They Shall Not Pass by Gordon Ryan: No-Gi Guard Retention Course

By BJJ University Editorial · Published 2026-11-02

8 listed volumesNo-gi curriculum

Our buying assessment

Best for: No-gi players building a broad guard-retention system
Buy less if: You mainly want gi lapel guard attacks
Main tradeoff: Wide coverage requires organized study

This page contains affiliate links. BJJ University may earn a commission if you purchase through them.

Based on the seller’s curriculum and cited product sources, checked 2026-10-26. This is a researched guide, not a firsthand review. Study recommendations are our editorial assessment.

In this guide

What it teaches

This course is built around guard retention: stopping common passes and recovering from bad passing situations before they become pins. The supplied curriculum names knee cuts, torreando-style flanks, stack passing, body locks, half guard passing, leg entanglement retention, seated guard, X guard, and ashi garami.

Our assessment is that the central theme is not just individual escapes, but decision-making from bottom: the outline repeatedly frames positions with top-player goals, bottom-player goals, key questions, inside position, framing, distance management, and recovery routes.

Curriculum overview

Retention goals and inside position

Frames the top player’s and bottom player’s goals, loose versus tight passing, inside position, concave shoulders, jaw hiding, distance, stance, and grip-fighting ideas.

Study this if: You get passed because you react late without a clear retention priority.

Seated and supine loose passing

Covers seated versus loose passing, maintaining and recovering inside foot position, responding when the passer flanks, and transitioning into supine retention concepts.

Study this if: Mobile passers beat your seated guard before you establish meaningful frames or feet.

Ashi and X-guard retention

Organizes leg-entanglement retention into groups and addresses forward steps, back steps, outside ashi, reclaiming the Achilles, head-and-arm pressure, double underhooks, and kata gatame threats.

Study this if: You lose leg entanglements when the passer steps, backsteps, or converts pressure into control.

Split squat, knee cut, and inside foot

Targets split-squat passing with collar-tie clearing, knee-cut prevention, forced half-guard prevention, scoop-grip counters, underhook counters, and inside-foot recovery against low or high hips.

Study this if: Headquarters-style pressure forces knee cuts, half guard, or underhook-based passing sequences.

Flanks, toreando, leg drags, and north-south

Studies the bridge from loose to tight passing, scissor and side guard, leg pummeling, high legs, multiple framing types, knee-on-belly recovery, leg-drag counters, and north-south recovery.

Study this if: Side-to-side passers clear your legs and settle into flanks, leg drags, knee on belly, or north-south.

Stack and body-lock retention

Addresses initial stack prevention, V-grip clearing, locked hands, shin pins, stopping body locks, immediate off-balances, forward shifting, cross-shin recovery, butterfly half, and recovery after a near pass.

Study this if: Pressure passers fold you, lock around your hips, or turn a near pass into stable control.

Half guard and butterfly-half recovery

Covers top-player hand positions, inserting butterfly hooks, recovering versus head-and-arm, underhook/head wedge, over-under, double unders, crossface, near-side underhook, knee levers, and late escapes.

Study this if: Your half guard gets flattened by hand positions, crossfaces, double unders, and underhook pressure.

Rolling and narrated application

Lists guard-retention rolling rounds and separate rolling commentary, giving students examples to study after learning the technical categories.

Study this if: You understand drills but need to identify retention decisions during live passing exchanges.

Who it is for

This is most relevant for no-gi players who are already spending time in seated guard, supine guard, ashi/X guard, half guard, butterfly half, and other open-guard retention layers, especially against pressure and movement-based passers.

Consider it if your guard is being passed by several different styles and you want a broad no-gi framework. It may be less efficient if you only need a narrow gi lapel guard attack sequence or a short beginner primer.

Prerequisites

The source does not state a required belt level or prerequisite course. The lesson titles assume familiarity with terms such as ashi garami, X guard, knee cut, underhook, crossface, north-south, butterfly half, double unders, and kata gatame.

Our suggested prerequisite is basic comfort with open guard and half guard vocabulary. Newer students can still use the early goal-setting sections, but may need to pause and cross-reference positional terms before the pass-specific modules.

Format and ruleset

The supplied brief verifies the format as no-gi. The product page describes a digital video course with flow chart and visual notes, plus narrated gym footage and rolling commentary sections.

Research limitation: this guide is based on the supplied product snapshot and comparison excerpts, not independent viewing. We therefore avoid judging production quality, pacing, completeness beyond the listed curriculum, or the effectiveness of the methods in live training.

Strengths

A major strength is breadth across pass families. The outline covers loose passing goals, inside-position battles, leg entanglement recovery, split squat and knee-cut scenarios, flank/toreando situations, stack passing, body locks, and half guard passing.

The course also appears to pair conceptual organization with live examples: the source lists recurring “question we ask ourselves” chapters and separate rolling footage/commentary. That may help students connect retention rules to sparring situations rather than memorizing isolated counters.

Limitations

The course is not presented as a gi-specific lapel or sleeve-grip system. Although one lesson title mentions a collar tie, the verified format is no-gi and the curriculum is centered on no-gi retention problems such as ashi garami, body locks, double unders, and butterfly half.

Buy less urgently if you want a compact, technique-light overview. The listed scope is substantial, and our assessment is that students who lack time to drill position by position may struggle to convert the material into habits.

Suggested study order

Our suggested order is to start with the opening goal and concept chapters, then seated/supine loose passing, because those sections define distance, grip fighting, inside foot position, shoulders, and crossface prevention before the course branches into specific passing threats.

After that, consider studying by the pass that is currently beating you: ashi/X retention for leg entanglement players, split squat and knee-cut material for headquarters-style pressure, flanks/toreando for side-to-side movement, then stack, body lock, and half guard retention.

Use the rolling and commentary sections after you have studied the relevant technical block. The source lists separate rolling footage and narrated commentary, which may be most useful once you know what positional cues you are trying to identify.

Alternatives to consider

Guard Retention Made Easy by Firas Zahabi is the closest verified alternative for a broader guard-retention topic, but it is listed as a 3-part course emphasizing simplified concepts and defenses such as granby, inversions, stiff arm, knee slide, double underhook, and torreando counters.

Consider Zahabi’s course if you want a shorter conceptual retention primer. Consider Ryan’s course if you specifically want a larger no-gi map that spends separate blocks on ashi/X retention, body locks, stack passing, split squat, flanks, and half guard.

Seated Lapel Guard System by Alessandro Botelo is a different kind of alternative: the excerpt focuses on seated lapel guard, De La Riva entries, knee-slice/backstep counters, deep half sweeps, and takedowns, using the gi as a weapon.

Consider Botelo’s course if your immediate project is gi seated-lapel offense and knee-slice/backstep counters. Ryan’s course is the better fit from these sources if the problem is no-gi retention across many passing systems rather than lapel-based attacking sequences.

Purchase guidance

Consider buying if guard retention is a current training bottleneck and you want one course that organizes many no-gi passing problems into a systematic study plan. The curriculum’s value is in its range, not in being a quick single-position fix.

Hold off if you are primarily shopping for gi lapel attacks, takedown entries, or a narrow seated-guard offensive course; the supplied alternative from Botelo is the verified source that specifically emphasizes lapels, De La Riva, deep half sweeps, and takedowns.

Bundle or individual course?

This product is supplied as an individual course, not a bundle with separate component handles. No component-level purchase comparison is available in the supplied brief.