Scissor Sweep Triangle Combo With Professor Tom DeBlass

By Fanatics Authors, June 04, 2019

The scissor sweep has been a long time favorite of mine.

Personally, I feel like it’s one of the easiest, simplest sweeps to learn as a newcomer to Jiu jitsu, but it is also something that you can continue to develop, get more creative with, and still find effective as you progress to higher ranks and train or compete against higher level practitioners.

In this short video “Scissor Sweep Triangle Combo by Tom DeBlass”. Professor DeBlass breaks down a sneaky triangle setup with the look and feel of a scissor sweep setup.

Professor DeBlass is one of the most sought after Jiu jitsu instructors in the world, producing athletes like Garry Tonon and Gordon Ryan. His list of accomplishments in competition is plentiful as well. In addition to all of the other things Professor DeBlass spends his time on, he still manages to find time to compete at the highest levels, and when he is not competing, he is still training as if he were. One of the things you will hear him say most in his posts on social media is “No easy days”, referring to coming up through the ranks with some of the toughest names in the sport. The bottom line is when Professor DeBlass shows a technique, you can trust it’s battle tested, and there’s probably something to learn from it. You can check out all the Professor DeBlass instructions on BJJ Fanatics.

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To start off we are going to need to get to a knee shield position, similar to as if we were looking to execute the scissor sweep. If you are not familiar with this position here is a quick rundown on how to accomplish that. First, starting from closed guard we need to unlock the legs. Using the backs of your legs we are going to push against our opponents’ hips allowing us to bridge. Next we are going to shrimp out to one side (you can do this to either your strong side or weak side) and then put our hip on the mat. At this point we should be in somewhat of a curved position with our hip on the mat (NOT ON OUR BACK) and with our legs around the opponents’ waist but unlocked.

It’s at this point that we can now get in position and bring in our knee shield. In order to get the knee shield simply retract your top leg brining your knee towards your face until you can get it between you and your opponent. If the opponent is pressuring in you can frame across their neck or collar bone area to keep space. You may also want to pressure into them with your knee as you are dragging it into position. The bottom leg can slide down the opponents’ other leg and lay on the mat with the inside of your knee covering their knee cap (or close to this position, this is just a reference point).

There are many different places you will see the knee shield utilized. What seems most common, and practical is driving the knee into the center of the opponent's’ chest (the Solar Plexus). If you need to control the opponent in this position you can use a collar tie grip on the back of the head the pull towards yourself while driving your knee into the Solar Plexus. This can be painful and certainly may slow down the opponent.

Now we are in our knee shield position and undoubtedly, if the opponent has much experience with Jiu jitsu at all, they are expecting, and likely ready to defend our scissor sweep attack. In order to execute the scissor, sweep we need to control the arm on the same side that our leg is on the mat. The leg on the mat is sometimes referred to as the “chopping leg” because while doing the sweep this is the leg that “chops” the opponents base out from under them. In order to control the arm, you can use any grip you like, even a two on one if necessary. The next part of the scissor sweep would be to off balance the opponent getting their weight over your hips, therefor making them lighter and easier to sweep. I have seen this done a number of ways, most technical, you can stretch back, get up on your elbow and pull them over you as you lay back to the mat using a collar tie grip of a lapel grip if it’s a Gi match. My personal favorite however is to stretch back and come up on my elbow and then use my “chopping leg” to step on the opponent's’ knee and simply push it out from under them. This removes the need to bring them on top of you and destroys their base making it easy for you to finish the sweep.

Finishing the sweep regardless of which method you prefer (there are others not discussed here) simply drop your knee shield to be parallel with the opponents’ waist and use the top of your foot on the knee shield leg to pull the opponent over to their side and use that momentum to follow them up to the top. Controlling their arm so they can not base out is imperative to the success of this technique.

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Now that we know the basics of how the scissor sweep works let’s back up and look at how Professor DeBlass sneaks the triangle in there.

Once obtaining the knee shield a common defense for the opponent is to reach behind your knee shield leg and “control” your chopping leg. Professor DeBlass is looking to control the elbow of the opponent's’ arm on the side of his chopping leg, keeping the elbow above his knee in addition he is working to control the wrist that is “controlling” his bottom leg. Once he has these two grips, he slides his top leg up and shoots the triangle. Being sure to keep control of the elbow on what was the chopping side, he is now able to extend the chopping leg and lock up the triangle and rotate on his back to be aligned with the leg that is over the opponents’’ neck. This should result in a very fast, very deep triangle resulting in a quick submission.

As Professor DeBlass states in the video, as you progress in your Jiu jitsu journey and begin training and competing with higher level practitioners, it’s not going to be the first technique that works anymore, it likely won’t be the second one either. Developing a game that progresses smoothly from one technique to the next is crucial to your success on the mats. Maybe this sneaky triangle setup will fit into your game.

Half Domination from Tom DeBlass has been one of the most successful DVDs we've ever offered. With the addition of the Half Butterfly Guard to your arsenal, you are going to do far more than dominate your opponents and training partners from the half guard position. Get your copy of Half Butterfly Guard today at BJJ Fanatics!

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