This sweep is not very flashy or complicated, nor is it at all original
or unique. It is pretty simple, maybe even stupidly so, thus my name
for it: the stupid simple sweep. And as I'll explain later, you'll
rarely get it exactly as shown below.
But none of that stops it it from being my one of my current favorites.
Jon is in my closed guard with posture, holding my lapels. I am cupping
his right wrist with my left hand and cross gripping his sleeve with my
right hand.
I open my guard and step on his hips with both feet. I keep my knees
pressing in towards him so he can't easily reach back and push them
down.
I straighten my legs and push off his hips to scoot away.
I sit up then quickly jerk my chest back as I shove my hands up, stripping his grip off my lapel.
I sit up again after stripping his grip. My left foot comes off his hip and steps on the inside of his right knee.
I sit forward and cross his arm as I kick his knee out, blocking it with my foot.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT DETAIL: Do not try to just push their knee straight
back -- that won't work. They've got a lot of weight on the knee and
pushing straight into it won't move it much. Instead, push it out (from
the inside) to spread their knees apart and then push it back. This is
much, much easier, as you will see if you experiment a little with it.
From the other angle, notice how my foot is still on his hip. I've
tried to switch to a butterfly hook at this point, but it doesn't have
much power to lift them when I'm sitting so far away. Instead, it
serves more of a purpose on their hip, helping to stretch them out. I
will also use my knee and shin on his chest to help twist him for the
sweep.
I fall back, using my body weight to pull his arm and I keep pushing
his knee out. Notice how stretched out Jon is. You won't always get it
this good in sparring, but you can sure try.
If everything goes exactly as planned, you get this really exaggerated
mid-sweep shot. Most people won't really get this stretched out, but
this gives you an idea of how much commitment I put into it.
As he rolls sideways, I twist my hips and come on top.
Tudda. Mount.
As I said at the start, you'll rarely get this sweep as shown here. If
you do get it, you're lucky if you get it on your first try. But that's
not really why I go for it. I just like to use the threat of this sweep
more than anything. This sweep is really simple, not much more than
just pulling their arm and kicking out their knee, but this is actually
its virtue. You can just keep repeating it over and over and over again
until it works or they give you something else.
Keep kicking out their knee, breaking their base, breaking posture,
crossing the arm, stretching them out. Over and over and over. They'll
posture, they'll pull back, they'll try to post their hands and feet,
they'll try to stand up, they'll go to combat base, they'll do all
sorts of stuff. But none of those really stop you from just trying to
hit this sweep again. As simple as it is, they've got to defend it, and
it's how they react to this that will setup other sweeps and
submissions. Later I'll show how I armdrag and take the back off this.
If you're good boys and girls, I'll also use it to setup a
triangle-armbar.
For example, just yesterday, I rolled with two purple belts and
probably went for this sweep ten times on each one. I'd go for it but
they'd defend somehow, so I'd reset enough to go for it again. And
again. And again. By about the fourth or fifth time, they'd have fallen
enough behind that the next time I tried, it actually worked. Or they'd
be so messed up from trying to recover that I'd switch to another sweep
or a triangle. Talking to one of them afterwards, he said that he felt
like he was always behind, trying to catch up and could never settle
himself to even start passing.
So keep the pressure on, keep threatening this sweep, go for it with
commitment over and over again, and they'll fall more and more behind,
until you finally get them with it or something better.
Oh, and before I forget, a little more on the grips. Here is the one I use:
One hand cups the wrist and the other pistol grips the gi. I like this
grip for several reasons, including 1) the pistol grip controls them
trying to pull out and is good for pulling them back, 2) the grip on
the wrist controls side to side movement well and prevents them from
doing an easy circular grip break and 3) my fingers don't get wrecked
when they rip out.
You could also grip this way:
Pretty much the same, only with a different grip on the sleeve. It's more secure but more taxing on your fingers.
Or this way:
This grip probably gives you the most pulling power on their arm, but
doesn't control it much in other directions and is easier to escape
with circular grip breaks. But mostly it just rubs my knuckles raw
until they bleed and turns my hands to claws when they rip their arm
out.