Foundations Stage 4 — Guard Passing Study Guide

CurriculumFoundations Stage 4 — Guard Passing Study GuideGuard passing fundamentals — why passing comes after retention, the four foundation passes, the invariants that drive passing mechanics, and the…

Stage 4 of the foundations curriculum teaches the student how to pass guard. This study guide explains why passing follows retention in the curriculum order and how the four introductory passes fit into the broader passing systems.

A student who has learned guard retention first already knows what a passer is up against. They have felt the frames, the hooks, the angles they need to break. Teaching them to pass at this stage is teaching them to solve a problem they already understand from the other side.

The reverse ordering would be worse. A student who learned to pass before learning to retain would be taught to “pass a guard” that is mechanically inert — because they would not know what a competent guard feels like.

Stage 4 introduces four passes — one from each major passing family:

Knee-cut pass — the representative knee-slice pass. Cuts across the opponent’s guard with the knee as the wedge.

Over-under pass — a smash pass variant. Closes distance and uses compression to remove the guard player’s hooks.

Double-under pass — both underhooks on the hips, stacking the guard player’s hips toward their head.

Smash pass — from half guard bottom’s perspective, the pass that flattens and settles into a pin.

These four cover enough of the passing-systems spectrum that the student has a toolkit to deploy against different guard types. At developing level, the developing focus blocks will expand this into complete passing systems.

Passing is a structure-and-angle game more than a power game. The invariants that load here:

inside position (structural alignment) — passing requires the passer’s structure to be better than the guard player’s. A bent-over passer loses to a well-framed guard.

frames redirect perpendicular (angle) — passing is finding the angle from which the guard cannot defend. Smashing into frames does not pass guard; angling around them does.