Thinking about Mamazinho's lessons on Scissorhands and the new half-guard sweep that Tommy showed me Monday night, got me looking at simpler ways to understand what I'm trying to do when I'm trying to sweep.
My opponent can be induced to move forward, move backward or to remain still. In other contexts--like the half-guard--I think of the same concepts as tackles, twists and take-the-back. Mamazinho's Scissorhands suite includes the scissor sweep, which draws the opponent inside and over, Flipside, which draws the opponent outside and over, and take-the-back, which exploits the opponent's lack of movement.
Having three ways to go in any sweep gives you a lot of options. I really want to focus on this Scissorhands sweep suite as one of the three "legs" of my guard game (along with King Crimson and the Cobra guard suite). Working on the techniques Monday night they all felt very natural and easy to do. My scissors sweep still sucks eggs. But maybe in the context of the other two attacks/sweeps, I'll start to find the range and begin to hit it.
Tommy showed me a half-guard sweep last night that seemed ridiculously straightforward--so much so that I almost want to try it on somebody else to see if it really works as well as it seems before writing about it. If I can get it to work consistently, then it may be the perfect compliment to Bravo's Old School sweep.
Even though I'm not hitting Old School like I should, I do understand it and have had some success with it. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for any of the "twists". I have a hard time controlling the trapped leg and every time I go to the Twist I just end up helping the guy move into side control.
I still want to work on Bravo's twists, but Tommy's sweep is something I'm dying to try during the next few practices.
