YR Sports Lab
You are sitting in bottom position with both feet on your opponent's hips, convinced your guard is holding. Then two hands clamp onto your pant legs, a step slides sideways, and two seconds later your shoulders are pinned to the mat. The Torreando pass, also known as the bullfighter pass, is the first pass most white belts learn and the one most often used in the gym to punish a loose open guard. It does not rely on pressure, it relies on the angle created by grip placement and lateral displacement. Williams and colleagues analysed 140 white and blue belt matches and found that 93% of white-belt passing came from just three techniques: the knee slice, the knee pin, and the bullfighter. The other side of the ledger is equally worth remembering: in Santacaterina and colleagues' 2025 survey of 360 Italian jiu-jitsu practitioners, "attempting a guard pass" was the single most frequent injury mechanism of all, at 26%. This article breaks down the displacement mechanics of the Torreando, the three layers of defence available to the bottom player, and the knee and hip-rotation training both sides should be doing.
1. What the Torreando actually does: using the legs as a steering wheel
The name comes from the image of a matador flicking his cape so the bull charges past. Technically it describes a standing or half-kneeling top player who grips both pant legs on either side, somewhere between below the knee and mid-shin, pushes both of the opponent's legs together toward one side, and simultaneously steps in the opposite direction, dropping into side control before the opponent's hips can turn back. The grip usually sits just below the knee, because the closer to the body you grip, the longer the lever and the more complete your control of the whole limb. Grip too close to the ankle and you only control the foot.
The biggest difference from the knee cut or the body lock pass is the source of energy. Both the knee cut and the body lock are "connect first, then squeeze through", powered by pressure and body weight. The Torreando is "stay off, move around", trading footwork speed for the window in which the opponent's hip line cannot realign. That is also why it works so well in the gi: the friction of the fabric makes pushing the legs stable, and the opponent simultaneously has to worry about sleeve and collar grips.
To understand why it works, the key phrase is the hip line. Whether a guard holds depends on whether the bottom player's hips point at the top player. As long as the two centre lines stay aligned, the knees and feet can keep working as frames that push the opponent away. What the Torreando does is not push the legs "far away" but push them down and across to one side, forcing the bottom player's pelvis to rotate. Once the hip line is off, the bottom player's feet go from "propping" to "hanging in the air", and from there the top player barely needs strength to walk around to the side.
Three mechanical requirements of the Torreando pass
・Grip height: grip 5 to 10 cm below the knee for the longest lever, which lets you control rotation of both hip and knee at once. Grip the ankle and you only control the far end, so one knee retraction breaks you off.
・Direction of the push: not straight sideways, but down and diagonally, toward the opponent's opposite shoulder, converting a linear push into a hip-rotation torque.
・Timing of the step: the feet must start on the same beat as the push. Half a beat late and the hooks are back on. A common error in slow drilling is finishing the push and only then thinking about moving, which at live speed is the same as never having pushed.
2. Why white belts learn it first: three techniques covered 93% across 140 matches
Williams, Callaway and colleagues published a technique-utilisation study in the International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport in 2019, analysing 140 official white and blue belt matches. White-belt passing choices were highly concentrated: the knee slice, the knee pin and the bullfighter together accounted for 93%. At blue belt, the variety of passes increased noticeably, yet those same three still made up 71%. The same study also recorded that the most common opening was the guard pull, with a success rate as high as 94%, while sweep success rates fell between 38% and 63%.
These numbers say something very practical about training planning: the lower belts play out inside a very narrow band of technique. More than nine in ten of the passes you face as a white belt will be one of those three, so drilling your Torreando defence until it is automatic pays off far more than learning ten exotic guards.
At elite level the picture is different. Lamas and colleagues published a 2024 study in the International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching using a Markov model to analyse all 93 matches and 90 athletes from the 2019 No-Gi World Championship. They found that the highest transition probability between actions by the same athlete was "a guard pass followed by another guard pass", at 0.30. By contrast, taking the back and going straight into a submission carried a probability of 0.45, the most efficient action in the whole event. In other words, at a high level a pass rarely succeeds on the first try; it is a chain of repeated attempts, and the Torreando is one of the most common openings in that chain.
