CARTWHEEL PASS

The cartwheel pass is the dynamic guard-pass technique in which the passer rotates their body through a half-cartwheel motion over the bottom player's legs, landing in side control on the opposite side. The technique is used against bottom players who have established strong leg-based control (De La Riva, lasso, spider) and where conventional walking passes are not viable because the bottom player's grips and hooks prevent lateral motion.

The entry begins when the bottom player has established a leg-control configuration the passer cannot walk through or around. The passer plants one hand on the bottom player's thigh or hip, kicks one leg into the air, and rotates their body sideways and over the bottom player's legs in a half-cartwheel motion. As the body completes the rotation, the passer lands on the opposite side in a side-control configuration, with the bottom player's leg-based control disrupted by the unexpected rotational pass direction.

The cartwheel pass requires substantial athleticism and is one of the harder modern passes to execute reliably under live resistance. It is most often seen at the IBJJF black-belt and brown-belt level in matches where the passer has been stalemated by an elite open-guard player and needs an unconventional answer. Yuri Simoes, Lucas Hulk Barbosa, and Mica Galvao have used variations in modern competition. Defensively the cartwheel is countered by maintaining grips throughout the rotation (which often disrupts the passer's landing angle), by quickly inverting to follow the passer, or by attacking a leg lock if the passer's leg becomes exposed during the cartwheel.