Passing

To understand passing is to understand guard and its movements. The more mobile a guard is, the harder it is to pass. It is important to understand that every guard has particular force vectors. No guard is perfect, but good positional hip movement and transitions between guards tend to maintain advantage.

The mobility of a guard relies on three qualities: positional hip movement, hip flexibility and proper grips. 

Positional hip movement

Hip movement refers to all hip adjustments that are needed for guard maintenance, such as shrimping or scooping, turning, rolling, or sliding. It controls distance and therefore adjusts leverage.

Hip mobility

Hip mobility refers to muscle elasticity and joint flexibility. Hip mobility can compensate for lack of hip positional movement in guard retention and resisting a submission.

Kumikata (grips)

Grips go beyond hand fighting. A good guard includes gripping or hooking with the feet during guard maintenance and retention. Grips also create controlled tension.

On passing

Why does playing guard (sweeping) tend to be more successful than passes? A guard player had the advantage of four moving limbs against two while the passer often has only two active limbs (arms) while maintaining balance on his other two (legs).

Good passing requires the following qualities: pressure, joint control, and posture. It also requires understanding of the three qualities of guard: hip position, hip mobility, and grips.

Pressure

Pressure applied to the guardeiro’s joints limits their hip mobility. Understanding the direction of vector forces of a guard (which are determined by the guardeiro’s grips) will lead to understanding how to direct the pressure to weaken the sum of vector forces of the guard.

The number of joints

There are three major joints in both upper limbs (shoulder, elbow and wrist) and lower limbs (hip, knee and ankle). To control the movement of the hip, grip at knee level and not ankle level. The less joints between the grip and opponent’s hip, the easier it is to control and pass. The role of pressure applied at changing angles is to challenge the efficiency and frames of a guard.

Posture

A passer must have good posture and alignment. The sweeper will always try to alter the passer’s posture and create chaos in their alignment. Good posture leads to good balance and base. The sweeper will always try to unbalance the opponent by taking them out of balance (kuzushi)

Pins and drags

Pinning the legs is one application of applying pressure, where the force of the passer’s pin is perpendicular to the pinned area (often the ground). When the guardeiro reacts to being pinned, dragging the legs can redirect the force of that reaction.

Lede art by @geraldinepetit_illustrations