| Passing system | Energy source | Primary control point | Main load on bottom player | Common counters |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Torreando | Lateral displacement and speed | Both pant legs (below knee) | Rotational load on knee and ankle | Retract and re-hook, DLR counter-hook |
| Knee Cut | Shearing and body weight | Far-side underhook | Medial pressure on the cut leg | Underhook sweep, back take |
| Body Lock | Tight-contact pressure | Pelvis and lower-back wrap | Lumbar and hip compression | Frame on hip, roll out |
| Leg Drag | Lateral displacement into contact | One leg dragged across the centre line | End-range internal rotation of one hip | Reverse the hip, recover guard |
3. Passing is the number-one injury situation in the gym: a 26% mechanism bill
Santacaterina and colleagues published a cross-sectional survey in the Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology in 2025, collecting the most severe injury of the past three years from 360 Italian jiu-jitsu practitioners, of whom 331 (92%) had been injured at least once. When injury mechanisms were tallied, the most frequent was "while attempting a guard pass", 86 cases and 26%. Looking only at the 291 injuries that happened in training, "attempting a guard pass" still led with 79 cases and 23.8%. Among the 40 injuries that happened in competition, however, the most common mechanism became "while being submitted", 18 cases and 45%.
The distribution of body regions was equally lopsided: the knee accounted for 103 cases and 31.1%, followed by the shoulder at 42 cases and 12.7%, and the ankle at 8.1%. Overall 88% of injuries occurred in training rather than competition, and return to training was fairly quick, with 65.5% back within a month and 20.8% within three months. The picture these data paint is clear: the overwhelming majority of jiu-jitsu injuries happen in ordinary rolling rather than competition, and they happen in the moment when somebody is trying to pass your guard.
A second reference point comes from Hinz and colleagues' cross-sectional survey of 1,140 jiu-jitsu athletes: the lower limb accounted for 45.7% of all injuries and the knee alone for 27.1%, while by mechanism, submissions accounted for 29.7%, takedowns 26.4%, and guard passing 24.0%. Two independent studies, in different countries with different samples, both put guard passing in the top three mechanisms, which makes the conclusion quite robust.
4. The bottom player's knee: what the joint actually absorbs when your pants get swept aside
The classic risk frame for the bottom player in a Torreando is this: one foot is still planted on the mat or stuck on the opponent while half of your body is being pushed into rotation. The femur is pinned in place by the weight of your torso while the tibia is rotated by an external force, and the mismatch between the two bones is absorbed entirely by the soft tissue of the knee, with the medial collateral ligament (MCL) and the meniscus first in line. This is exactly the pattern that dominates knee-injury research in jiu-jitsu.
Eustaquio and colleagues published a knee-injury epidemiology study in Acta Ortopédica Brasileira in 2021 (n=198, ages 18 to 60, drawn from the same research group and the same sample as the fighting-style study in the next section). It found that 29.8% of respondents had sustained a knee injury, of which the MCL accounted for 38% and the lateral collateral ligament 19%, with 86% classified as sprain mechanisms, 65% treated conservatively, and 88% having been injured only once. The authors also noted that knee-injury prevalence in jiu-jitsu is not low compared with other sports involving rotation and body contact. This maps closely onto Torreando mechanics: the problem is not being pushed, it is the leg failing to turn along with the push.
Another frequently overlooked structure is the ankle. When the top player grips the lower shin rather than below the knee, and the bottom player's foot happens to be jammed against the opponent's hip or thigh, the torque of the redirection lands on the ankle rather than the knee, producing an eversion or inversion twist. Ankles were 8.1% in the Italian study above, not a large figure, but the experience of "a sharp jolt in the ankle when somebody swept my legs aside" is very common in the gym.
One-line principle for the bottom player: if your foot goes, the whole leg goes with it
Functionally the knee is only good at flexion and extension; rotation should come mainly from the hip. When your pant leg is swept to one side, the correct response is to actively turn the same-side hip along with it, so the rotation happens at the hip and not the knee, and then use the momentum of that hip turn to bring the leg back to the centre line and rebuild your frames. Reflexively "hooking on and refusing to let go" forces the knee to absorb a load its structure is not built for, and it is the most common injury choice there is.
5. The top player's price: fingers, conditioning, and the trade-offs of a speed game
The Torreando is not free for the top player either. The first bill lands on the fingers: the whole system depends on both hands staying deeply hooked into pant fabric, so the flexor tendons and pulley system sit under high tension for long stretches, part of why finger-injury prevalence runs high in jiu-jitsu populations. The second bill is cardiorespiratory: lateral-displacement passing is essentially a series of high-intensity sprints.
