Welcome, Estudantes, to Sweep Theory 101.

The purpose of this post is to help my tribe, my Estudantes, think about their Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in a new, fresh way. These are the sweep concepts that work for me, and they are broad enough that I think everybody can benefit from them. Nothing is 100%, but approaching sweeps using these core principles have really increased my sweep success rate.

I spent a long time learning Jiu Jitsu the wrong way.

To put it more precisely, I didn’t learn the wrong way, I was (and sometimes still am) taught it in the wrong way. My Jiu Jitsu system didn’t really improve like I wanted it to until I took my education into my own hands. I find it overwhelming to spend a class learning a series of ultra-specific moves branching off of some themed position. I just can’t bring up that obscure technique or detail that I drilled 3 years ago. Especially while in the heat of a live roll. I need concepts that I can fall back on.

Concepts are adaptable.

Concepts grow with me and allow me to be creative when situations get tough. Details are what separate a brown belt from a black. Most of us aren’t brown belts, so details overwhelm and paralyze us. This resource may be lacking in specific moves, but it is rich in concepts, which can be adapted towards your specific body type and style of Jiu Jitsu. Mastering a single concept is like learning a thousand techniques at once. Spend your time learning why a particular technique works, and you’ll be a much more competent grappler than if you mindlessly drill each variant over and over and over just in case that specific scenario comes up in a live roll. My goal is to introduce you to the foundation that almost every sweep is derived. Understanding that will help you understand how each and every sweep variant works, and perhaps why it failed when you tried it last. It will help you understand what you can do in order to succeed next time. Understanding and internalizing the core concepts will allow you to improvise during a live roll and even pull off sweeps that you’ve never seen before.

The first thing that we need to do is define a sweep.

I’ll take a broad definition and say a sweep is taking an opponent from an equal or dominant position and forcing them into the inferior bottom position. In a very broad sense, it is flipping somebody that is on the offensive into a defensive position. If that’s unclear, you’ll know you’ve swept somebody when they go from looking down at you to looking up at you because of something you intentionally did.

So… you are simply trying to flip somebody over.

See how easy that is? What’s weird, though, is that it took more than half of a decade for me to figure that out. People don’t teach you to flip somebody over. They teach you how to scissor sweep. Or hip bump. Or butterfly. Or bridge and roll. Or whatever and whatever and whatever. But when’s the last time that your professor told you to just flip somebody over?

A typical human body is, in its simplest form, a cylinder with 4 moving sticks attached to it, plus a smallish, lumpy stick at the top. It’s those five moving stick–or limbs–that keep the cylinder from just rolling right off of you. When you decide it’s time to flip somebody over, your priority becomes manipulating those limbs so that they can’t make it difficult to roll the cylinder around.

A sweep will almost always use this core concept: incapacitate two adjacent “sticks” and then push the cylinder in that direction.

So you need two main parts—a way to control two limbs, and a way to manipulate the mass of the cylinder body. The easiest thing to do is control an arm and a leg on the same side of their body and then push their body over those incapacitated limbs. If they can’t reach out with an arm and/or leg to stop the roll, then they have no leverage to stop you. You might have to get creative (and sometimes strong), but the core of most sweeps is in this concept.

The thing that took me so long to understand was what it meant to incapacitate the limbs.

It’s not always as straightforward as gripping a limb. For example, if an opponent is using one of the limbs to support their weight, then that limb is now anchored to the mat. Think about if somebody is standing on one leg. If they get pushed by anything, they’ll fall over unless they can either do a little hop or utilize another limb to catch themselves. That one supporting leg is basically incapacitated because it doesn’t have full mobility. It is performing a critical job of keeping the person upright, so even without you grabbing it, you incapacitate that limb if you keep them from adjusting their weight distribution.

via GIPHY

This concept can be used to incapacitate a limb when you get to be a more advanced sweeper. Shifting your opponents mass so that their weight is centered on a limb, rather than having their weight evenly distributed between two or more limbs, allows you to control that limb remotely without ever having to touch it. If I can get my opponent to put all their weight on one leg by pulling on their sleeve and/or lapel, and then knock that leg out from underneath them, they will flip before they know what hit them.

So, when you’re decide to sweep somebody, you’ll need to look for the two main components of the sweep: limb control and mass management.

This doesn’t have to be complicated. Start with that simple idea of wanting to flip somebody over. You’ll need to decide which direction you want to flip them (left, right, over your head, etc.), and start planning ahead to make it happen. Let’s say you want to flip them to your right. The first thing you’ll need to do is understand that they won’t want to be flipped, and when you make your move, they will try to stop you. A successful sweep will depend on you removing the ability of them to put a hand, foot, or head onto the mat on the right side. You’ll need to make sure both the arm and the leg on that side are incapacitated. Think of it like this: you know they’ll instinctively reach out to catch themselves when you push them, so for a sweep to work, you have to squash their ability to reach out in that direction. There are hundreds of variations of scenarios, but they all boil down to how can you incapacitate two of those limbs—and here is the important part—get the rest of your opponent’s mass moving in that direction.

