Straight Blast Gym FUNdamentals

Thornton teaches the Fun 5 of Passing (explained below). Experienced guys like purple belts will come to him for help on passing guard and ask for some new guard passes. He'll admit that they probably know more passes than he does, since he sticks to a relatively few basic ones, and
he can't promise that the way he passes is the way they should pass, since he feels guard passing is a very personalized thing. Instead he'll have them take their favorite guard pass and he runs them through the Fun 5 on it. In this way, the student gains a more fundamental
understanding of guard passing while also improving his existing knowledge as well as further developing his personal style. Now imagine that applied to a group, like a class or seminar. These same five fundamentals are taught, but everyone in the room is drilling them with a guard pass of
their choosing. I personally find that amazing.

Here are simple versions of the Fun 5. I may explain each further if there is interest, but you'll have to show me some real love first.

Fun 5 of Escapes
1. Hip and Hunchback - turn on one hip, roll your shoulders.
2. Arms between you and your opponent.
3. Look and Feel - know how you are pinned.
4. 90/10 - Make space: 90% hips, 10% arms.
5. Escapes - return to guard, go to knees or roll them.

Fun 5 of Passing Guard
1. Open the legs.
2. Control the legs.
3. Control the hips.
4. Lock in the upper body.
5. Complete the pass - land your hips.

Fun 5 of Top Game
1. Block out the guard.
2. Lock in the upper body.
3. Kill the near side arm.
4. Control the far side arm.
5. Transitions - moving to other positions.
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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.