Reverse! -- Half Guard Sweeps

This afternoon, Fabio taught us a series of bottom half-guard sweeps. I say series because it is one of those things that is an "if/then" situation. If your opponent does this, then you do this.

Two major things stuck out to me as "most important" in this series:

1. Getting your opponent off balance by switching directions. One of the central ideas of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is not fighting force with force, but instead "going with" your opponent and using their momentum against them. First you try to sweep one way, but they block. You be prepared to either sweep them the way that they are pushing or to take advantage of whatever space they are making. Instead of trying to force something, go another way. And then another way. And then another way. You keep switching directions until you catch them off balance and then take them over.

I used to waste a lot of energy trying to force sweeps to happen. Now, I try to be more patient and to keep moving. Sometimes it takes a while to actually get the sweep, especially if the person is bigger. Sometimes I don't even get the sweep, but instead have to use the space created by the sweep attempt to return to my guard.

The important thing I am learning is to go with my opponent and use their movement and weight distribution to my advantage as much as possible.

2. Bringing your opponent on top of you. For a long time, this seemed counter productive to me, especially if my opponent was heavier than me. How would bringing their weight on top of me help?

I am only just starting to understand how to do this with bigger people, but the benefits I see so far are that(1)it removes the effectiveness of their posts. Their weight is on you, not on their arms or legs and (2)when you bring the person on top of you, they have to go where your body goes. If I bring someone on top of me and turn my body to the side, they will fall off to the side.

Other random things I noticed that are important with half guard sweeps:

1. Hipping into the person or diving under the person (in order to bring the person on top of you).

2. Using your knees to pinch the leg and help bring the person up on top of you and then over.

3. NOT using arm strength, but instead using arms to remove bases or swim things.

4. UNDERHOOKS!! :)

I think for the next month or so, I would like to focus on trying to get better at half guard sweeps and side control escapes; especially side control escapes from the scarf hold. We'll see how it goes.