Marcus „Buchecha“ Almeida is one of the greatest grapplers of all time. Being a 6x World Champion, he owes a lot of his success to his amazing passing game – which, more often than not, shows great use of the Folding Pass.
With Bernardo Faria as his training partner, he explains why the Folding Pass is such a powerful tool and how you can make it work for yourself.

The “Key” To The Folding Pass?

Buchecha starts by saying that he has always been doing the Folding Pass, but that he became a lot better at it after his knee surgery. He was scared of getting injured again, so he was forced to develop a way of using his bodyweight through his hips more efficiently.
This is the key to the Folding Pass, says Buchecha: knowing how to use your bodyweight in one spot – through your hips.

Worm Guard Pass

Protect Your Knee and Face Them

To show how to use the folding pass properly, step by step, Buchecha picks passing the Worm Guard. First of all, when somebody is doing the Worm Guard, realize that their goal is to place pressure on your knee. For that reason, you need to open that knee and face your opponent. Then, get a lapel grip – now, you can start dealing with their leg.

Deal With Their Leg and Get Them To Face The Opposite Way

Buchecha shows that the way to dealing with their leg is by „reaching for your pocket“ and then grabbing their foot. From there, make a step back – this will make it easier for you to push their leg down and control it.
Put that leg in-between your legs, keeping pressure on it while you move your own leg back to the previous position.

From here, you want to make your opponent face the opposite way. Buchecha does this by grabbing Bernardo’s lapel with his other hand and by then stepping aside to a kneeling position.
Once there, he shifts his first lapel grip to take control over the material on the outside of the Bernardo’s knee.

The Folding Pass

To initiate the pass from here, you need to use momentum. Buchecha simultaneously drops his elbow and connects his knee to Bernardo’s hip, doing the Long Step Pass with his other leg at the same time. Then, he lifts his hips up and steps over – it is now time to establish position for the Folding Pass.

This is where the importance of your hips comes into play. You need to find your whole bodyweight in your hips, says Buchecha – and it needs to be placed right between your opponent’s hip and their knee. As long as you have your bodyweight distributed like this, you can use it for passing in almost any situation your opponent presents to you, as Buchecha demonstrates towards the end of the video.

Now, grab your opponent’s Gi behind their neck with your four fingers. Use your other hand to grab their lapel.
From this point, the idea is to make your opponent into a „letter C“ – Buchecha does that by trying to touch his opponent’s knee and nose together. He does so by pushing against Bernardo’s calf and heel with one, while posting and making small step-overs with the other leg.

To finish, he flattens Bernardo’s back to the mat and hides his knee behind Bernardo’s legs. Getting to the side control from here, Buchecha keeps tightly pulling Bernardo’s lapel towards himself, keeping his elbow connected to Bernardo’s hip while he shifts to the side.

Watch Buchecha demonstrate the Folding Pass and his tips below:

Learn The “Automatic Game Over” Pass That The Best BJJ Competitor Of All Time Uses To Destroy Ever Guard: Buchecha’s signature Folding Pass System.

• It’s simple – anyone can do it and you don’t need flexibility or size to use Buchecha’s folding pass.
• Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida is a 13-time world champion, a record number of titles.