Importance of the Scissor Sweep for Beginning BJJ Students

Last week we went over opening the closed guard when we couldn't control our opponent's posture and moving into the classic guard or as Saulo Ribeiro calls it the Shield Guard. It is called the shield guard because you are using you feet and shins to control the the space, creating a shield between you and your opponent. By opening your closed guard you are giving an opportunity to your opponent to pass so you must keep space between you and your opponent. There are four corners (2 shoulders and 2 hips) that must not be allowed to get close to your body in the open guard and this classic guard or shield guard blocks all four of those corners give the person on bottom a lot of safety when first playing the open guard position.

The indicator for moving to the shield guard is when you can't break the posture of the opponent. A hip escape gives the space for your foot and shin to come into place. From this shield guard the first attack is the scissor sweep and sweep that involves kicking in the armpit to off balance your opponents upper body while your other legs takes the legs out from under them. Your upper body shoulder escapes away adding to the pull in your arms and giving your opponent a place to fall. You come up onto your elbow and mount your partner. 

So just with one move we cover the importance of keeping space in the open guard by controlling the 4 corners. We also have another time for fundamental movements such as the hip escape and the shoulder escape. Again we cover base, off balancing our opponent and taking them to the side that they can not post to, just like our trap and roll. From the scissor sweep it will be easy to move to the armbar, cross collar choke, triangle and eventually the omoplata shoulder lock.