshed for 2026.