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Guard Pass Mastery Part One - Posture

Written by Grapplemaster.com

Passing the Guard is all about keeping good posture, not allowing your opponent to break your posture, and passing thru or around your opponents guard.

Keeping Good Posture
Keeping good posture is probably the most important. If you do not have good posture, you will be off-balance and not able to use the full power of your body. Also, you will be much more vulnerable to being submitted or swept.

Not Allowing Your Opponent to Break Your Posture

Not allowing your opponent to break your posture is a necessary skill to develop to be an effective fighter. You must learn to recover your posture instantly when it is broken. Before you can pass, you need good posture. If your opponent keeps upsetting your posture, you will have to keep re-adjusting your posture before you can pass (or you will be swept or submitted).

Many times, when you see two highly skilled fighters fighting in a position, you will see them constantly breaking and re-establishing posture. Sometimes the action moves quickly, sometimes it looks slow. When one opponent breaks another opponents defensive posture and that opponent cannot recover quickly enough, you will likely see a new move or position established (a guard passed, a person swepted, a person taken down, a side mount escaped, a submission, etc.)

Following is an excellent example of using posture to break a guard, using control to keep your opponent from re-establishing guard, and finishing with a submission.

Frank Benn of IFAacademy in Austin, Texas demonstrates an excellent guard pass from closed, establishing side control, and finishing with the armbar or triangle choke.

Having a good posture defense takes some time to develop. With each grappling match you learn and remember how your posture was attacked, to be prepared to defend against it when a new opponent comes. Also, remembering these attacks helps you use them against other opponents as well.

Remember, having a solid guard pass is not about being stronger, or faster, or knowing flashy guard passes. You need to keep good posture, and take your opponent out of his posture. That is the secret to passing the guard, or just about any technique in grappling! Then your moves become mostly technique, which is what good Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is really all about.

The following short video drives home this point about posture. A person named Jesus demostrates attacking his opponents posture, and sweeping easily after stealing his opponents posture: