Key Takeaways
- Giancarlo Bodoni Toreando Passing DVD review — a five-part, 33-chapter No-Gi instructional in which the two-time ADCC champion turns his own top game into a systematic passing framework.
- $197 for roughly 2h47m of material, sequenced principles-first, then applied to seated, supine, reverse-grip and misdirection scenarios.
- The course’s real thesis is that the toreando pass is a gateway into tight passing, not a standalone pass — it builds toward half guard, chest-to-chest pressure and back exposure.
- Concept-driven in the John Danaher mold, with explicit troubleshooting — frame clearing, camping and the head-below-the-knee rule — rather than a loose move list.
- No-Gi only and narrow in scope: Gi pant-grip toreando players and anyone expecting a complete top-game system will need to supplement it.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 8.5 out of 10.
The Passing Formula: Toreando Passing Giancarlo Bodoni DVD DOWNLOAD
Giancarlo Bodoni built his reputation on the bottom — and this site’s coverage of him has followed suit. The De La Riva guard, the half guard, the closed guard, the omoplata and the ashi garami: all reviewed, all guard play. Yet the two ADCC titles that made Bodoni famous were won as much by how he passed guards as by how he played his own.
Toreando Passing Giancarlo Bodoni DVD is the first of his instructionals to put that top game under a microscope, and it arrives as a $197, five-part course built around the oldest open guard pass in the book. The interesting part is how Bodoni himself frames the material. He does not pitch the toreando as a pass you finish; he pitches it as a doorway.
The way I like to think about it is as a gateway into my tight passing — or at least a gateway into creating more connection between me and my training partner.
– Giancarlo Bodoni –
That single sentence is the entire thesis of the course, and the question any buyer should ask is whether the instructional actually delivers a coherent framework around it, or just a pile of techniques that happen to share a name. The answer sits in how the five parts are ordered.
Why The Toreando Still Matters
The toreando — the bullfighter pass — is the first pass most grapplers learn against a seated open guard: control the legs, move them off the centre line, and circle into side control. It looks simple, which is exactly why so many players plateau on it. Against anyone decent, the classic two-step version stops working the moment the bottom player posts a frame, re-squares, or simply keeps reconnecting their feet to your hips. The Gi toreando pass has its own rich history, but the No-Gi version Bodoni is selling is a different animal entirely.
That distinction is worth a paragraph, because the product page never spells out which ruleset the course is for. The previews are explicitly No-Gi, and every grip in the chapter list — forearm shuck, armpit post, wrist snap, ankle pull, heel pull — is a No-Gi grip. Bodoni, relaying John Danaher in the previews, put the difference plainly: in the Gi the pass is almost two steps — grab the pants, move sideways, gable grip, done — while in No-Gi there is always “something in between.”
That “something in between” is what this course spends 33 chapters on — the connective tissue that turns the toreando into a complete No-Gi guard passing framework rather than a demo reel.
Kingsway’s Giancarlo Bodoni
Bodoni is a black belt under Lucas Lepri, promoted in October 2020, and a member of John Danaher’s New Wave/Kingsway Jiu Jitsu squad in Austin. He won the ADCC World Championship at 88 kg in 2022 and again in 2024, alongside a 2021 IBJJF Pan No-Gi gold and a string of colored-belt No-Gi World and Pan titles.
For a DVD about passing, the credibility that matters most is this: Bodoni’s two ADCC runs were built on relentlessly getting past elite open guards, and his ADCC guard passing is the reason those runs happened. A grappler who passes guards for a living is the right person to teach passing — and unlike most of his instructionals, which cover the guard game, this one is drawn from the half of his skill set this site has never reviewed.
Toreando Passing Giancarlo Bodoni DVD Review: Detailed Breakdown
The five parts are sequenced like an actual curriculum, and that ordering is the strongest single piece of evidence that this is a system, not a grab bag.
Part 1: The Toreando Principles
The course opens with order of operations, managing connection — Bodoni calls it “staying in the pocket” — then 360 degrees, continuity of movement, and directional change with pace. This is the conceptual engine for everything after it. The throughline is the idea that the toreando is won on angles and rhythm, not foot speed.
Think about speed not so much in terms of how fast you are, but speed of directional change.
– Giancarlo Bodoni –
It is the kind of framing that separates a taught system from a list of moves, and it is precisely what the Danaher-schooled Bodoni is best at.
