Theory of guard passing- part I

Knowing a guard pass technique is not enough understand the nuances of guard passing. Also, getting lost in the myriad of "techniques" and "details", surprisingly little goes into actually describing underlying general principles at play in the area of guard passing.



Abstract: 

BJJ has a tendency to turn into a memorization contest. I mean, yes, particularly for the uninitiated, BJJ can feel a bit like voodoo magic. You suddenly find your arms being yanked a bit funny, and then you are in a triangle choke out of nowhere! Fighters take the "black belt is a white belt who did not quit" adage a little too literally, and despite learning many techniques, never end up truly understanding the art.

Furthermore, much of modern BJJ pedagogy tend to be heavily driven in terms of techniques, which does not help with issues like understanding good timing or predicting the opponent's actions. I hope to address such concerns with this generally applicable theoretical framework with regards to guard passing.

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Let us look at specific problems that arise from the abstract:

• When the passer fails to pass guard, yes, the passer not being "good enough" may be certainly true, but how do we precisely describe the ways in which the passer was not "good enough"? There is a quote that says, "insanity is doing something twice and expecting a different result".
• How can the passer evaluate their progress against the guarder? How should the passer prioritize their tasks accordingly? Part of "not being good enough" involves the passer not reading the current situation correctly. Much of current teaching tends to be ad-hoc and position-specific; I hope to introduce an overarching framework that can be generally applicable to many positions. 
• In particular, how do you precisely describe right timing? I believe that right timing can be "taught". Skilled practitioners are not skilled because they sold their souls to the Devil, PEDs aside; they know and understand body positions in ways that lay people do not, and I hope to put them into precise words.
• Is there a way to predictably forecast when scrambles will occur, described from the passer's perspective? I believe that scrambles can be predicted and processed at the cerebral level if you use the right language. 

Thus, I have conceived the "phases of guard passing". Precisely identify what phase you are in, prioritize your tasks accordingly, and never be caught in a scramble unaware.

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I am not saying that I am the first ever to try and provide a theoretical framework. In particular, Ryan Hall is truly groundbreaking in this regard.

• Rafael Lovato Junior's "Headquarters" builds on the foundation laid by the Ribeiro brothers, arguably the first to pioneer the idea of establishing a staging point from which you can threaten a family of related passes while the opponent cannot play any kind of guard against you
• "Creating space defensively, closing space offensively" is a common heuristic to this vein
• Ryan Hall is probably the most famous proponent in this regard- "frames and levers", "aligning the force vector", guard retention in terms of "layers of defence" and the length of stick you are working with based on distance. For the Canadians: to my knowledge, Rob Biernacki has been influenced by Ryan Hall, not the other way around.
• Demian Maia talks about "aligning your hips" in terms of guard retention, and the importance of "controlling the head", and the "box theory" of passing
• Jason Scully differentiates between "guard retention zone" and "escaping zone", emphasizing the need to process priorities a little differently depending on positioning

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Before I start, I would like to clarify some things.

Opponent's limbs are written from the opponent's perspective. The opponent's left arm is on the right from your POV.

Also, rather than trying to account for both sides, I have focused on describing one side perfectly for clarify's sake. You may need to flip the left and right yourself.

There is a pass where you pin your opponent's right leg with your left knee, do a long step-like kick backwards with your own right leg while checking the opponent's hip, and secure side control. I will call this the low long step.

There is a pass where you underhook a leg (much like the double under pass, only except you have one of them), and then pass over the underhooked leg while lifting their hips and stacking your opponent. I will call this the single under pass.

The "knee slide/cut/cutter" involves sliding the knee across. For example, you start by pinning your opponent's right leg with your own right leg. I will call this the knee cut.

By "hip switch", I mean the half guard pass where if your right leg is trapped, then you drape your body over the opponent and purposely tilt your torso so that you are facing right, perhaps using your left elbow to control the use of your opponent's left arm.

