Tozi Pass
The Tozi pass drops the near shoulder under a butterfly or X-guard hook, trapping it to the mat with body weight and passing over the trapped leg.
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The Tozi pass is a guard-passing technique designed specifically to nullify butterfly and hook-based guards. The defining mechanic is the shoulder drop: the top player drops their near shoulder under the opponent’s near butterfly hook (or foot hook), pinning that leg to the mat with body weight, and then passes over or around the trapped leg to achieve side control or back control.
Where most passes try to push or redirect the legs, the Tozi pass traps one leg by going under it — making the hook useless by removing its structure from the outside. A butterfly hook functions by pushing up and lifting the opponent’s hips; a Tozi pass converts this into a leg that is pinned to the mat with the opponent’s own hook now working against their guard instead of for it.
The pass is named for Glenisson de Oliveira (nicknamed Tozi), a Brazilian practitioner who popularised the technique. It is widely used in no-gi grappling against butterfly guard, single leg X, and X-guard positions where the opponent’s hook is the primary guard retention tool.
INV-03Invariant "The opponent's structural resistance must be disrupted before a submission can be reliably completed. An opponent who retains functional base, alignment, and connection to their own structure can defend most attacks mechanically rather than reactively. In standing and guard contexts this is called breaking posture; in leg entanglements it is disrupting hip position and knee line; the underlying requirement is identical."
Why it works hereThe butterfly hook's structural function is upward lift — it elevates the opponent's hips to off-balance the passer. The Tozi disrupts this by inverting the hook's relationship to the floor: dropping the shoulder under the hook traps the leg between the passer's body and the mat, converting the lifting tool into a pinned limb. The hook is not pushed away or stripped, it is geometrically reassigned to a job (mat-pinned leg) it cannot perform a guard with.
See full invariant page → The butterfly guard’s structural resistance is the hook’s upward lifting force. The Tozi pass disrupts this by going under the hook — converting the hook from a lifting tool to a pinned leg. The disruption is positional rather than force-based: the top player does not push the hook away or override it with strength but places their shoulder beneath it, changing the hook’s mechanical relationship to the guard structure entirely.
INV-P01Invariant "The top player must clear the line of the feet before advancing. Attempting to pass while the feet are active is attempting to pass through the guard rather than around it."