Rufino and colleagues published a pilot study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2024 (n=7, PMID 38900221) that designed a "Guard Passing Test" in which athletes performed 6 sets of all-out passing and compared it with simulated combat. Heart rate and blood lactate showed no significant difference between the two, while rating of perceived exertion (RPE) rose significantly in sets 4, 5 and 6 compared with set 1, at values comparable to simulated combat. The authors concluded that the passing test is a training tool that effectively reproduces the physiological load of competition. With only 7 participants and a pilot design, the conclusion needs to be read cautiously, but it confirms what everybody in the gym already feels: the metabolic cost of continuous passing is equivalent to a live match.
There is one more tactical trade-off. Eustaquio and colleagues published a 2021 study in the Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine (n=198, mean age 33.2±8.6 years) dividing athletes into "guard fighters" and "passer fighters". Overall injury prevalence was 0.95 per 1,000 hours for guard fighters and 1.08 for passers, with no statistically significant difference between the two styles. By region, however, knee and shoulder injuries skewed significantly toward guard fighters (both p = 0.04). The genuinely significant risk factor was experience: advanced athletes sustained 1.15 injuries per 1,000 hours versus 0.85 for beginners (p < 0.001). The lesson is that choosing to be "the person standing and sweeping legs aside" is not automatically safer; the longer and harder you roll, the more exposure itself becomes the dominant variable.
6. Three layers of bottom defence: a chance before the push, before the turn, and before the pin
Against the Torreando, defence should not be limited to "escape after being passed". Split the timeline apart and the bottom player actually gets several chances to resist, each more expensive than the last.
Keep both feet moving and constantly switch foot placement so your opponent's hands never find stable fabric. At the same time, establish your own grips first: take their sleeve or collar, because once you control their hands, they no longer have two free hands to redirect your legs.
When you feel your legs pushed to one side, do not fight it with your legs. Turn the hip along with the push, land on your side facing your opponent, then immediately bring the top knee back to the centre line and re-establish a hook or a frame. If the rotation happens at the hip, the knee is safe.
As your opponent walks toward your feet, treat your whole body as a disc that turns, keeping your centre line pointed at them. The two most effective tools here are grabbing their ankle to stop the circling and inserting your near-side hand into their hip to build a frame.
Under IBJJF rules, a pass must clear both legs and hold stable control for roughly 3 seconds to score 3 points. The one or two seconds while their chest is landing but has not yet settled is your cheapest chance to resist: insert a frame, turn the hips, and wedge the knee back between you. That often recovers a position that already looked lost.
On the counter-attacking side, the most direct answer to the Torreando within open-guard systems is retracting the leg and re-establishing a hook: as your opponent sweeps both legs to one side, ride the momentum and insert the near foot into their hip-flexor line to build a De La Riva or reverse De La Riva hook, converting their circling momentum into your sweep. This is also why, at higher belts, the Torreando is often used not to pass outright but to bait the opponent into opening their legs, setting up a knee cut or leg drag in combination.
7. An 8-week knee and hip-rotation programme for both sides
Since injuries in "passing situations" cluster almost entirely at the knee and hip, the training goal is clear: open up rotational range at the hip and strengthen the muscles that control that rotation, so the knee never has to take over the job of turning. Run the following 2 to 3 times a week, either separated from jiu-jitsu training or appended after class.
90/90 hip rotation switches, 3 × 8; frog rocks, 3 × 45 seconds; supine active hip internal and external rotation control, 2 × 10. The goal is a hip that can actively keep up when it gets pushed, instead of one that locks.
Side-lying hip abduction, 3 × 15; Copenhagen side plank from the knee-supported start, 3 × 20 seconds; split squats, 3 × 8. The adductors and gluteus medius are the first line of defence controlling knee valgus and internal rotation.
Pallof press anti-rotation, 3 × 10 per side; single-leg Romanian deadlift, 3 × 8; Copenhagen side plank progressed to the full-length version, 3 × 15 seconds. The emphasis is eccentric control, not load.
Have a partner repeatedly sweep your legs aside at half resistance while you drill nothing but the reflex of "turn the hip, retract the knee, re-hook", 3 × 10 per side. Then add 20-second continuous defensive rounds to simulate an opponent constantly switching sides.
