# Stupid Simple Scissors Sweep



## Aesopian (Sep 25, 2006)

While planning my stupid simple sweep series, I decided to show how to do it off a failed scissors sweep. But then it struck me: in all my interneting, I've never seen a good and detailed scissors sweep tutorial. Those that I have found lack a lot of important details or are not even what I'd call a "scissors sweep". So I resolved to shoot my own instructional of the move and put it up along side my stupid simple sweeps.

Here it is.







Jon is in my closed guard with posture. I grab just under both his elbows. I don't know which way I want to sweep him yet so I hold both arms.

The placement of this grip is more important that you probably realize. If I were to just hold his wrists, when I went for the sweep, even if I pulled his hand away, he'd still be able to drop his elbow to the mat and post on it. With this elbow grip, I can take his elbow and forearm away.






Starting to stand, Jon gets to his right foot.






Seeing his right foot go up, I get a cross collar grip on the opposite side, since that's the direction I'll be sweeping him.

I'm sorry to say that I made an error in this photo. I should have reached under his arm to grab the collar, not over. It just gives you better inside control of his posture.






I open my guard and straighten my left leg, making it heavy and stiff on his thigh. I use this to lift my hips, slide backwards and turn sideways.






In addition to my Halloween underwear, from this angle you can see how I am stiffening my leg against his thigh to lift my hips, scoot back and turn on my side.






Aftering scooting away and turning sideways, I drive my knee across his waist, so my shin is across his stomach and my foot is hooking his hips.






From the other side, you can see how my knee has penetrated all the way to the other side. Also notice how my bottom leg is laying on the mat away from his knee. This space is important later when I want to chop out his knee.






Now I pull him forward to break his balance and lift him with my shin. But there's more to this than you may realize -- I know there is more than I realized. Most people will just pull down into themselves, with their elbows going down to the mat. This is weak for two reasons: that just pulls their weight down on to you and your elbows hit the ground before they can generate much power.

I train with a brown belt codenamed Mean Jeff whose number one sweep is the scissors and has been for years. Having been on the receiving end of it several thousand times, I can tell you that he'll make you do airtime and flip over before hitting the ground, not just fall sideways as you do in drilling.

While teaching a class on nothing but the scissors sweep, Jeff showed how he does this. When he pulls them, he actually tries to bring his elbows over his head, like he wants them to fly over him. He said its like how judoka do kazushi for throws. The movement is what a Raspado, a purple belt in BJJ and green in judo, calls "looking at your watch", where you bring your wrists up to your face.

When you do this, you'll feel their weight come off their legs, making them really easy to scissors now, since their center of gravity is no longer resting over them.






From the side, you can see how I'm doing "judo elbows" on him and taking his weight off his legs. 

My bottom leg chops out his knee. When I do this, I make sure to slide it along the mat and hit them at the very bottom of their knee. Some people have a habit of lifting this leg and chopping them at the waist, which doesn't take out their leg.






Twisting my hips to come on top.






Now in mount. Notice how I'm still holding the same collar and elbow grip. You can use this to take an armbar in the last photo instead of mounting, but that's for another day.

I've seen a lot of people complain about the scissors sweep, usually about it being so basic that everyone can counter it. I think part of this is that too many people wish it were a one-shot sweep, like it should magically work the first try. Another lesson that came out of Jeff's class is that, like with anything in BJJ, you need to have different setups and follow-ups for the scissors sweep to get the most out of it.

So below I present the equivalent of the stupid simple sweep as a follow-up to a failed scissors sweep.






As should be clear from my expression, I went for a scissors sweep but it failed. Jon was able to keep his base.






I bring my bottom leg up and step on the inside of his knee.






Kicking out his knee, I scissors my top leg again and do judo elbows. You should know the extremely important detail on how I push the knee from the last two tutorials.






Twisting my hips to come on top.


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## Aesopian (Sep 25, 2006)

Mount with smugness.


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