Henry Akins, a longtime student of Rickson Gracie, says the guard-passing method known as “camping” that has become popular among students of John Danaher is nothing new. According to Akins, it is simply a rebranding of pressure-based passing principles he has been teaching for one and a half to two decades.
The comments came during an appearance on Josh McKinney’s podcast, where Akins broke down what actually happens when a passer smothers a guard player with sustained weight rather than working through quick, explosive movements.
“All of these guys that are kind of camping, right? Camping has kind of become a new thing, a term that like the Danaher guys are using, maybe the last two years, to kind of explain this new guard passing style that they’re doing,” Akins said.
“And really what people need to understand is camping is really just weight distribution. All they’re doing is putting weight on the frames. It’s something that I’ve been talking about for 15 years, 20 years now about guard passing is how you pressure the frames and how you change angles to collapse the frames.”
Akins explained that the approach is less about urgency and more about patience. Once a passer establishes weight on top, the goal is to maintain it and let the opponent’s own defensive frames wear them down.
“So, camping is really just exactly what I’ve been talking about with guard passing is like how do you engage? How do you force your opponent to basically carry your weight? And every time they push you away, it’s like they’re pushing so much weight, they’re going to gas out,” he said.
He described applying this directly in a widely discussed roll with McKinney, in which he passed the podcast host’s guard by pressuring his frames without urgency, waiting for fatigue to open a path underneath the leg.
“When I get to those positions, there’s no urgency to pass. As long as I’m pressuring you, as long as I’m keeping my weight on you, I’m winning that battle because the weight distribution and the pressure, eventually you will start to fade,” Akins said.
Akins also credited a subtle sensitivity for shutting down McKinney’s counters, describing how he shifted angles the instant a frame connection was made rather than reacting after the fact.
“I’m just shifting angles to k*ll your connection… It’s a sensitivity thing. It’s a thing that everyone can develop. I’m not using big movements. It’s just developing sensitivity,” he said.
