The Side Scissor

• Converting a closed guard to a [[side scissor]]
  • Basic Overview
    • Take one of the opponent’s arms across the centerline
      • Can be lead arm or other arm.
    • Hip shift out, so you are behind elbow of pulled arm
    • 
  • Dealing with a lead arm lapel grip
    • How to
      • Cross cuff grip
      • Feed your other arm under their arm and grab your own wrist
      • Knee pull and break grip over your head
        • The knee pull should come before the grip break
        • Grip break should be in the direction of your head, not to the side
      • Move opponents arm in a wide ark to the side
      • Other arm grabs lat across back
      • Unlock feet to slip hips out to side more
        • Bottom kee pointing to the mat
      • Re-lock feet
      • 
    • This can all be shut down if the opponent lock elbow down
  • Attacking the Rear hand
    • Often needed because the opponent becomes good at guarding the lead hand
      • How to
        • Reach under the lead hand to a cross cuff grip
          • Pull with this grip twoards you creating tension in thier sleeve
        • Heal of your other hand goes to push on opponent knuckles
          • Do not grip hand, push!
        • Lift hips, pull legs in, and use both hands snap the opponents grip off
        • Grab the seam on the back of the opponents sleve
        • Use your two one one grip to control opponents arm and keep it across the centerline
          • Foot can go to opponents hip to trap the arm across
        • Perform a knee pull while you push the arm across the body
        • Shift hips out and enter the side scissors possition
          • Side scissor should be locked high on the opponents upper body to keep them from posturing up
          • Knees should pull in direction of opponents head
        • 
  • Dealing with lapel and cuff grip
    • How to
      • Reach under their arm and grap a cross cuff grip with your free hand
      • Swim gripped hand around their wrist to the outside
      • Knee pull and bring hands across body to break grip
      • Use now free hand to grab seam on back of the opponents sleve
      • Pull their arm across your body
      • Knee pull and shift out hip to enter [[side scissor]] position
      • 
  • Dealing with double lapel grips
    • Pummel hand to the inside and grab a cross cuff grip
    • Other hand thumb posts at the forearm/elbow
    • Break grip up and overhead
    • Bring their arm to the side and enter the side scissor position
    • 
  • Opponent does not take grips or under commits with grips
    • Grab a cross cuff grip creating a line of tension in the sleeve
    • Grab the line of tension you created with your other hand at there elbow
    • Use two-one grip in combination with knee bring arm across center
    • 
• The subtle push-pull dynamic of the [[side scissor]] position
  • Once you get the hand across the center line, your pulling strength diminished
  • When you pass the center line, your legs take over all the pull and your hand pushed their arm out to the side
  • Your hand should switch from gripping the top of their wrist to under their wrist as you switch from pulling to pushing.
• Locking down the side scissor
  • Three methods
    1. maintain
       • Keep control of their hand
       • Keep other hand gripped on their lat muscle
    2. A pass off
       • Pass their hand from the initial hand to the hand that is over their back
       • Be careful to not enter an illegal grip doing the pass off by having your fingers inside the cuff sleeve
    3. Lapel grip
       • The lapel closest to you with the hand that is over their back
       • keep the elbow with the lapel close to your body (ideally clamped to your hip)
       • You can at this point let go of the grip on their hand
       • John’s favorite method
• Unlocking the great secret of the side scissor position
  • To determine where you should go next ask yourself: "Where is their head relative to mine"
  • You should always fight to have your head higher than your opponents
  • If you want to take the back your goal should be to get your head higher than their head
    • Build up to an elbow from the side scissor
      • Never come up to an elbow with your arm by your hip line, bring it up above your shoulder line before you come up
    • Take your hips off the floor by transferring your weight to your top leg
    • Un-weight and withdraw the bottom leg as you climb to the back
      • Keep this hook in
    • Put your other hook in
    • 
  • To ensure you can get your head higher than your opponents, anchor them down.