There is a guard pass where you gain control of both of your opponent's ankles, flip your opponent's legs up so that your opponent's butt faces the air, squat right on top to exert pressure, then clear the legs and maneuver into side control. I will call this the squat pass for now; if there is a known standard name for this, please tell me.

The "over under" pass that Bernardo Faria teaches in the video "Bernardo Faria teaches signature Over Under", where he uses motions similar to the over under pass while actually overhooking both legs, I will refer to as over over pass. Heck, even he says "it's really like over and over, I call this the over under brother". 

There is a pass where against a knee shield guarder or a butterfly guarder, you headstand to clear their legs and land in side control. I will refer to this as the jump pass. 

Even if you are kneeling rather than standing, if you can pinch your opponent's legs together, splay them toward one side, and then jam your knee in between, you can get a "leg drag position". I will be calling this the low leg drag.

There is a half guard pass where you cusp your arms around your opponent's waist with your head parked in their belly, tripod up, and start walking backwards, using the pressure to break the lock open, and then pretty much waltz into side control or mount from there. I will be calling this the tackle.

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Now, let us look at the actual phases. The phases are as follows:

• Neutralization/breaking phase, where you first win the grip fight, and then actually break out of the guard. After you win the grip fight, you...
• Actually pry open the closed guard
• Immobilize the half-guarder so that the only thing they have is the triangle lock on your leg, with no offensive options whatsoever
• Remark: beware the lockdown and the reverse half guard! Even then, as long as you can achieve control over their legs in some way, you should be good.
• Nullify the knee shield by either flattening it, clearing it aside, or backing up far enough to get out of its range
• If you are in deep half guard where your opponent has their head resting on your left lap and the right leg is isolated, staple both of the opponent's knees toward the right, free your right knee and get it on the mat, and get on your left foot on the mat (rather than your left knee that is currently on the mat)
• Strip the DLR hook and get rid of the framing foot in some way
• If you can leg-drag the framing foot, you can "ignore" the hook, which lands you straight into the passing phase 
• For RDLR, it is often sufficient to focus on the framing foot, and "ignore" the hook 
• If your right leg is the trapped leg against sit-up guard, step your right foot out to the right
• Flatten out the sit-up attempt 
• Slide the spider guard feet off of your biceps
• Break the leg lasso 
• Flatten out the butterfly
• Strip and control the X-guarder's feet
• Crunch the SLX knee (SLX has your opponent completely coiled around one of your legs; I am talking about the leg that the SLX guarder trapped in their guard)  onto the SLX guarder's chest
• Unshackle the looped lapel in lapel guard and worm guard
• etc.

The Ribeiro brothers and Rafael Lovato Junior's pioneering work on "The Headquarters position" is the first to establish the idea of threatening an entire family of related passes from a single staging position. Rather than "pass this guard with this, pass that guard with that", this has laid the foundations for a generalized framework in which you break the guard however you see fit, park yourself in a safe spot, and start working your magic from there however you see fit.