The passing side cannot train legs only. Forearm and finger-flexor endurance for sustained deep pant grips, plus the anaerobic endurance to keep circling side to side, decide whether your passing quality still holds up in the third and fourth round. The practical takeaway from the Guard Passing Test design above is this: treat 6 sets of all-out passing as a sport-specific conditioning session, which is far closer to competition demands than extra running.
8. Acute management and medical red flags
If you hear or feel a "pop" inside the knee as your legs are swept aside and swelling follows quickly, stop that roll immediately, ice, compress and elevate, and avoid heat and deep massage for 48 hours. Most jiu-jitsu knee injuries are sprain-grade, and 65% were managed conservatively in the epidemiology study above, but that does not mean you can grade the severity yourself.
・Obvious knee swelling within 2 hours of injury (suggests intra-articular bleeding, common with cruciate ligament or meniscal damage)
・The knee locks, or will not fully straighten or bend (a classic red flag for meniscal entrapment)
・A sense of the knee giving way or buckling when walking, or obvious side-to-side laxity
・Numbness, weakness or pallor in the lower leg or foot (neurovascular signs requiring urgent assessment)
・No sign of improvement in pain or swelling after 2 weeks of conservative management
The recommended order for returning to training is: first restore full pain-free range of motion, then restore single-leg weight-bearing and squatting strength, and only last return to rolling with rotation and resistance. In the Italian survey above, 29.6% of injured practitioners received no treatment at all, and only 49.8% sought physiotherapy. That gap is itself one of the structural reasons jiu-jitsu populations keep getting reinjured.
FAQ
My Torreando keeps getting stuffed and they always recover their legs. Am I just not fast enough?
In most cases it is not a speed problem, it is that you are pushing the legs in the wrong direction. The Torreando wins by turning your opponent's hip line away from you, not by pushing the legs far away. If you push straight sideways their hips still face you, and the moment they retract both legs the hooks are back. The fix is to push both legs down and across to the same side so they are forced onto their side, then step toward their back.
When my pants get grabbed and my legs are swept aside, can that hurt my knee?
A single leg redirection usually will not, the risk appears the instant your foot is planted and the knee is stuck so it cannot rotate with you. The tibia is being rotated by an external force while the femur is pinned by your body weight, so the medial collateral ligament and meniscus take rotation plus valgus at the same time. Knee-injury epidemiology in BJJ shows the MCL accounts for 38% of cases and sprain mechanisms for 86%, so training yourself to turn the whole leg the moment your foot is redirected sharply reduces this pinch.
There are no pant legs to grip in No-Gi. Can I still use the Torreando?
Yes, but the quality of control drops noticeably. In No-Gi you switch to gripping just above the back of the knee or cupping the front of the shin with your palm, and the friction is far lower than fabric, so your pushing angle has to be more precise and your footwork has to start earlier. Elite No-Gi competition has largely shifted toward tight systems such as the body lock pass, and in No-Gi the Torreando works better as an opening that baits the opponent into opening their legs.
If I only start escaping after the pass is complete, is it too late?
It very likely is too late, the golden window for escaping is before your opponent settles. Under IBJJF rules a pass must first establish control past both legs and hold it stable for roughly 3 seconds to score 3 points, so the one or two seconds while their chest is landing on you but has not yet settled is the cheapest chance you get to turn your hips, insert a frame, and put your knee back on the centre line.
Should I wear a knee sleeve when drilling the Torreando pass?
Wear one if you have a previous injury or recurrent swelling, but a healthy knee does not need one routinely. The main value of a sleeve is proprioceptive feedback and cushioning when you kneel, and it cannot prevent a rotational sprain. More effective than any brace is building hip internal and external rotation range plus adductor and gluteus medius strength, so the knee never has to take over rotation from the hip.
Putting the data back on the mat
Read the literature side by side and the position of the Torreando becomes quite clear. It is one of the three staple white-belt passes, together with the knee slice and knee pin covering 93% of passing at the lower belts. At the elite No-Gi level, passing is an action that on average takes many attempts, with "pass into pass" carrying the highest same-athlete transition probability of 0.30. Its costs land on rotational load at the knee and ankle, sustained tension in the fingers, and a metabolic demand equivalent to live competition.