Part 2: Seated vs Standing
Here the principles meet the first live scenario: an opponent sitting up with their feet on you. The chapters run through negating contact, putting their back on the mat, a misdirectional step, an ankle pull, and combining both entries before finishing with leading with the head. The progression is visibly one problem — break the seated opponent’s connection — solved several ways, which is the structure you want from a passing course rather than five disconnected techniques.
Part 3: Supine vs Standing, Hip and Knee Post
This is where the “gateway” thesis gets its teeth. Against an opponent flat on their back with hips and knees posted, Bodoni leans on outside camping, forcing half guard, a camping leg pummel, and transitions from outside camp to shin to shin and north south.
The camping concept — settling into a position and letting your weight do the work — is the modern No-Gi passing idea that ties the toreando directly into tight passing. Forcing half guard and shin to shin are not the end of a toreando; they are the start of the next pass.
Part 4: Reverse Grips
The longest section is where the troubleshooting lives. Frame clearing gets two dedicated chapters — the knee block and the wrist snap — alongside the forearm shuck, armpit post, high feet with the stack pass threat, high step, leg connection and footwork. The unifying detail is the one Bodoni repeats most.
I want to clear the frame just enough that I can get my head below your knee.]
–Giancarlo Bodoni –
That head-below-the-knee rule is the course’s answer to why the toreando stalls, and having a single positional principle to return to is what makes the reverse grips section feel coherent rather than stuffed.
Part 5: Misdirection and Finishing the Pass
The closer collects the payoffs: creating a tense body, brushing the leg, heel and ankle pulls, hand post misdirection, a reverse scoop, and a north-south misdirect, ending on a chapter Bodoni titles “What You Are Looking to Achieve.” That last chapter is telling — it reframes the goal of the whole course as position, not pass completion. You are aiming for chest-to-chest, half guard, or a back exposure, not a clean side-control landing every time.
Drilling Torreando Passes
This is a course you can drill as a unit, which is unusual. The principles in Part 1 give you a checklist — angle, connection, continuity, pace — that applies to every scenario in Parts 2 through 5, so the material compounds rather than fragments. Realistically, the 33 chapters break into a few focused weeks of study: the principles and one application section at a time, with the frame-clearing details from Part 4 revisited constantly.
Because the concepts transfer, a grappler who internalizes the angle and misdirection lessons will find their other open guard passing improving as a side effect, even if the toreando itself is what they came to fix.
WATCH NOW: Toreando Passing Giancarlo Bodoni DVD
Who Is This For?
This is aimed squarely at No-Gi grapplers from late white belt through black belt who already have a passing base and keep getting stalled by frames and leg recovery. Competitors moving from Gi to No-Gi will find the ruleset discussion especially sharp, since Bodoni’s whole point is that the pass genuinely is different without the uniform.
The Toreando Passing Giancarlo Bodoni DVD will also click for anyone who wants a concept-first passing system rather than another fifty moves to memorise. Who it is not for: pure Gi players who want the pant-grip toreando (this is not that pass), absolute beginners with no passing fundamentals to hang these ideas on, and anyone expecting a complete top-game system — the course openly positions itself as an entry point to tight passing, not a replacement for it.
Those players will still need the half guard passing work and dedicated tight-passing material, whether Bodoni’s own or a New Wave passing set.
Pros And Potential Drawbacks
Pros:
- A genuinely coherent system — principles first, then applications, then troubleshooting — rather than a collection of loosely related moves.
- Elite, on-topic credibility: the instructor won two ADCC titles largely on this exact No-Gi guard passing.
- Strong concept-first teaching that gives you a reusable checklist instead of a memorized sequence.
- Real troubleshooting baked in, from frame clearing to camping to the head-below-the-knee rule.
- Honest framing: the course tells you up front the toreando pass is a gateway, not a finished pass.
Potential Drawbacks:
- Roughly 2h47m is modest for a $197 asking price, and the chapter list does not flag dedicated live-rolling or full-resistance application footage.
- The “gateway” framing is a feature and a limit: on its own, the course is an entry point, not a finished top game.
The Torreando Formula
The Toreando Passing Giancarlo Bodoni DVD is the missing half of the site’s Bodoni coverage, and it lands as a real system rather than a move dump. The sequencing — order of operations, connection, angles, misdirection, reverse grips, then finishing — matches exactly what Bodoni promises in his previews, and the troubleshooting is specific enough to actually fix a stalled pass.
For the No-Gi passer who keeps getting stopped on the way in, this Giancarlo Bodoni Toreando Passing DVD lands as a strong, honest buy for the right grappler, with clear limits for everyone else.
Reviewed by: Ognen Dzabirski, BJJ black belt, full-time coach and gym owner. The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication
