Monday night was a good-sized class, the biggest I’ve been to in months. They say the warm weather brings people out, which seems a little counter-intuitive to me. I’d think that the nice weather would make people more inclined to do something else other than spend an hour and a half sweating in a thick 5-pound all-cotton (i.e., perspiration-absorbing) gi on the third floor walkup warehouse room in the industrial part of town. But that would be incorrect. At least so far.
Mamazinho had us working out of what I call the Scissorhands Suite, though his emphasis was more on the scissors than the hands. He reviewed with us the basic set-up for the scissors sweep, and then showed a sweep to take the guy in the other direction and then a move to take-the-back. I’m calling the sweep “Flipside” because you kind of just flip the guy to the outside, using your leg as a lever. As usual, the “take-the-back” part of the move will be called “take-the-back.”
Start from the scissors sweep position. You’ve got the cross collar grip and the same side sleeve gripped. You’ve escaped your hips out—not too close, not too far—and brought your leg, shin-first, up in between the two of you, with your foot hooking his side. The other leg is out, ready to scissor back and undercut the guy as you pull him toward you and over into the scissors sweep.
But for some reason, the guy isn’t going toward you or over you. Maybe he manages to post with the arm you should be controlling at the sleeve. Maybe you’ve just got a bad angle. In any event, here you can switch to Flipside.
1. Reach across and get a cross grip on the sleeve instead of the same side sleeve grip. Do not let go of the collar until you get this cross sleeve grip.
2. Once you’ve got the cross grip, release the collar and reach over and behind the guy to grab his belt.
3. Pull the guy on top of you with the belt grip. At the same time, lift the leg that is between the two of you.
4. As that leg comes up, flip the guy to the outside, pulling up on the cross sleeve grip and pulling down on the belt.
5. Roll over on top into side control. Remember not to let go of the sleeve in case you’ve got an instant armbar opportunity.
The take-the-back move flows right from Flipside. Say you can’t move the guy enough to sweep him for one reason or another. Starting with the cross sleeve grip and the behind-the-back belt grip, you want to kick the far side knee out from under the guy as you pull him hard toward you by the belt. Pull on the cross sleeve grip arm also to help get the guy to duck his shoulder. Your kick leg will be the first hook for rear mount. Swing the other leg over and around as you move to take-the-back.