    • The lapel grip is the best method for accomplishing this
• Sweeps from the side scissor (when head is above opponent’s)
  • The wrist sweep
    • Build up to an elbow from the side scissor
    • Take your hips off the floor by transferring your weight to your top leg
    • Un-weight and withdraw the bottom leg as you climb to the back
      • Keep this hook in
    • Change your elbow post to a post on your hand
    • Take grip on outside of opponents wrist (opposite side as your leg hook)
      • Do not go under the arm for this grip
    • Post on their wrist, pushing it into mat
    • Bring knee over their shoulder
    • Turn head and body away, sweeping the opponent to mount
    • 
  • The elbow sweep
    • Use this sweep when you can not get up to a hand
    • How to
      • Build up to an elbow from the side scissor
      • Take your hips off the floor by transferring your weight to your top leg
      • Un-weight and withdraw the bottom leg as you climb to the back
        • Keep this hook in
      • Grip elbow with free hand
      • Pull elbow across and towards you
      • Bring knee over their shoulder
      • Sweep and end in a high mount
      • 
  • Attacks from the side scissor (when head is above opponent’s)
    • Rolling armbar (juji gatame) from side scissors
      • Build up to an elbow from the side scissor
      • Under foot goes across the underside of the opponent
        • Make sure you have an active foot
        • Can lock a body triangle
      • Put head on floor
      • Bring head towards opponents shoulder line
      • Grab the near arm around the elbow
      • Hook leg on back around the opponents head
        • Bring knee through, so it is inside the opponents elbow
        • Shin can be placed on back of opponents head if they are keeping their head on the floor
      • Drop to your shoulder
      • Grab near or far leg and bring it towards you and across your chest
      • Bring their legs all the way through until you enter the arm lock position
      • 
  • Rear triangle (Ushiro Sankaku)
    • Used when they start hiding their far hand and arm, preventing you from going into sweeps
    • How to
      • Build up to an elbow from the side scissor
      • Under foot goes across the underside of the opponent
      • Scoop arm closest to you
      • Bring leg over opponent’s shoulder hooking their arm under their bicep
      • Turn knee into back of opponents neck rolling them over
      • Connect their arm and knuckles to your chest
        • This action opens up their chest and make it harder to defend
      • Place foot on opponents hip to shift your hips out, so you are able to lock up triangle
      • Hide shoelaces of foot on the top of the lock behind the opponents lat muscle
      • 
  • Sweeps from the side scissor (when head is below opponent’s)
    • The flower sweep
      • This sweep allows you to take advantage of your opponent’s trapped arm
      • Has very fast execution speed as it requires little setup
      • How to
        • Grab opponent’s lat muscle
        • Plant foot next to opponent’s knee
        • Maintain an aligned body position with the opponent, do not shift hips out
        • Bring straightened leg up to opponent’s armpit sweeping them over
        • 
    • The pendulum sweep
      • Has more strength than the flower sweep
      • Requires some shifting to set up the body to perform
      • How to
        • Grab opponent’s lat muscle
        • remove cuff grip
        • Underhook opponents leg
        • Put outside leg up in the air and rock it to shift your hips to the outside and bring yourself under the opponent’s center of gravity
          • Your head should end up near the opponent’s belt
          • The opponent’s head should move close to the floor
        • Push on the opponent with the inside leg, and you swing the outside leg down to sweep opponent
          • Be sure to avoid bringing the opponent down on your leg
          • Opponent should be swept forward and over your shoulder and not directly to the side
            • Sweeping directly to the side allows the opponent to base and resist the sweep
          • 
    • Knee lever sweep
      • Use when opponent does a good job controlling your hips and lift their knees off the mat and put forward pressure on you
      • How to
        • Shuffle hips, pommel foot inside their leg and enter half guard
          • Chop down on opponent’s knee forcing their knee to the mat
        • Cross your toes
        • Point knees in direction of weep
        • Sweep opponent
        • 
    • Hook sweep (Sumi Gaeshi)
      • Used when the opponent is driving forward
      • How to
        • Turn hips to get one leg hook under opponent’s leg
        • Pommel second foot hook in
        • Bring knees to chest, off balancing the opponent
        • Bring opponents feet higher than head
        • Shorten one leg while lengthening the other turning the opponent
        • Sweep
        • 
    • Hook sweep (Sumi Gaeshi) a different version
      • This sweep does not require you to get your second hook in
      • How to
        • Turn hips to get one leg hook under opponent’s leg
        • Elevate the opponent with your hook
        • The opponent should be hopping on a single leg to maintain balance
          • If they don’t sweep them over at this point
        • Your other leg can now cut out the opponents hopping leg as you continue elevating with the hook
        • Sweep
        • 
• Troubleshooting
  • The most common defense is the opponent pressuring into you.
    • To combat this,
      • You can get a foot into the opponent’s hips and push back
      • Grab opponent’s far lapel
      • Come up to your shoulder as you hold their legs back, un weighting your bottom leg, turning your chest to the floor
      • Get you hook of your leg on the back in (This can be done later depending on preference)
      • Your bottom leg can base on the floor to help you start getting height
      • From this position you can build up to a hand put your other hook in and take the back
      • 
    • To combat this (second option)
      • Go back to the pendulum sweep
        • Get foot into opponent’s hip
        • Move foot above knee and push leg out
        • Grab opponent’s lapel
        • Place knee on mat
        • Go into a pendulum sweep from this position
        • 
  • Troubleshooting with the hip sweep
    • Used when the opponent will not let you get their arm across the centerline
    • How to
      • Open up your guard
      • Turn up to your elbow
      • Push the opponent’s arm across
      • Come up into the opponent pushing them over in the direction of their arm
        • To do this, scissor your legs, planting your low foot to the mat
      • 
• Overview
  • We favor getting dominance before attacks
    • Since closed guard is neutral we need to convert it to a dominant position
    • The side scissors is a dominant position
  • There are two battles to win in closed guard
    1. Pulling the opponent’s arm across the centerline
    2. Getting your head higher than the opponents
  • If you lose both battles, you can still win the position, it just becomes harder