The scissor sweep was one of the first sweeps I learned from the guard.

As a purple belt, I still use it all the time on white belts and blue belts.

In this article, I’ll break down a simple 4-step scissor sweep you can use to sweep your opponents and get into mount.

Scissor Sweep: Table Of Contents

• How To Do The Scissor Sweep In 4 Steps
• 3 Ways To Improve Your Scissor Sweep
• How To Defend The Scissor Sweep
• Scissor Sweep: Final Thoughts & Discussion

How To Do A Scissor Sweep In 4 Steps

The scissor sweep is typically done from the closed guard position.

You’ll open your guard to get your legs into the right position. But you want clamp and control the top player before going for the sweep.

Step 1: Get A Collar Sleeve Grip

With your left hand, grab a sleeve grip.

With your right hand, grab a collar grip.

This will help you establish a powerful clamp on the top player with both your upper and lower body.

Step 2: Open Your Guard

Open your guard and shrimp back with an angle.

Insert your right knee in front of their chest.

Slide your left leg down by their knee, so it’s on the floor.

With this angle and leg positioning, you are highly offensive and ready to attack.

Step 3: Load Them On Your Top Leg

Use your abs and upper body to bring yourself close to the top player.

Then, pull them on top of your right leg so that they are floating.

This will off-balance them, making them nice and light — and therefore, easy to sweep.

Step 4: Sweep & Get On Top

Do a “scissor” motion with your legs by kicking your right leg (the leg they are loaded on) to where you want to sweep them, and your bottom leg in the opposite motion.

This motion will sweep them onto their back and enable you to get into the top mount position.

Keep the collar sleeve grip. From here, you can attack armbars, cross-collar chokes, americanas — whatever you’d like!

3 Ways To Improve Your Scissor Sweep

Here are three ways to make your scissor sweep even more deadly from the guard.

1. Load Them Up On Your Leg

A big part of making any sweep work is kuzushi: off-balancing your opponent.

With the scissor sweep, you off-balance your opponent by loading them on your top leg.

You can do the scissor sweep without this step.

But when you purposefully off-balance them by loading them up on your leg, they become incredibly light and easy to sweep.

Using this tip, I’ve swept people who outweigh me by 50-60lbs.

With your sweeps, remember to always kuzushi your opponent.

2. If They Defend, Transition To Another Move

Unfortunately, after the blue belt level, most people know how to defend the scissor sweep.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not useful.

No matter how they defend the sweep, you are still in a great position to transition to other guards, sweeps, or submissions.

For example, if the top player bases out by making their knees wide, you can do a variation of the scissor sweep where you push their leg with your foot instead of making the scissoring motion.

Or, if they step out on their foot, you can shrimp toward your other hip to create the angle for a triangle choke.

Remember: sweep attempts are also setups. Expect them to counter your sweep. And then follow up with a different sweep or a submission

3. Specific Training + Journaling

If you want to get better at the scissor sweep, you have to specifically train the scissor sweep.

Here’s a challenge for you: in your next class, make it your focus during each roll to hit the scissor sweep.

Trying to hit specific moves during sparring is called “specific training” — and it’s how Gordon Ryan masters BJJ techniques.

Then, after class, write down in your BJJ journal…

• What worked (example: “During one roll, I got into closed guard and hit a scissor sweep.” )
• What didn’t work (example: “During another roll, I tried to hit the scissor sweep, but the top player’s base was too wide to sweep.”)
• Questions or notes for next class (example: “Ask coach how to scissor sweep when the top player has a wide base — or combinations from the sweep.”)

Ask your training partners if you can start from close guard. This will make attempting scissor sweeps much easier.

Do this for 4 weeks, and I guarantee you’ll get much better at the scissor sweep — and all of the combinations that can come from it.

NOTE: I teach this specific training and journaling process in my BJJ Journal Of Champions Course.

How To Defend A Scissor Sweep

Tired of getting swept by the scissor sweep? Here’s how you defend it.

1. Preventing The Scissor Sweep

Defending any technique begins with prevention.

The further your opponent gets to the sweeping step, the harder it is to defend against their offense.

So, as soon as they grab your collar and sleeve, stop your guard passing.

Now, you have to focus on grip fighting.

Break their grips. Don’t let them get them shrimp and get the angle. 

If you can prevent them from getting that collar and sleeve grips, they won’t be in a good position to scissor sweep you.

Focus on getting your own grips — and force them to stop your guard passing instead.

2. Defending The Scissor Sweep

Now, if they’ve established a grip on your collar and sleeve — and they’ve shrimped out to get the angle — you’re in trouble.

But you haven’t been swept yet.

Here’s what to focus on to avoid getting swept.

The first option is to get nice and wide with your knees, and lean back.

This establishes a good base. You are much harder to kuzushi when you have a good base.

The second option is to step out with your leg.

This is another way to establish a strong base. Again, this will make you harder to off-balance and sweep.

At this point, be aware of the bottom player transitioning to another sweep or attack.

But, the stronger your base, the harder you are to sweep — and the quicker you can start looking to pass their guard.

Scissor Sweep: Final Thoughts & Discussion

There you have it: 4 steps to scissor sweep your opponent, get on top, and then tap them out.

What are your thoughts on the scissor sweep? Do you ever use it?

Try it out in class tonight.

And if you hit it, let me know in the comments below!

Happy rolling. 🤙

---

Tsavo Neal

Tsavo is the founder of BJJ Equipment, author of BJJ For Beginners, creator of the BJJ Missions app, and a brown belt instructor at InFighting. He launched BJJ Equipment to help grapplers at every belt level train smarter, make faster progress, and find the best gear for their game.