When on top, your first responsibility is balance: It seems there is always a thousand things going on second by second in Jiu jitsu. It's natural to focus on one or two things and get caught out by ignoring a third or fourth. Sometimes it's good to ignore all the clutter and just focus on most important thing in that position. When it comes to passing guard from top there are a vast number of things that could occupy your attention. You have to avoid getting swept. You have to stay out of submissions. You have to employ some form of guard passing method to improve your position. As your opponent works hard to impose his game from bottom, you can get overwhelmed with all the moment to moment demands of the situation. Understand however that there is one demand that needs to satisfied before all the others – you have to STAY OF TOP. The moment you lose top position you're down on points and you can forget all the passes you were considering a moment ago – you will have to swap over entire now to bottom game. Whenever you feel you have too many competing demands while playing top passing – just focus on retaining top position as your opponent goes for his best sweeps and submissions. The longer you hold top against his attacks the more tired he will become and the easier the secondary task of passing will become.
