Zoom Out, Objective Over Means.

No sweep is better than any other, and we should switch between them without attachment. We are sweeping in the first place to advance our position by reversing to the top, not to get a particular sweep.

We often get stuck committed to an unfruitful sweep because it’s what we started with, instead of adjusting to a path of lesser resistance. This happens when it’s worked for us in the past, or when we’re just getting started experimenting with a new sweep and we really want it to work. Sometimes the perfect cue is there, but changes midflow. Other times we impose the cue to create the opportunity. If it’s not there, something is better, whether we lost it half way or it was never there to begin with.

A common example would be a withdrawing defense to our scissors sweep, so defensive that the top player is seated and almost on their back to avoid being loaded up on our spring. We almost had the sweep initially, and although the pieces on the board have shifted we’re still insisting on muscling the top player back on top of us to complete the sweep! The’ve almost completely swept themselves and we’re propping them up so we can sweep them ourselves. Can we not detach from our initial path, give them a shove followed by a technical get up, assisting the top player to score on themselves?

An old BJJ saying: If they’re going to hang themselves, don’t cut the rope! Whether we sweep them or they sweep themselves, our objective is met. Take any sweep, not just the one you imagined.

BJJ flow is the combination of strategic technical aggression with the grace of complete detachment to the means to which each objective is met.

Zoom out, objective over means.