BJJ Guard Passing: 7 Essential Techniques to Dominate Every Roll

Guard passing is the single most important skill that separates recreational BJJ players from serious competitors. You can have the sharpest submissions in your academy, but if you can’t get past someone’s legs, you’ll spend every round stuck in a stalemate — or worse, getting swept and submitted from below.

Whether you train in Taipei, Tokyo, or Texas, guard passing is universal. Every BJJ practitioner on the planet needs a reliable system to navigate through the legs and reach dominant positions like side control, mount, or the back. This guide breaks down seven battle-tested guard passing techniques that work at every belt level, from fresh white belts to seasoned black belts competing at the highest stages.

Why Guard Passing Matters More Than You Think

In competition BJJ under IBJJF rules, passing the guard earns you 3 points — more than a takedown (2 points) and equal to mounting your opponent. But the real value goes beyond the scoreboard. Once you pass someone’s guard, you’ve broken their primary defensive structure. From side control or mount, your submission options multiply while theirs shrink dramatically.

In MMA, the importance is even more pronounced. A fighter who can’t pass guard from inside the closed guard burns energy, eats elbows from the bottom, and risks getting stood up by the referee. Wrestling’s dominance in modern MMA is partly due to wrestlers’ natural ability to pass guard through relentless pressure and body positioning — skills that translate directly from the wrestling mat to the cage.

The guard is the gatekeeper. Passing it is the key to everything else.

1. The Knee Cut Pass (Knee Slice)

The knee cut is the most popular guard pass at every level of competitive BJJ, and for good reason. It’s fast, it generates enormous pressure, and it works against almost every style of guard — from closed guard to half guard to De La Riva.

How to Execute the Knee Cut

Start by establishing a strong cross-face grip with one hand controlling your opponent’s far collar or shoulder. Your other hand grips their bottom knee or pants at the shin. Drive your lead knee across their thigh, angling it toward the mat on the far side of their hip. The key detail most beginners miss: your hips need to stay heavy and low. Don’t raise up — slice through like a blade on a flat plane.

As your knee travels across, use your cross-face to turn their head away from you. This kills their ability to re-guard or create frames. Finish by clearing your trailing leg free from any hooks and settling into side control with a strong underhook.

Common Mistakes

• Rising up too high — this creates space for your opponent to reguard or hit a sweep
• Neglecting the cross-face — without head control, you’re passing with 50% effectiveness
• Rushing the finish — keep pressure constant rather than lunging through

2. The Torreando Pass (Bullfighter Pass)

The Torreando is a speed-based passing system that works beautifully against open guards. Named after the bullfighter who sidesteps the charging bull, this pass is all about redirecting your opponent’s legs and blasting around them before they can recover.

Grab both of your opponent’s pants at the knees or shins. In no-gi, control their ankles or hook behind their knees. Push their legs to one side — hard — and immediately circle to the opposite side. Your timing needs to be sharp. The moment their legs are off-center, sprint around and drop your chest onto their torso.

Elite passers like the legendary Rodolfo Vieira built entire competition careers on variations of this pass. It’s direct, aggressive, and punishes anyone who plays a lazy open guard.

3. The Over-Under Pass

When you encounter someone with an exceptionally strong closed guard or a crushing butterfly guard, the over-under pass is your pressure-based solution. This is a pass for grinders — practitioners who enjoy smothering their opponents and slowly removing every inch of space.

From inside your opponent’s guard, thread one arm over their top leg and drive it toward their chest while your other arm scoops under their bottom leg. Lock your hands together or grip your own wrist. Now flatten out, driving your shoulder into their hip, and walk your legs around in an arc. Your opponent will feel tremendous pressure — like carrying deadweight — and their guard will inevitably open.

The over-under is particularly effective for bigger, heavier grapplers, but technicians of all sizes use it. The key is patience. Don’t try to force the pass. Apply steady pressure, walk your feet in a semi-circle, and let gravity do the work.

4. The Leg Drag

The leg drag revolutionized modern BJJ competition when the Mendes Brothers and other elite competitors popularized it in the 2010s. It’s the go-to pass against De La Riva guard, spider guard, and most modern open guard systems.

Grab your opponent’s ankle and drag it across your body, pinning it against your far hip. Step your near-side leg past their hip line and drop your weight. Your opponent ends up in a terrible position: their hips are twisted away from you, their guard structure is completely compromised, and they’re essentially defending a near-passed position from the start.