• Staging phase, where you settle into a staging position-
• That position where you are kneeling on the ground and you have your opponent's right leg trapped underneath you, either using your left knee or by straddling it and trapping between both of your legs, while your right arm is wrapped around the opponent's leg such that the bicep is touching the opponent's left hamstring and the palm is cupping the opponent's left quads- commonly referred to as "underhooking the leg". Since this position does not seem to have a name, I will be calling this "The Outpost".
• Pass available: over under, single under, low long step, low leg drag, hip switch (need to straddle rather than using knee)
• Intra-staging-phase transitions available: Headquarters
• Naturally entered after dealing with these guards: closed, RDLR
• The Shin Trap, arguably a staging point of sorts proposed by Rafa Mendes. As flimsy as it may look, it actually provides quite a bit of control.
• Passes available: long step, leg drag, etc.
• Intra-staging-phase transitions available: Headquarters, Outpost
• Naturally entered after dealing with these guards: closed, open, spider
• The Headquarters, the famous one proposed by Rafael Lovato Jr.
• Passes available: knee cut, long step, low long step, back step, side smash, over under, over over, X-pass, single under
• Intra-staging-phase transitions available: Outpost (redundant), Shin Trap  
• Naturally entered after dealing with these guards: De la Riva
• When it comes to quite a few guards, successful neutralization itself serves as a "staging point": traditional half guard with no mobility, knee shield without the shield, deep half where the guarder lost control of the trapped leg, lockdown without leg mobility, flattened butterfly, crunched up SLX, flattened sit up guard, sit up guard with the foot stepped out, spider guard with both feet stripped from your arms. These are special case scenarios, and you should not try to transition into these on purpose for intra-staging-phase transitions. Let us take a look.
• On your feet with two pant grips or ankle grips secured palm down, and your opponent completely on their back, their heels pressed to their thighs. I will be calling this the "flattened open guard".
• Passes available: bullfighter, squat (ankle grip only), double under 
• Intra-staging-phase transitions available: Headquarters
• Naturally entered after dealing with these guards: closed, spider, foot-on-the-hips open guard
• On your feet with your right foot in front of the left foot your feet shoulder width apart. Your opponent's left knee is touching the ground, where your right instep is putting pressure against the crook of the said left knee. This looks just like DLR with no grips and the hooking leg completely cleared. I suppose I will call this the "neutralized DLR".
• Passes available: leg drag
• Intra-staging-phase transitions available: Outpost
• Naturally entered after dealing with these guards: foot-on-the-hips open guard, De la Riva
• "Just holding on"/neutralized half guard, where the only thing the opponent has going is the triangle lock on your leg and that is about it. The opponent can be flattened out with a cross face, have their head stuffed with a quarter nelson, etc. Or, if circumstances allow for it, catch your opponent by surprise and just dive in with a pass.
• Passes available: knee cut, hip switch, back step, tackle
• Remark: watch out for the lockdown!
• Lockdown, except you are either lying on your left side like you doing the hip switch pass or tripoding up
• Passes available: hip switch variant, tackle variant, other specialized methods
• Requires special adaptations due to the lockdown being what lockdown is
• Deep half guard with legs completely under the passer's control, the passer's trapped knee is touching the mat
• Passes available: get the underhook and spin yourself around into side control
• Flattened butterfly
• Passes available: over under, over over, knee cut, jump pass
• Flattened half butterfly
• Passes available: instant full mount, over over, etc.
• Knee shield with the shield leg flattened
• Passes available: side smash, leg lace/leg weave
• Knee shield where the passer has managed to lace an arm underneath the shield leg, getting an "underhook" and defeating the shield
• Read "the outpost"
• Knee shield with the shield leg and the frames cleared aside
• Passes available: hip switch
• SLX with passer's knee in the guarder's sternum
• Passes available: side smash, back step
• Sit up guard, foot stepped out
• Passes available: back step
• Sit up guard, flattened out
• This is kind of like the Headquarters, so you can use similar techniques.
• "Dead spider"- from spider guard, the passer managed to get both pant grips, stand up and strip both feet, pushing the guarder's legs against their chest
• Passes available: double under, leg drag, knee cut, over-under, bullfighter 
• Intra-staging-phase transitions available: The Outpost, Headquarters
• "Broken spider"- from spider guard, the passer managed to break a sleeve grip, freeing one hand.
• Passes available: leg drag, knee cut, over-under
• Intra-staging-phase transitions available: The Outpost, (arguably) Headquarters
• Depending on what family of guard passes are available from a given staging point, you may well opt to transition between staging points. Careful, though, so that your hard work is not regressed and you find yourself in the breaking phase.  
• The ultimate goal of the staging phase is to assume a position where your opponent's distance control capabilities are sufficiently neutralized, so that you can safely start a pass. In plain English, get past their knees, and you can take a quick breather.
• The foot-on-the-hips-with-no-grips "open guard" is not a staging point- you are not entirely "safe". What's to say that the opponent can't simply hook their feet behind your hamstrings, scoot forward, and dummy sweep you, for instance?