Often, the most difficult part of the sweep is mass control.

via GIPHY

Grips can be easy, but convincing every atom in your opponent’s body to suddenly move in a direction that it wasn’t planning on going can be a tricky maneuver, especially against big, strong opponents. Your body type will often dictate what options are available to you, and your opponent’s body type will further narrow your options. Sweeping a big, savvy opponent will require you to improvise and be ready to exploit any mistakes in posture and positioning that they make. If you’re a smaller grappler (like me) controlling their posture will become very important to developing your sweep game. If you can break their posture, you can control their mass much easier. Remember, the human body is basically shaped like a barrel. It’s easier to roll a barrel on its side than it is to flip it end over end. The same is true with humans. Try to get their spine to be parallel to the floor, or at least not straight up and down. The closer you get them to horizontal, the easier your job of rolling them will be. Here are a few of the most common posture control methods:

• Pull down on the back of their head in a clinch or horse collar to put a curve in their spine

• Get an underhook, overhook, or lapel grip and use that to pull them to you. Your strength will be multiplied if you push their knees or hips with your feet

• Change your angle so that they aren’t facing you head on. An opponent is strongest when facing you directly. If you can get even a small angle on them, their functional strength is greatly reduced, making you suddenly much stronger by comparison.

Keep in mind that double limb control and mass management aren’t necessarily two separate steps.

They are two components that must be used together in order to successfully sweep somebody. If you are using a clinch on the back of their head to break their posture, then you are also controlling one of the 5 limbs with that same grip. If you can get an overhook with your other arm, you now have both mass management and limb control of two adjacent limbs, which opens up your sweep options. You’ll see this applied in sweeps such as the butterfly sweep and from takedowns like the hip toss (a takedown is really just a sweep performed from standing).

Once you have double limb control and have broken their posture in some way, you’ll have to actually get their mass moving.

Exactly what you do to make this happen will depend greatly on your position and body type. Certain body movements can help make this much easier in the right situation:

• Bridging – make sure your feet are as close to your butt as you can get them, and arch your back towards the ceiling. This is a very strong movement and can often give you the momentum you need to make a sweep happen.
• Shrimping – You learn this on day one, and spend the rest of your BJJ career realizing how useful this movement is. By shrimping, you can quickly change your angle and location relative to your opponent, which can multiply your strength relative to them and give you better angles of attack.
• Butterfly hook and lift –  Getting your feet locked under an opponent’s leg, like in a butterfly guard, can greatly disrupt an opponent’s base, making it much easier to get them moving. A mistake people often make is to try to lift an opponent’s leg straight up with their hook. This movement is much stronger when you use it in a broad circular motion.

The last thing I want to mention about sweeps is the importance of sticking the landing.

A sweep isn’t over just because the person flipped. If you can’t keep the dominant position after a sweep, then you haven’t really accomplished that much. If you’re going to put forth the energy and effort to sweep somebody, train yourself to follow through with the attack. Press the advantage while you have it. Sweep them and then control them. Get on top, and stay on top.

Now that we’ve hit the core concepts of sweeping, what happens next?

How can we apply this to our jiu jitsu? Really that’s up to you, but I can tell you how I applied it in my own game if that helps. Once I finally got wise that almost all sweeps are rooted in the same basic concepts and share basically the same goal, I started picking apart every sweep that failed, and trying to understand why it didn’t work. I started recording all of my matches in class using my phone and a cheap tripod, and watching what went wrong during my attempts. I asked myself how my opponent was able to defend it and was it a breakdown in limb control or mass management? It didn’t take long for me to realize where the holes in my game were. And as a bonus, I had footage of every sweep that worked on me. I began to see where my opponents were able to control me, and I suddenly became much harder to sweep. Obviously, I’m neither unsweepable, nor do my sweeps always work, but the grappler I am today could 100% destroy the grappler I was a year ago, and a huge reason is how I’ve applied core concepts into my BJJ.

In Conclusion.

My goal is to take the information that I’ve compiled here (plus more!) and create a high-quality video to make the information easier to understand. I want to make it available free of charge on my YouTube channel, but video production can be an expensive endeavor. If you love what I’ve written and you believe a video of it will help you, please consider either donating via Paypal to the video fund below (or better yet, check out my apparel line here and support the Student of BJJ brand!) For the official “Sweep Theory” shirt, click here.

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