The most important message from the injury statistics is a shift of attention from "which technique is dangerous" back to "which situation is dangerous". Two independent large-sample surveys from different countries both list "attempting a guard pass" among the leading injury mechanisms (26% and 24.0%), while the knee sits firmly first among injured regions (31.1% and 27.1%). That means the lever for reducing risk is not avoiding a particular technique, but changing your first reaction when your legs get swept aside: let the rotation happen at the hip, not the knee. Extrapolating from the literature, where sprain mechanisms are 86% and conservative treatment 65%, most jiu-jitsu knee injuries are preventable and recoverable, provided the practitioner is willing to let go the second something feels wrong rather than holding on until they hear a sound.
Literature cited in this article
・Williams JM, Callaway A, Gara MN, Tattersall P. Technique utilisation and efficiency in competitive Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu matches at white and blue belts. Int J Perform Anal Sport. 2019;19(3):353-369.
・Lamas L, Heiner M, Ferreira M, et al. No-gi Brazilian jiu-jitsu: A Markovian analysis of elite-level combat dynamics. Int J Sports Sci Coach. 2024;19(4).
・Santacaterina F, et al. Is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu a Traumatic Sport? Survey on Italian Athletes' Rehabilitation and Return to Sport. J Funct Morphol Kinesiol. 2025;10(3):286. PMID 40843817.
・Eustaquio J, et al. Does the Fight Profile Interfere with Orthopedic Injuries in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? Open Access J Sports Med. 2021;12:171-178. PMCID PMC8594892.
・Eustaquio JMJ, Rabelo AL, Debieux P, Kaleka CC, Barbosa O. Knee injuries prevalence in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: epidemiological study. Acta Ortop Bras. 2021;29(6):327-330. PMID 34849099.
・Rufino HVO, Franchini E, Forte LDM, et al. Physiological and Perceptual Responses of a Guard Passing Test and a Simulated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Combat: A Pilot Study. J Strength Cond Res. 2024;38(10):e574-e578. PMID 38900221.
・Hinz M, et al. Injury Patterns, Risk Factors, and Return to Sport in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: A Cross-sectional Survey of 1140 Athletes. Orthop J Sports Med. 2021. PMID 34988235.
References
1. Santacaterina F, Tamantini C, Camarro G, et al. (2025). Is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu a Traumatic Sport? Survey on Italian Athletes' Rehabilitation and Return to Sport. J Funct Morphol Kinesiol;10(3):286. PubMed 40843817 (Among 360 Italian jiu-jitsu practitioners, 92% had been injured at least once; "attempting a guard pass" led all injury mechanisms with 86 cases and 26%, the knee was the leading injured region with 103 cases and 31.1%, and 88% of injuries occurred in training.)
2. Hinz M, Kleim BD, Berthold DP, et al. (2021). Injury Patterns, Risk Factors, and Return to Sport in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu: A Cross-sectional Survey of 1140 Athletes. Orthop J Sports Med;9(12):23259671211062568. PubMed 34988235 (Among 1,140 athletes, lower-limb injuries were 45.7% and the knee alone 27.1%; by mechanism, submissions 29.7%, takedowns 26.4% and guard passing 24.0%, providing the cross-validation for the article's claim that two independent studies both place passing in the top three mechanisms.)
3. Eustaquio JMJ, Rabelo AL, Debieux P, Kaleka CC, Barbosa O. (2021). Knee Injuries Prevalence in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: Epidemiological Study. Acta Ortop Bras;29(6):327-330. PubMed 34849099 (n=198, knee-injury prevalence 29.8%, of which the MCL was 38%, sprain mechanisms 86%, conservative treatment 65%, and 88% had only one knee injury, supporting the structural analysis of knee injuries in this article.)
4. Eustaquio JMJ, Borges AMF, Vilela LS, et al. (2021). Does the Fight Profile Interfere with Orthopedic Injuries in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu? Open Access J Sports Med;12:171-178. PubMed 34803410 (Guard fighters at 0.95 per 1,000 hours and passers at 1.08 showed no significant difference, while advanced athletes at 1.15 were significantly higher than beginners at 0.85, supporting the article's point that experience and exposure are the real risk factors.)
5. Rufino HVO, Franchini E, Forte LDM, et al. (2024). Physiological and Perceptual Responses of a Guard Passing Test and a Simulated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Combat: A Pilot Study. J Strength Cond Res;38(10):e574-e578. PubMed 38900221 (A 7-participant pilot study in which 6 sets of all-out passing showed no significant difference from simulated combat in heart rate or blood lactate, with perceived exertion rising significantly in sets 4, 5 and 6, supporting the article's claim that continuous passing costs as much metabolically as a live match.)