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Defending from leg drag pass and toreando pass – Jiu-Jitsu diary

Date posted: June 2, 2025

It was rainy on the way to training today, but I’m glad I made it to class. Today, we learned how to defend when your opponent is passing using a leg drag, pinning your bottom leg to the mat with their knee touching the mat and wedged between both of your legs. The key to escaping or defending from the bottom position is quite straightforward:

  • If your opponent is heavy on their back leg and you feel they are relaxing, hiding their foot near your butt, try to fish for the far-side underhook and sweep them. You should end up in side control.
  • If your opponent is pushing forward, keeping their knee close to your hips and “chasing” you while trying to pass or control your upper body, their foot behind your butt should be light and on their toes. The key is to lift their toes off the mat. To do that, first shrimp out to create a bit of space (tip: move your hip away from their hip), then use your top foot as a hook to lift their ankle, raising their toes and pulling them outward. With your other foot, hook inside, and you should be able to sweep them.

For defending against the toreando pass, the advice I got from Coach is to focus on their arm placement and not let them gain the inside position where their arms are between your legs (paused!). Instead, keep their arms outside by bringing your foot across and over their arm (onto their shoulder) to push them away.

This is a super important defending technique I learned today, and I’ll keep it in mind when I’m playing guard. I can think of a couple of strong brown belts who have usually used the leg drag pass on me in the past.

I got 3 submissions in class today: 2 armbars and 1 Mother’s Milk (not super duper proud of that one haha), I revisited the basic of armbar and tried it again today when going to high mount, moving to S-mount while keeping both hands on their chest fishing for the loose arm and sweep the leg across. It paid off to sometimes revisit the basics. I will try the Ezekiel choke next time I’m in mount as I’ve never tried that in Nogi before. The Arm Triangle finish hasn’t working for me lately, I need to rewatch the footage and research if there’s any detail I’m missing.

Note to self: Please cut your nails before practice. I went full Wolverine on Coach while attempting a single-leg takedown during rolling today and left a long scratch on his leg.

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Defending from leg drag pass and toreando pass – Jiu-Jitsu diary

It was rainy on the way to training today, but I’m glad I made it to class. Today, we learned how to defend when your opponent is passing using a leg drag, pinning your bottom leg to the mat with their knee touching the mat and wedged between both of your legs. The key to escaping or defending from the bottom position is quite straightforward:

  • If your opponent is heavy on their back leg and you feel they are relaxing, hiding their foot near your butt, try to fish for the far-side underhook and sweep them. You should end up in side control.
  • If your opponent is pushing forward, keeping their knee close to your hips and “chasing” you while trying to pass or control your upper body, their foot behind your butt should be light and on their toes. The key is to lift their toes off the mat. To do that, first shrimp out to create a bit of space (tip: move your hip away from their hip), then use your top foot as a hook to lift their ankle, raising their toes and pulling them outward. With your other foot, hook inside, and you should be able to sweep them.

For defending against the toreando pass, the advice I got from Coach is to focus on their arm placement and not let them gain the inside position where their arms are between your legs (paused!). Instead, keep their arms outside by bringing your foot across and over their arm (onto their shoulder) to push them away.

This is a super important defending technique I learned today, and I’ll keep it in mind when I’m playing guard. I can think of a couple of strong brown belts who have usually used the leg drag pass on me in the past.

I got 3 submissions in class today: 2 armbars and 1 Mother’s Milk (not super duper proud of that one haha), I revisited the basic of armbar and tried it again today when going to high mount, moving to S-mount while keeping both hands on their chest fishing for the loose arm and sweep the leg across. It paid off to sometimes revisit the basics. I will try the Ezekiel choke next time I’m in mount as I’ve never tried that in Nogi before. The Arm Triangle finish hasn’t working for me lately, I need to rewatch the footage and research if there’s any detail I’m missing.

Note to self: Please cut your nails before practice. I went full Wolverine on Coach while attempting a single-leg takedown during rolling today and left a long scratch on his leg.

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Defending from leg drag pass and toreando pass – Jiu-Jitsu diary

It was rainy on the way to training today, but I’m glad I made it to class. Today, we learned how to defend when your opponent is passing using a leg drag, pinning your bottom leg to the mat with their knee touching the mat and wedged between both of your legs. The key to escaping or defending from the bottom position is quite straightforward:

  • If your opponent is heavy on their back leg and you feel they are relaxing, hiding their foot near your butt, try to fish for the far-side underhook and sweep them. You should end up in side control.
  • If your opponent is pushing forward, keeping their knee close to your hips and “chasing” you while trying to pass or control your upper body, their foot behind your butt should be light and on their toes. The key is to lift their toes off the mat. To do that, first shrimp out to create a bit of space (tip: move your hip away from their hip), then use your top foot as a hook to lift their ankle, raising their toes and pulling them outward. With your other foot, hook inside, and you should be able to sweep them.

For defending against the toreando pass, the advice I got from Coach is to focus on their arm placement and not let them gain the inside position where their arms are between your legs (paused!). Instead, keep their arms outside by bringing your foot across and over their arm (onto their shoulder) to push them away.

This is a super important defending technique I learned today, and I’ll keep it in mind when I’m playing guard. I can think of a couple of strong brown belts who have usually used the leg drag pass on me in the past.

I got 3 submissions in class today: 2 armbars and 1 Mother’s Milk (not super duper proud of that one haha), I revisited the basic of armbar and tried it again today when going to high mount, moving to S-mount while keeping both hands on their chest fishing for the loose arm and sweep the leg across. It paid off to sometimes revisit the basics. I will try the Ezekiel choke next time I’m in mount as I’ve never tried that in Nogi before. The Arm Triangle finish hasn’t working for me lately, I need to rewatch the footage and research if there’s any detail I’m missing.

Note to self: Please cut your nails before practice. I went full Wolverine on Coach while attempting a single-leg takedown during rolling today and left a long scratch on his leg.

go back