Make Them Sit

On a Thursday evening in October we taught two Gi classes back to back: the hip bump sweep from closed guard at seven, and the lapel guard at eight. Different guards, different grips, different people on the mat. The same three words kept coming out of my mouth in both of them: make them sit.

Half a sweep is enough

The hip bump is usually taught as one big movement. You sit up, post, drive your hip through and roll the other person all the way over into mount. It looks complete. It also needs a big breath and a good start, and all the other person has to do to stop it is lean forward.

So we cut it in half. Cross grip on the sleeve, a small hip escape, up onto the palm. Now there is only one job: put their seat on the mat. That is about forty per cent of the movement and nearly all of the work. Once they are sitting, the near foot becomes a belt behind them and the other foot swings in a big circle towards the arm they have posted. The rest of the sweep happens because they are already sitting down.

Think about how anyone fights back from there. To fight, you first have to get up onto your knees. A person sitting on the mat has to rebuild before they can do anything, and every second they spend rebuilding is yours.

Why the small hip escape

You can sit up into the hip bump on core strength alone, if your shoulders are good. Mine are not, which is why I hip escape a little first: it takes the load off the core and the shoulders at the same time.

The same thinking runs through the rest of it. A full hip bump thrown onto a posted arm puts that shoulder at risk, and yours with it, and the bigger the person throwing, the bigger the risk. Cutting the movement in half is how two training partners keep each other safe.

Deal with what they leave behind

Sometimes they post, and the arm is already heavy. Kick it then and you only hurt them; there is nothing light enough left to move. The timing is just before the post settles. Catch that moment and you do not need to swing at all: drop your hip onto theirs and you arrive in mount.

Miss it, and the rule is to work on what they have left behind, not on what they are heavy with. If one hand is carrying the weight, leave it alone, because that is a strength contest. Put your arm behind the other shoulder, fall flat towards their knee, kick your leg over, and you are sitting in a clean posture for the omoplata.

And if they push you down as you try to sit up, that push is the arm they have offered you. Catch over the elbow and lean in.

The same idea in a different guard

At eight o’clock the class was lapel guard. Pull their lapel out and pass it under your own foot, and you have the control a spider or lasso guard gives you, without needing the sleeve. From there, De La Riva on one side, then a deep De La Riva hook that turns into something half X-guard.

And the finish? Knees to the chest. Make them sit. As they sit, your head dives under, the lapel goes, you catch the far leg and fall to the side, and the back is there.

Two guards, one principle. A person sitting on the mat is a person who has to get up before they can do anything else.

Finish the movement, not the steps

The commonest thing I saw in both classes was people hurrying through the list. Grip, foot, swing, done: each step ticked off, none of them finished.

The lapel guard rewards patience more than most. When you change grips, take the new one as low as possible, so there is no lapel left for them to hold and pull back. When you take the lasso, lighter is enough; go too deep and you will be fighting to get your own foot out after the sweep.

Do it slowly. Finish each movement before you start the next. The sweep was never in the swing. It was in getting them to sit down.