Sweeping toward the missing post

Position and problem

You are seated in butterfly guard with a hook in and an upper-body connection, and the sweep keeps failing in the same way: you lift, they rise a little, a hand or a foot lands on the mat, and they settle back where they started. The hook was loaded and the lift was real. What was missing is the other half of the sweep. A kneeling opponent is held up by whatever they have on the mat, their knees, their feet and, the moment they need them, their hands. Lifting someone who still has a free hand on the side you are sweeping to is a strength contest against a table with all of its legs.

Objective

Take away the post on one side, move their weight past the edge of what is left, and only then use the hook to finish the turn.

Core concept

Two different things get called sweeping and it helps to separate them. Lifting is what the hook does: it raises their hips and takes weight off their knees. Off-balancing is moving their centre of mass outside the posts they still have. Lifting alone returns them to where they were once the leg tires. Off-balancing alone, against someone heavy on their knees, only leans them. The sweep is the two in order: remove a post, tip them over the place it used to be, and lift to keep the rotation going once it has started. In butterfly guard the post that matters most is the arm on the side you are falling toward. An overhook, a wrist pinned to your chest or an arm trapped under your armpit means that when they tip, no hand comes down to stop it. The direction is not straight back and not straight sideways. It is diagonally over the corner between their trapped arm and their knee, which is the one place they have nothing to stand on.

Key mechanics

1. 01Choose the side by the arm, not by the hook. Sweep toward the side where you control their arm. A strong hook on the side where their hand is free lifts them onto a post.
2. 02Trap the arm close. An overhook clamped to your ribs, or their wrist pinned to your chest, keeps the elbow from reaching the mat. Holding the arm loosely out at length leaves them enough slack to post on the elbow.
3. 03Fall to your own shoulder on the sweeping side, not onto your back. Dropping to the side takes their weight diagonally over the missing post; falling straight back pulls them on top of you with both knees still under them.
4. 04Lift with the far hook as you fall, not before. The hook on the opposite side from the trapped arm raises their hip and turns them over the corner. Lifting first gives them time to find a post.
5. 05Use the free foot on the mat to drive. The non-hooking leg pushes off the floor so the rotation comes from your whole body turning, not from one leg pressing upward.
6. 06Follow them over. The sweep ends on top with your chest on theirs, so keep the upper-body connection through the roll and come up with it.
7. 07Read the post they do find. If the leg on the sweeping side steps out wide, that leg is now the post, and the answers are to hook or block it, or to change direction toward the side they have just taken weight off.

Common errors

• ×Lifting on the side where their hand is free, which raises them onto a post and returns them to their knees once the leg tires.
• ×Falling straight onto the back, which brings their weight down on top with both of their knees still on the mat.
• ×Holding the trapped arm at length, which leaves the elbow free to reach the floor as they tip.
• ×Kicking the hook upward before their weight has moved past their knee, so the lift and the off-balance arrive separately and neither is enough.
• ×Stopping when they post a leg, instead of treating the posted leg as the new thing to remove or the new direction to avoid.

Safety

This sweep is designed so that the person going over cannot put a hand down, which means the person doing it is responsible for how they land. With one arm trapped, a partner tips onto the shoulder and the side of the head on that side, with your weight following. Turn them over the shoulder and onto their back; do not drive them nose-first into the mat, and let the arm go if they are heading for the top of their head. The other injury belongs to the late post. A partner who rips the arm free halfway over and lands on a straight arm takes the weight of two bodies through a locked elbow, a wrist or a shoulder. When you are the one being swept and the arm is gone, tuck the chin, roll over the shoulder and accept the sweep; defend it earlier next time, at the grip, not in the air.

Training progression

1. 01Static: partner kneels in your butterfly guard. Without sweeping, find each thing they are standing on, then trap one arm and notice which corner has nothing on it.
2. 02Cooperative: trap the arm, fall to the shoulder, lift with the far hook, follow to the top. Partner goes with it and rolls over their shoulder so both of you learn the landing.
3. 03Post-hunting: partner may post with anything they still have free. Your job each repetition is only to name afterwards which post stopped you.
4. 04Two-direction drill: partner steps the near leg out every time. Alternate between blocking that leg and changing direction to the other side.
5. 05Constrained sparring: from butterfly guard, the bottom player may only sweep and the top player may only base and posture. Reset on every sweep or every time the top player stands and disengages.
6. 06Live rounds from seated guard, counting how many failed sweeps were stopped by a hand you had not controlled.

Related entries

• The butterfly hook as a lever
• Connection in open guard