• Passing phase, where you actually execute whatever guard pass you decided on. 
• The jump pass can be thought of as "skipping" the passing phase
• This is where you strive to neutralize their hips and shoulders, in that order. Mess up the order at your peril.
• In fact, the passing phase itself comes with two sub-phases: controlling the hips and controlling the shoulders.
• If the pass technique in question ends with knee-on-belly, shoulder control is not "needed" per se.

• Pinning phase, where you actually settle into the dominant position, trying to smother any last ditch shrimping or bridging

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Rather than viewing guard passing as "execute this move from start to finish for this particular guard" memorization contest, one should strive to philosophically understand what needs to be done at the moment to go from "stuck in guard" to "on top".

• Have you won the grip fight? Yes/no
• Have you broken out of the guard? Yes/no
• Are you in a staging position, where you can now actually threaten a pass that you like? Yes/no
• Have you established the pass? Yes/no
• Are you moving into a dominant position? Yes/no 
• Are you securing a dominant position? Yes/no

Thus, a natural troubleshooting framework arises where if you feel like you are about to lose the fight in a given phase, you recompose on your own terms. Examples:

• If you are reaching out your arm to get that crossface for the side control (pinning phase), but your opponent is swatting it away, assess how much control you have over your opponent's shoulders and hips. Can you get the crossface eventually? Should you aim for a different dominant position? Should you even retreat all the way back to the staging phase?
• You want to hit the knee cut, but you were sloppy, and now a half-ass knee shield is in the way. Rather than sit there and allow yourself to be countered, you recompose back into The Headquarters.
• You want to hit the double under pass, but before you can stack the hips, you see that arm coming in, trying to fish one out for a triangle. You manage to retreat to The Outpost.
• If you are about to establish Headquarters but you find yourself being lurched forward, assuming that you did not get swept, your opponent very likely intends to work some kind of X-guard or even a kneebar. Sure enough, you see the opponent trying to coil their feet around you and lift their back off the mat, a tell-tale sign of SLX coming. No problem, you crunch your knee forward before your opponent gets it firmly established. You now begin working that side smash.
• You somehow broke both sleeve grips in De la Riva guard. However, your opponent is shifting about, managing to get a RDLR hook on you. You see that your opponent did not get the framing foot up in time, so you quickly negate the hook by turning your knee in, and begin a knee cut pass.
• You pry your opponent's closed guard apart, but your opponent is whipping out De la Riva. You see it coming early enough, and you quickly enter The Headquarters.

Perhaps you may need to rollback more than one phase, and that is okay. For example, you tried to get the crossface, but your opponent pulled a Marcelo Garcia and started butt-scooting back while 2-on-1 grabbing your arm, so you ran with the situation and parked yourself into the Headquarters. You regressed from pinning phase to staging phase, but it's a much better outcome than "oh, how do I counter this move? oh shit... the opponent has recomposed guard in the meantime, uh oh, uh oh, I need to dodge that idiot sweep... FUUUUU" Graduate from "tit for tat", counter-for-counter, recipe-based memory contest approach to a deeper, fundamental approach.

Also, you now have a satisfying way of understanding why you failed your guard pass, most of which stems from putting the carriage before the horse.

Examples:

• You stood up in closed guard without any kind of grip-fighting; not even biceps control. This means you were trying to break it open before winning the grip fight.
• You tried to back-step pass in De la Riva, but you got your back taken. You did not neutralize the guard first, did you? 
• You get into The Hedquarters, try X-pass, but your foot is suddenly "stuck". Little did you know that your opponent locked up a last ditch half guard. Granted, it is trivial to deal with, but the fact remains that you did not progress in a timely manner after establishing your staging point. 
• If you just walk up to an opponent, who has two feet on their hips as in the classic "open guard" posture, and you leg drag them, do not be surprised if they manage to defend the first couple attempts. You did not establish a staging point before executing your pass.
• See here for a compilation of examples describing how specific guard pass techniques fail. If you try to rush to side control or full mount before you address such concerns, you will certainly fail.

