# The Complete Guide To Guard Passing For White Belts
You’ve spent weeks learning to hold closed guard and sweep from bottom. Now you’re on top, staring at someone’s legs wrapped around you, and you have no idea what to do next. You try to stand. They sweep you. You try to push their knees down. They triangle you. Guard passing feels like trying to solve a Rubik’s cube while someone punches you in the face.
Key summary: White belts struggle to pass guard because they chase space instead of controlling hips, but three simple passes built on universal principles will get you to side control consistently.
Why white belts get stuck in guard (and swept)
Most beginners treat guard passing like a speed problem. They see the legs as obstacles to get around as quickly as possible, so they try to dart past them or stand up and leap over. This fails for a simple reason: the guard player’s hips are free to move, and mobile hips create angles faster than you can run around them.
The second mistake is posture collapse. You lean forward to grab a leg or push a knee, your opponent controls your head or shoulder, and suddenly you’re defending a sweep or submission instead of passing. White belts underestimate how much control the bottom player has when your posture breaks.
The third trap is treating every guard the same. You use the same approach against closed guard, open guard, and half guard, then wonder why nothing works. Each guard type has different defensive structures, but the three universal principles below apply to all of them.
White belts think passing is about getting around the legs. It’s not. It’s about killing the guard player’s ability to move their hips while you stay safe. Once the hips are stuck, the legs become easy.
The three principles that make every pass work
Every guard pass, whether you learn it at white belt or black belt, succeeds because of three things. If you skip even one, the pass falls apart.
Kill the hooks. Hooks are the feet, ankles, or knees your opponent uses to control distance and create frames. In closed guard, the locked ankles are the hook. In open guard, it might be a foot on your hip or a shin across your torso. Your first job is to clear, pin, or redirect these contact points so they can’t stop your movement.
Control the hips. This is the non-negotiable centre of every pass. You need to pin, redirect, or immobilise your opponent’s hips so they can’t turn into you, shrimp away, or recover guard. Most white belts ignore this step and wonder why they get swept mid-pass. Use your hands, your chest, your shoulder, or your bodyweight to glue their hips to the mat.
Maintain posture. Posture means your head and spine stay aligned and out of your opponent’s control range. If they can pull your head down or break you forward, they can sweep you or attack your neck. Posture keeps you safe while you work through the other two principles. It doesn’t mean staying bolt upright at all times. It means keeping your structure intact relative to the position you’re in.
These three principles stack. You can’t control hips if the hooks are pushing you away. You can’t maintain posture if you’re diving forward to grab a leg. Each principle enables the next.
Three beginner-friendly passes that actually work
These passes are forgiving, don’t require flexibility or speed, and teach you the principles above through repetition. You’ll use all three for years, even as you add fancier options to your toolkit.
Knee cut pass (knee slice). From open guard, clear one leg to the side and drive your knee across your opponent’s centreline, sliding it toward their far hip. Your shin becomes a wedge that pins their bottom leg to the mat. Keep your opposite hand controlling their far hip or collar, chest heavy, head up. Once your knee clears their hip line, drop your weight and transition to side control. The knee cut teaches hip control better than any other pass because you’re physically wedging their hips in place with your shin.
Toreando pass (bullfighter pass). Stand or crouch in open guard, grip both pant legs at the knees, and throw both legs to one side while you step around to the opposite side. Think of a matador redirecting a bull. Your grips control their knees (killing the hooks), and your sideways step keeps you clear of their hip movement. This pass works because you redirect both legs at once, which removes their ability to recover guard by inserting a knee. It’s fast, low risk, and doesn’t require you to enter their control range.
Stack pass. From closed guard, open the guard by standing or using your elbows inside their thighs, then drive forward and lift their hips off the mat, folding their knees toward their chest. Pin their hips with your chest and shoulder, control both legs with your arms, and walk around to side control. The stack works because their hips are immobilised by your bodyweight and their own folded legs. It’s the most direct application of principle two (control the hips), and it teaches you to use pressure instead of speed.
| Pass type | Difficulty for white belts | Best against | Key risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knee cut | Medium | Open guard, half guard | Getting swept if weight shifts back |
| Toreando | Low | Open guard with feet on hips | Opponent retains one hook if grip breaks |
| Stack pass | Medium | Closed guard, feet-up open guard | Triangle or sweep if posture breaks forward |
Drill one pass for two weeks straight
Pick the knee cut or toreando and use only that pass during positional sparring for two weeks. You’ll learn to see the entries, feel when hips escape, and troubleshoot the small adjustments that make it work against resistance. Rotating through all three every round keeps you a permanent beginner at all of them.
What not to do when passing guard
Bad habits formed at white belt take years to fix. Avoid these three traps and you’ll progress faster than most beginners.
Don’t stand up without grips first. Standing in guard feels safe, but if you don’t control their legs or hips before you stand, you hand them perfect distance to kick you away, off-balance you, or stand up themselves. Establish grips on their pants, sleeves, or collar before you change your level. If you’re already standing and they have no grips on you, that’s fine. Just don’t stand into empty space hoping to figure it out on the way up.
Don’t go around the legs without clearing them. Running wide around someone’s legs while they still have a foot on your hip or a hook behind your knee is a guaranteed sweep. Their legs are longer than your torso is wide. Clear the hooks first, redirect the legs, or pin the hips. Then move around. Trying to outrun the legs is a race you’ll lose.
Don’t advance until the hips are stuck. You feel your knee start to slide past their thigh and you rush to side control before locking down hip control. They turn into you, recover half guard, and you’re back where you started. The pass isn’t complete when your knee clears their leg. It’s complete when their hips can’t rotate toward you anymore. Stay patient in the in-between positions. Pin the hips, settle your weight, then move to side control.
How to know when you’ve actually passed
A completed pass has three markers. First, their hips are flat to the mat or turned away from you, not rotated toward you. Second, your chest or shoulder is controlling their torso, with no space for them to insert a knee or create a frame. Third, you have a dominant position like side control, mount, or knee-on-belly where you can hold them without effort.
White belts often scramble to side control, feel their opponent squirming underneath, and assume they’ve passed. If you’re fighting to stay in place, you haven’t passed. You’re in transition. Keep your weight down, control the far hip, and wait until they stop moving before you consider the pass finished. Solidifying position after the pass is just as important as the passing movement itself.
In training, you’ll know you’re improving when you can pass the same opponent’s guard twice in one round. Once might be luck or a mistake on their part. Twice means you’re applying a repeatable system.
Guard passing is the gateway to every dominant position in BJJ. You don’t need ten passes as a white belt. You need two or three that you can hit against a resisting opponent who knows they’re coming. The knee cut, toreando, and stack will carry you through your first year and well beyond if you drill the principles until they become automatic.
Want to drill these passes with coaching and live resistance? Book a free trial class at Extreme MMA in Chadstone and we’ll walk you through the setups, grips, and timing that make guard passing click for beginners.