What is an ‘advanced’ guard sweep?
Well, sometimes it’s a technique that requires such ridiculous levels of strength, flexibility, or explosiveness that it’s completely out of reach of 99% of recreational BJJ players.
Or sometimes, a technique is advanced because of the sheer number of steps and details that need to be remembered in order to make it work. And if you leave out any of the 85 different grips, hooks, and movements, your guard sweep will fail and your opponent will blast through your guard and pin you flatter than a pancake.
But sometimes it’s just knowing one little piece of the puzzle that takes you from a ‘basic’ technique to an ‘advanced’ technique.
Take, for example, the pendulum sweep (also known as the flower sweep). You probably learned some version of this in your first 6 months of doing BJJ…
Against a beginner the basic pendulum sweep works great. But then, as you start running into more experienced people, and especially bigger, stronger, more experienced people, you run into problems. You see, to get this sweep to work you need to create specific angles and obtain certain grips. And a canny opponent knows this, and will try to deny you those very grips and angles.
No angle, no grip, no sweep!
But there ARE ways to get those grips and angles, even against an experienced opponent who doesn’t want to give them to you. Even against a big guy who is dropping all his weight down to pin you to the mat to stop you from crossing his arm and scooting out to the side.
So the sweep itself is still the same old fundamental sweep you learned early in your BJJ career. What makes it advanced are the initial adjustments you do to set up the sweep when you run into resistance. Does that make sense?
Here’s a clip of Brandon Mullins teaching an advanced setup to this fundamental (and powerful) guard sweep.
And before anyone says that this guard sweep only works with the gi, check out the gi AND no-gi competition clips sprinkled into this instructional segment.
Enjoy!
Click here to see this video about the Draculino Bump on YouTube.
P.S. That video clip came from How to Defeat the Bigger, Stronger Opponent Series 2, with Brandon Mullins. This is an absolutely incredible resource for grapplers who sometimes have to deal with being manhandled and overpowered on the mats. It’s available as both as a series of apps for your phone or tablet, or as a professionally replicated 5 DVD set.
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