If you’ve been watching high level BJJ competition matches for a while, you’ve probably seen that a lot of the top ranking jiujiteiros frequently change directions when they guard pass, going left-right-left-right-left… Until they finally execute the pass. But, why do they do this?
Andrew Wiltse– and the details that you can use to make this principle work for you.

It’s All In The Hips

Andrew starts off by saying that there’s much more to this approach than meets the eye: it’s not just about „moving back and forth“ and then doing your guard pass.
Essentially, what you want to accomplish has to do with the goal of having your opponent’s hips face away from you when passing their guard. In simple terms – you are looking to make your opponent overcommit to recovering his guard, so that you can then pass to the other side.

The reason, therefore, why high level BJJ black belts go left-right-left-right… before they finally execute their pass is because they want their opponents to commit to defending the pass on one side – the one which their hips are facing. Then, they take advantage of that by switching to the other side and passing to it with relative ease.

How Does It Look Like In Practice? Toreando Guard Pass!

But how does this principle look like when used in practice? Let’s see it through the Toreando Pass!

Keenan says that the key to a basic Toreando Pass is in the pinning of your opponent’s knee to the mats so that you can pass their hips. However, in this scenario you’re actually faking that you’re pinning their knee to one, before you pin it to the other side!
Keenan explains it in the following way:

1) Pin your opponent’s knee to the mat so that they try to resist it – they will do so by turning into you. Let them do this.
2) Use their reaction to pin their other knee. What this will lead to is that your opponent – because they’ve defended the pass on the side you’ve been faking it to – will actually give you their other knee! Then, just pin that knee down and go to the other side in order to pass.

In this video, Andrew Wiltse from Daisy Fresh BJJ series, shows some great guard passing concepts that he calls Buzzsaw. The concept is to always attack first, bever accepting any of your opponents guard grips. He also shows how he anticipates his opponent recomposing guard by switching sides Faster.

Destroy open guards with Andrew Wiltse’s signature buzzsaw passing system that anyone can use to start smashing and slicing through bottom players.

• Shut down the reverse De La Riva and traditional De La Riva as Andrew shows you grip fighting and positioning concepts to stay safe and control the fight while you set up passes.
• Use knee cuts, toreando, x-pass, leg weaves, and more for a comprehensive passing system that works together in the system Andrew shows.