DOUBLE UNDER PASS

The double under pass is the pressure-passing technique in which the passer threads both arms under the opponent's thighs from inside the guard, grips the opponent's lapels or belt with both hands, and walks the legs up while stacking the bottom player's body onto itself. Bernardo Faria built much of his five-time IBJJF World Championship career around this single technique, and his instructional series on it became one of the most-watched passing tutorials of the 2010s.

The entry is established from a kneeling position inside an open or partially-opened closed guard. The passer drops the chest forward onto the opponent's thighs, threads both arms underneath, and grips the lapels above the opponent's chest. The walking-up motion begins immediately: the passer drives forward with the chest while stepping the knees up toward the opponent's shoulders, folding the opponent's hips above their own torso. As the legs stack, the passer commits weight forward and to one side, dropping the opponent's legs to that side and arriving in side control or knee-on-belly.

What makes the double under particularly effective is that it works against larger opponents better than against smaller ones — the larger the bottom player, the less hip mobility they have to escape the stack, and the more the technique's mechanical lever rewards committed forward pressure. Faria's competitive run was characterized by repeated double-under finishes against opponents twenty to thirty pounds heavier, and the technique remains one of the few BJJ passes that scales upward against size.

Defensively the double under is countered by establishing strong frames against the passer's biceps before the underhook completes, by spinning to a knee-shield half guard as the legs are being threaded, by snake-rolling out the back to reverse position, or by attacking a triangle from the stacked configuration. The technique requires significant grip strength and conditioning to execute repeatedly, which is one of the reasons it is more common at black belt than at lower belts.