Leverage and Sweeps

In the last few months, I have been focused on trying to figure out more about leverage in grappling. Seeing as I am smaller than most of the people I grapple, being able to sweep someone when I get into a bottom position is pivotal (no pun intended. ;P).

I know it will take me years and years of training to really figure out how to use leverage masterfully. It's one of those things that you can only learn by trial and error--seeing an opportunity, trying it, tweaking it, figuring out why it worked (or didn't work) and what other positions you might be able to use it in. Playing with leverage has become one of my favorite things to do because it's such a puzzle.

One thing I have learned is how important it is to bring the person's weight on top of me. It seems so opposite of what reason would tell me to do. I want to get OUT from under this person, not pull them MORE on top of me. But in order to sweep someone larger than you, you have to get them off of their base in order to take them over. Otherwise, they will be too heavy or strong and won't budge. The way to get them off of their base is to bring them on top of you. Then, you can block their posts (arms or legs) and take them to whatever side you are aiming for.

A key detail in this that I am noticing is that hipping--and being on your hips--is key. For example, if I am in bottom halfguard and I want to sweep someone, I first need to get on my side. Being flat on my back when I am on the bottom in any position is not good. Even when I am working guard, I should never be just laying flat on my back.

After I get onto my hip, using the mobility I now have with being on my side makes a huge difference in whether or not I actually can get a sweep to work. Sometimes that means I have to hip in order to get more underneath the person and bring their weight on top of me, getting them off their base.

Here's a rule of thumb that I am going by recently with sweeps: If my arms and neck are straining, or if a person feels very heavy when I am trying to sweep, I haven't gotten them off their base yet and chances are I need to hip in underneath them more.

The other things about moving my hips while sweeping is that I need to be mobile and switch hips sometimes. If you try to sweep a person in one direction and they post, you have to be ready to take them in the other direction. That means switching which hip you are on. If nothing else, switching directions like that creates space and usually starts a scramble. If you don't get the sweep, you still might have created enough room to hip out to one side or take the back or return to your guard.

What details do you focus on when you are trying to sweep from the bottom?

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.

Hip Movement -- I Have To Commit!

I've been trying to get more hip movement going when I am on the bottom. So...I guess I could rephrase that as: I am trying to get more hip movement when I grapple. :) The main thing I struggle with is getting stuck half way through a move. Someone starts to pass or move, I hip the way I am supposed to go in order to either take their back or get a sweep, and then...nothing. I get stuck. And passed.

But I think I am beginning to see where my problem is.

We worked takedowns the other day (I am not switching topics. This applies the above quandary)and, at first, I had the same problems I always have. I was too tentative. But this time, I was actually getting to spar against a girl my size instead of a giant man beast. So, my confidence grew. I started committing when I shot in and had a lot more success.

Later, after class, I was complaining to Fabio about how frustrated I was because of something I MUST be doing wrong with my hipping. I was not getting sweeps. I was not taking the back. At best, I was able to defend my guard.

He said he did notice one thing I was doing at one particular point. I was trying to take this guy's back and I hipped out...but not enough. He said I hipped out once, a little bit, then tried to go. It didn't work. He said I needed to commit and really hip out.



I wasn't committing. It was the same problem I have when I do take downs. I do the technique a little bit. But a little bit isn't going to get the job done. I have to really go for it.

Which means I have to abandon my guard. Ooooooh....No me gusta.

You guys know about my love affair with guard. I can't seem to get myself to let go of it. Or, er, of the person inside of it. But I have to if I want to be successful! If I am going to sweep, I need to commit to the sweep, not kind of try the sweep while I'm still trying to keep guard at the same time. That doesn't work!

I just have to take the risks. Sure, sometimes it STILL won't work. And then I'll be stuck in some yucky bad place that I have to squirm out of. But it sure as heck isn't going to work if I don't commit to it.

Ye of Little Faith

I have been running into a frustration lately when guys hold onto my arms while I have them in my guard. Whether they are pinning my arms down to the mat, or simply grabbing and holding on wherever my arms happen to be, it's a really frustrating thing.

Ninety percent of the time, said guys are stronger than me. So just yanking my arms free is not an option. Sometimes moving them at all is not an option. I try to do the thing where you turn your wrist around in a circle to break their grips, but sometimes I can't even get my arms off the mat to turn my wrists.

I was talking to Fabio about it this afternoon and I told him I tried and it didn't work. He told me I was trying and giving up. I need to not only turn my wrist one way, but if they resist that way, turn them the other way.