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By thinking in terms of what "phase" you are in, and what inter-phase transition you are attempting as you complete the guard passing process, you can anticipate your vulnerable moments, which, in turn, allows you to anticipate reversals, guard retention attempts, and what not against you. Just being mentally ready already makes a huge difference, and if you are savvy, you can design and drill specific moves for specific scrambles.

Speaking of inter-phase transitions, those are exactly when scrambles are most likely to occur, as things suddenly become a bit chaotic and "loose". For example, you may have completed the goals in one phase, and are looking to move into the next phase; alternatively, your opponent may have aborted your progress in a given phase, and you are trying not to lose progress while your opponent is taking advantage of the moment to either re-establish guard or launch a counter-offensive.

Generally, as you get closer to actually securing the dominant position, the inter-phase scrambles will get smaller, maybe even nonexistent. This is to be expected as you gradually wear down your opponent's defences. With that being said, your mistakes will cost you more as you get closer to pinning your opponent; as you make more progress, your stakes in terms of losing that progress become bigger.

As you get better at handling the inter-phase scrambles, you will find yourself in better and better position. For example, rather than regressing all the way back into a fully locked guard, you will find yourself establishing staging points with more consistency. You may also find yourself suddenly chaining the right passes for the situation to keep the fight firmly in the passing phase. Do not worry if you get caught right back in guard during inter-phase scrambles at first, never mind establishing a staging point; pattern-matching bodily positions takes some experience.

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Generally speaking, the closer you are to actually landing a dominant position, the more "time" you have. Conversely, the reverse holds true.

In other words, just because you parked yourself into a staging point, does not mean you can hang out there. Yes, you have gotten past their feet and shins, and yes, your opponent's attention is completely focused on defence, but that is it. Your opponent's defences are still very much alive, and they can easily re-establish a guard at that point. You can hold some staging points better than others, but the point still remains. In particular, the staging points derived directly from neutralizing a guard, rather than establishing a separate position like the "Headquarters", tend to be harder for the passer to hold position, so you need to progress quickly. 

On the other hand, if you are almost finished with the passing phase, then your opponent has many defences down. Their legs have been isolated, their hips are flattened, and their shoulders are also likely controlled to a degree. This means that as long as you can keep their defences down, you can relax.

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In a match, most of the time is spent in the "limbo" between the neutralization phase and the staging phase, and to a lesser degree, the "limbo" between the staging phase and the passing phase.

As for the first limbo between the neutralization phase and the staging phase, unless there is a big enough gap in skill, most passers manage to get at least some of the guard neutralized. For example, the guarder may still have some grips, but have the De la Riva hook partially popped off; the passer may have stood up inside the guarder's closed guard, but the guarder is threatening a sweep, so the passer sits back down. In normal circumstances (e.g. the passer is not a complete noob, the passer is letting the guarder work the game on purpose, etc), no passer will be seen fully trapped helpless in a guard, hence the progression in the neutralization phase; likewise, no guarder will just let the passer start passing, hence the passer failing to fully establish a staging point. Fighters, regardless of their bias toward top game or bottom game, know and use multiple guards, if only to hold on.

As for the second limbo, because the passer has not quite established all the controls, there is still some wiggle room for the guarder. In particular, the more knowledgeable fighters tend to know some slick counters purpose-designed to attack guard passes in their early phases. As the guarder either tries to recover guard or execute a counter, the passer is trying to establish a pass as well, and so it all comes back in a circle.

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Most "closed guard" passes really focus on the grip fighting and prying the legs open; perhaps it is no surprise that you hear the term "closed guard breaks" to refer to them. Most other passes are taught from the staging phase or the passing phase. Many other "how to pass OOO guard" instructionals strive to address all of these concerns at once.

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Exercise: take a YouTube instructional of "how to pass OOO guard", and identify which parts deal with the grip fighting, which parts deal with the breaking, which part you actually begin stifling the opponent, etc.

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Future work: the nuances of actually executing a guard pass technique, as in the passing phase, requires elaboration in its own right. Part II is coming soon.