Fundamental Fives

**Method2Madness** · Posted On: 7/07/2006 12:38pm

Originally Posted by Aesopian

Let's use the double under pass as an example.

You open their guard (1). You get your arms under both legs and cup their thighs (2). Then you clasp your hands around their legs (more 2), pull their hips up on to your knees (3), then sprawl, rolling their hips off the mat (more 2 and 3).

If you tried to just shuck the legs and jump past guard now, they'd still be pretty free to move their upper body to create space and push you away. So you first take one of your hands and reach across and grab their opposite shoulder or lapel and pull it to you (4). This locks in their upper body.

Your other hand comes down and grabs their belt/pants or in some way lifts their hips in the air (more 3).

You now keep pressuring forward as you circle your legs to the one side. But they post on your hip and push you away, so you can't complete the pass. Why? Because you can't land your hips by coming to their side, lowering and widening your base, sprawling your legs, etc. So you to remove that hand somehow, then bring your hips around and sinking into position (5). By now their legs just fall off your shoulders and you're chest-on-chest.

Now notice something here. Locking in the upper body is in both the Fun 5 of passing and top game, so at some point they blend together. In the above example, I used "2. Kill the near side arm." in order to complete the pass.

Ok now i understand. Thanks Aeso.

**Don Gwinn** · Posted On: 7/08/2006 5:19pm

Awesome.

I've only been taught one guard pass, and the other night I was trying pass on a guy without using too much power. I kept thinking there had to be a way to get around his legs, and I did get there eventually, but I see now I didn't really have control of his legs before I tried to get past them. I probably could have done the same thing with a lot less exertion if I'd focused on (2). When I got past his legs, I had a hard time getting to side control. After reading that, it occurs to me that I never really made a serious effort to lock in his upper body other than just jumping into side control from the pass.

Anyway, I'm writing those down, too. Thanks.