What makes the leg drag so dangerous is the angle it creates. You end up almost behind your opponent before they realize the pass is happening. From the leg drag position, you have immediate access to the back take, making it a two-for-one technique.

5. The Long Step Pass

The long step is a hybrid pass that combines elements of pressure passing with dynamic movement. It’s particularly effective against half guard — the position where most guard passes stall out.

When your opponent locks up half guard on your lead leg, backstep your free leg far behind you, almost like you’re doing a lunge. This changes the angle entirely. From here, face toward their legs rather than their head (a counter-intuitive detail that makes this pass work), establish a strong grip on their knee or hip, and methodically extract your trapped leg while maintaining pressure with your upper body.

The long step works because it forces your opponent to deal with a completely different angle than they’re expecting. Most half guard players train to defend against forward pressure — the long step attacks from behind.

6. The Body Lock Pass

The body lock pass has exploded in popularity thanks to elite competitors like Gordon Ryan, who has used it to dismantle world-class guard players with almost casual efficiency. It’s simple in concept but devastating in execution.

Close the distance and lock your arms around your opponent’s waist in a tight body lock — like a bear hug around their torso. Once connected, their legs become almost irrelevant. You control their core, their ability to hip escape is severely limited, and you can methodically work your way to side control by walking your hips around.

This pass transfers beautifully between gi and no-gi. In the gi, you can reinforce your body lock with collar and lapel grips. In no-gi, the skin-on-skin friction actually helps maintain the lock. It’s a universal tool.

7. The X-Pass

The X-pass is a quick, efficient standing pass that works against open guard variants where your opponent has one or both feet on your hips. Pin their bottom leg with both hands, step to one side, and immediately switch your grip to push their knee to the mat while you drop into side control on the opposite side.

The name comes from the crossing motion your hands make as they switch from controlling to pinning. It’s a fantastic transitional pass — meaning you can chain it off of failed Torreando attempts or use it as a setup for the knee cut. Versatility is its greatest strength.

Building Your Guard Passing System

Individual techniques are tools. A guard passing system is a workshop. The best passers in BJJ don’t rely on a single move — they chain passes together, using the defense against one pass to set up the next.

Here’s a practical framework for building your system:

• Choose one pressure pass and one speed pass. The knee cut (pressure) and Torreando (speed) are the classic combination. Master these two first.
• Add a chain link. When your Torreando gets stuffed, transition immediately to the knee cut. When the knee cut stalls, backstep into the long step. Always have a Plan B.
• Drill the transitions, not just the techniques. Spend 50% of your drilling time on the connections between passes. The space between techniques is where matches are won and lost.
• Study your opponent’s guard recovery. Understanding how people reguard tells you when to change direction.

Competitors preparing for tournaments — whether that’s UFC BJJ events or local competitions here in Taipei — should dedicate at least 30% of their training time specifically to guard passing drills.

Conditioning for Guard Passing

Guard passing is one of the most physically demanding aspects of BJJ. You’re battling against an opponent’s legs — the strongest muscles in the human body — while maintaining posture, balance, and the mental awareness to chain techniques together.

Off-the-mat conditioning that directly improves your passing:

• Hip bridges and Turkish get-ups — build the hip drive essential for pressure passing
• Lateral lunges and cossack squats — develop the lateral mobility needed for knee cuts and Torreandos
• Sled pushes and farmer carries — simulate the grinding, forward-driving energy of pressure passing
• Yoga and dedicated stretching — flexible hips make every pass smoother and reduce injury risk

The best guard passers feel like they have endless energy because they’ve trained their bodies specifically for the demands of passing. Don’t neglect your conditioning.

Guard Passing Fundamentals in Action

Seeing these techniques in motion accelerates your learning. This excellent breakdown covers the core guard passing principles discussed in this guide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiVnO-hHPvM

Start Passing Guards Today

Guard passing isn’t a talent you’re born with — it’s a skill you develop through thousands of repetitions, smart drilling, and systematic thinking. Start with the knee cut and Torreando. Add the body lock and leg drag as you advance. Chain them together until passing feels instinctive rather than forced.

Every guard you encounter is a puzzle. These seven techniques give you the tools to solve it. Now get on the mat and start drilling.