I said, "But they're too strong."

And he shrugged and said, "Ok. Then Jiu-jitsu doesn't work."

That got me back peddling. He has explained to me before that, if someone has my arms pinned, fine. I can still move the rest of my body. If their weight is forward in my guard enough to pin my arms to the mat, I should be able to use my legs against them. I should be able to move my hips.

I can't move them. They are too strong. But I can move myself around them. That's what I have to try to remember.

Technique Today:

We worked on a sweep from butterfly guard. You have your opponent in butterfly guard and you hip out diagonally to one side, keeping your hooks in, but letting your bottom leg be flat against the mat. At the same time, on the same side that you hipped out, you swim the under hook and hold across the person's back. If they post out with their other hand, grab them at the wrist and pull their arm to your hip. This will make them fall on their shoulder. You drop onto your shoulder and onto the trapped arm. Hip into them, using your feet-hooks to bring them over.

Variation: If they sprawl when you hip out diagonally, take their back.

And Over We Go

The other day, I had the lucky fortune of being watched by Fabio while I was grappling. Most of the time, he does the whole thing where he is pretending to watch someone else when really he is watching you, but this time he was sitting on the wall resting and just watching the few grapples that were going on.

It made me nervous, but he ended up pointing out something simple that I've been doing that I need to change. A lot of times I try to play an open-guard. When people start to pass, I try to use my knees as obstacles. But Fabio pointed out that, at a certain point, I abandon my knee defense because the person is moving up my side and I kind of give up and accept that they have side control. It's not in a situation when I can go inverted, because in these cases, there isn't space.

He explained that, when they start working up, instead of giving up my knee barriers because they're getting up too high, I need to go with them and take them over my head. It's kind of like going inverted. But I should end up on top.

I am going to try this in my next few grapples. I know one thing standing in my way of doing this. I think I will really need to relax in order to do it, and to resist the urge to push the person away with my knees. I need to use them like a lever. Bring the person onto them then tip them up and over. I have seen Fabio do it. I will try a feeble attempt at mimicry tomorrow. :)

They Were Right

Went to class tired and cranky, not really wanting to be social. Had a crappy night at BJJ last night and I wasn't looking forward to a repeat. Liam did a great post on his blog, The Part Time Grappler, that goes over some of same issues I was dealing with. Nothing like having an outside perspective to give you a new take on a situation. I think I need to work on being less forthcoming about my aggravations with people on here and more forthcoming with the actual people I am dealing with. lol. Even so, I didn't feel like grappling today.

Turned out to be one of the best classes I've had in a while. Guess they were right about the whole "the best time to grapple is when you're tired" thing. We worked the same exact x-guard sweep as last night, but I took away a completely different set of lessons.

The first thing that really stuck out to me today was the importance of hipping in. A lot of emphasis is given in BJJ to the hip out. But the hip-IN is just as important. Without it, most sweeps cannot be done correctly. That is definitely the case with this x-guard sweep. If I expect to get my little legs up underneath some guy who has got seventy pounds on me, I have to first hip under him to get him off his base and get his weight up over my body so I can move him around. I can tell when I haven't hipped in enough when I am having to use a lot of muscle to pull his weight up on top of me.

The second thing that I took away from today was that I have to be ready to stand up sometimes during a grapple. In this case, when you are executing the sweep, you have hold of the person's leg (you swim it in the beginning). As you are trying to take them over, they may post out wide with their arms. But the sweep is not lost. If you still have hold of their leg, you can stand up and pull their hip up and in toward you, forcing them to fall back. Then you can drop into knee on belly or side control. It never occurs to me to stand up during a grapple. Need to be more aware of that option!

During grappling, I found myself trying to use spider guard a lot. I was trying to sweep people using spider guard, but was having very limited success. And by limited, I mean none. After my grapple with Ben, I asked him if he could pretty please show me how to sweep someone using spider guard. Don't know how many times I've seen this already. But I was forgetting key details.

Instead of just pushing on the person's elbow with my foot and trying to pull them over and down, what I need to do is bring my knee in and then out to the side again in a "V" motion. At the same time, I let go of the opposite arm and grab hold of their leg on the sweep-side, pulling their leg in. If I do the motions all together, it takes away their ability to stop themselves from falling on that side.

I'm going to play around with this and see if I can use the same idea to sweep from inverted guard. In that situation, my legs and arms are reversed, but I think the concept can still work. I don't know. I'll give it a go.