Thursday (03/29) No-Gi Class Guillotine Sweeps

Guillotine + Sweep, get it?? Never mind. Since we worked the guillotine on Tuesday I thought it important to follow up with a few techniques if your having trouble finishing your guillotine. Remember, it's not just a submission it's at dynamic position. (That was very Stephan Kesting wasn't it)

First lets take a look at a sweep you can easily execute if your opponent is trying to use stack pressure to defend the guillotine. I know the video shows the sweep from standing but don't discount this technique from the knees as well you just need to hip out to create a little space to circle the foor inside.

One of the things I noticed early on when trying to execute this technique was the placement of your lifting hook and the outside leg are very important. Make sure your outside leg is pushing straight out to break the posture and ensure your pass. If you are having trouble remember that you should be aiming the leg right in the middle of your opponents quad in between the knee and hip. Also make sure that you put your lifting hook near the same position on the inside of the leg. Finally, when you come up on top your arm should still be in a great position to finish the mounted guillotine. If you lose the submission in the roll just ensure you secure the position and prevent the reversal.

Now lets take a look at a little different technique from the butterfly guard. Last night guys seemed to have a little less trouble executing this technique especially after I went through it by the numbers. Let's look at the video first.

So this is a second super easy technique if you are going for the guillotine and you opponent drives in on you. I noticed that it works exceptionally well when you have the arm-in guillotine set up. Remember to take your opponent to the corner and that when going for the sweep to fall towards the head onto your shoulder not flat to your back. The guillotine should still be your main focus so if your opponent resists the sweep you are still in a great position to finish the submission.

Finally I worked a series chaining the sweeps together. I started with the set up from butterfly guard and attempted to work the sweep to mount. When my opponent  pressured in and tried to prevent the sweep I circled one leg out and executed the first sweep or finished the submission. When rolling I was able to finish either the sweep or submission just about every time I was in position. There were a few things I found drastically increased my success rate.

1. Set up the guillotine-with either technique you will need to set up the guillotine with every intention of finishing. This means grabbing the chin and putting the shoulder high on the head. 
2. Create space & angles-when attempting the first sweep make sure you are creating enough space for yourself to circle a leg in to get the lifting hook. On the second make sure you are taking your opponent to the angle to get them off balance.
3. Fall to the shoulder-going to your back makes it easy to defend and puts you in a bad spot to finish the submission.
4. Plan for more than one reaction-always be prepared to turn for the submission, switch your sweep, or just attempt the same sweep a second time. Your effectiveness on the first attempt may have a lot to do with your opponents reaction, after that it is just a matter of how fast you can counter and attack.

As always if there are questions or clarifications please leave them in the comments section and don't forget to follow me on Twitter and Like me on Facebook. Also for my technique blogs I'm putting together YouTube playlists for the impatient or literacy challenged. Check them out at Thejonesjiujitsu channel on YouTube. I'll see you on the mats.