Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Sweep from Collar and Sleeve Grip When Opponent Stands to Pass

In this week's instructional, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt Professor, Stephen "The MMA Performance Professor" Whittier, explains a highly effective sweep from the collar and sleeve grip when your opponent stands to pass your guard.

Coach Whittier begins by explaining the importance of having a deep cross-collar grip that you can use to control your opponent's posture, unbalance him, or assert and of the main collar chokes.

As your opponent stands to pass your open guard, in this case the common diagonal knee slide pass, you counter by securing your cross collar and sleeve grips and lock your forelegs around your opponent's upper thigh while turning your inside shin toward your opponent's inner thigh (the "reverse de la Riva" position in BJJ). This creates a frame that negates your opponent's angle to pass.

From here, your opponent will often shift back to square up with you. As he does, you can use your feet (locked around his thigh), your collar and sleeve grips all together to pull him forward, moving his hips over your hips for the sweep. To execute the sweep, as soon as his weight is foreward on his feet, you will quickly shift your outside leg to the ankle and the shin of your inside leg to his lower thigh, which you use to kick him over in a scissor sweep motion.

From here, your want to roll over with your opponent ready to execute your own knee slide pass (to make sure you do not wind up in your opponent's half guard, you should make sure that the knee of your inside leg is up as you finish the sweep). The key control points for the pass are:

-using your sleeve grip to pull up on your opponent's arm (helping to keep him flat and clearing a path for you to move into as you sit through with the pass)

-keeping your collar grip, and allowing the elbow of that arm to pin his far shoulder to the mat (also helping to keep him flat and keeping him from moving toward your back)

-driving your shin down your opponent's pinned upper thigh toward his knee (diagonal to your elbow on his shoulder).

Once you slide through to the pass, you can then square up to your opponent into full side control.