Why do I keep ending up back on bottom after sweeping?

You are almost certainly releasing the underhook too early. Keep the underhook secured as you come up — it's your bridge from the sweep into the top pin. Letting go mid-roll lets your partner shrimp and recover guard before you settle.

Butterfly Sweep from Seated Guard: Step-by-Step for White Belts

Q: Is the butterfly sweep good for smaller grapplers?

Yes. The butterfly sweep is leverage-based — the power comes from falling bodyweight and angle, not from lifting strength. Smaller grapplers often hit it well as long as they get the underhook and sit-up on every attempt instead of trying to force it from a flattened base.

Q: What if my partner won't let me get the underhook?

Keep pummeling patiently for the inside position, or switch sides and attack the other direction. Butterfly guard is symmetrical, and most partners defend one side harder than the other. Attacking both sides is what makes a butterfly game actually work in rolling.

Q: Do I need the gi to hit the butterfly sweep?

No. The seated butterfly sweep works in both gi and no-gi. Gi gives you extra grips (sleeve, collar, pants); no-gi relies more on underhook, bicep ties, and head position. The five-step sequence — sit up, underhook, grip, angle, fall — is identical in both.

Q: How is this different from a scissor sweep?

The scissor sweep is from closed guard and uses both legs as a scissor. The butterfly sweep is from open seated guard and uses one leg as a hook/lever combined with falling bodyweight. Different base position, different mechanics, different direction of force.

Q: How long until the butterfly sweep works in live rolling?

For a white belt drilling the sequence weekly and reviewing it between sessions, it usually starts landing against lower-pressure partners within a few weeks and against resisting partners after a few months. The sequence is the variable, not the move.

TL;DR. The butterfly sweep from seated guard fails for most white belts because they try to lift with the hook before they have an underhook and an angle. Fix the sequence: sit up tall, get an underhook, pummel for a strong grip, load your partner onto the hook, then fall to your shoulder and elevate — don't push them straight up. If you drill this exact order, the butterfly sweep becomes one of the highest-percentage sweeps in your game.

If you've been training for a few months, you've probably been shown butterfly guard. You sit up, you get your hooks in, your coach says "and sweep" — and then nothing happens. Your partner just posts out, flattens you, and starts passing. You know the position exists. You can hold it. But the actual sweep almost never lands in rolling.

This is one of the most common gaps between "I learned the move" and "I can hit the move," and it's almost always a sequencing problem, not a strength problem. Butterfly isn't about kicking someone into the air — it's about building the right posture, grips, and angle, then falling in a specific direction. In this guide we'll break down the butterfly sweep for beginners into a repeatable five-step system, walk through the mistakes that kill it, and show you how to drill it so it starts showing up when you roll.

Why the butterfly sweep doesn't work for most white belts

The seated butterfly sweep looks simple on video: hook, lift, roll. In reality, it's one of the most sequence-sensitive sweeps in jiu-jitsu. If any one of the pieces is out of order, your partner has an easy answer.

Here are the real reasons the sweep stalls at white belt:

You're flat. You cannot sweep anyone off the ground if your shoulders are glued to the mat. Butterfly guard is a seated guard; the sit-up isn't optional.
No underhook. Without an underhook, your partner's elbow stays tight to their ribs and you have no handle to turn them with. You're trying to flip a box with no grip on it.
Wrong direction. Beginners instinctively try to sweep straight up or straight to the side. The butterfly sweep goes diagonally — toward the shoulder of the leg that is hooking.
No angle. If you're square to your partner, their base is as wide as it gets. You need to be slightly off their centerline before you commit.
You kick instead of elevate. The hook isn't a trampoline. It's a lever that loads one of your partner's legs so they can't post it. The actual turning power comes from falling to your shoulder.

Remember. The butterfly hook sweep in BJJ is not a leg-strength move. It's a sequence: posture, underhook, grip, angle, fall. Fix the order and the sweep becomes nearly automatic against a same-size partner.

Once you understand that butterfly is sequence-driven, you stop trying to force it with your legs and start building the actual mechanics. That's the system below.

A simple system: the 5-step basic butterfly sweep

Use this exact order every time you drill. Don't skip steps even if your partner is cooperating — the whole point is to burn the sequence into your reflexes.

Step 1 — Sit up tall and get your chest higher than theirs

From seated guard with both butterfly hooks in (insteps under your partner's thighs), post one hand behind you briefly and shrimp your hips forward so you can sit straight up. Your head should be above your partner's chest line. If you can't get taller than them, you cannot load their weight onto your hook.

If your partner is already pressuring you flat, you need to re-establish the sit before you look for the sweep. A frame on their biceps and a small shrimp back usually buys enough space.

Step 2 — Fight for the underhook on your sweeping side

Decide which side you want to sweep to — this will be the side where your hook does the lifting. If you want to sweep to your right, your right butterfly hook does the work and you need an underhook on the right side (your right arm under their left armpit).

To win the underhook: pummel your arm inside, drive your shoulder forward into theirs, and get your hand up onto their shoulder blade. If they try to overhook, keep pummeling or switch sides — don't try to sweep without this.

Step 3 — Secure a second connection point

With your free hand, grab something that stops them from posting the far arm:

Same-side sleeve or wrist (if gi).
Overhook on the far arm.
An underhook-and-head combination (bicep tie with your underhook hand, head control with the free hand) in no-gi.

This second grip is what prevents the single most common defense: posting the far hand on the mat to stop the roll.

Step 4 — Load the hook and take the angle

Now, with underhook and far-arm control, pull your partner's weight onto the hook you plan to lift with. Pretend you're pulling them into a hug toward your sweeping-side shoulder. At the same time, pivot your hips a few degrees so you're no longer square — you want to be slightly facing the direction you're sweeping toward.

At this point you should feel their weight shift onto your hooking leg. The leg on the non-sweeping side can stay as a kickstand or even post lightly on the mat.

Step 5 — Fall to your shoulder and elevate

This is the step everyone gets wrong. You are not going to lift them straight up with your leg. Instead:

Fall sharply onto the shoulder of your underhook side (if you have the right underhook, you fall to your right shoulder).
As you fall, kick the hooking-side leg upward and across your body.
The combination of your falling bodyweight and the lifting hook rolls your partner diagonally over your shoulder.

Follow them up to the top position. Don't release the underhook until you're settled — you'll often land directly in a strong knee cut or combat base.

Step	What you're doing	Common failure if you skip it
1. Sit up tall	Get chest above theirs	Flat on back, partner pressures through
2. Underhook	Secure sweeping-side underhook	No turning handle, they post the elbow
3. Second grip	Control the far arm	Partner posts the free hand and kills the sweep
4. Load + angle	Shift weight to hook, pivot	Square base, nothing moves
5. Fall + elevate	Drop to shoulder, kick hook	You "kick up" with no roll — nothing happens

Remember. The sweep direction is diagonal toward the shoulder of your hooking leg. If you're trying to roll your partner the "wrong way," your hook is working against your own underhook and the sweep will never finish.

Common mistakes to fix before you roll with it

These are the specific patterns we see at white and new-blue belt. Audit yourself honestly after your next session.

Lifting with the leg instead of the shoulder. If you feel like you're doing a one-legged squat with your partner on top of you, you're skipping Step 5. The leg sets the lever; the shoulder-fall provides the turn.

Keeping both hooks engaged during the finish. During the actual sweep, the non-sweeping hook comes out — it would just push your partner's leg away from you and open space to post. Think of it as "one hook lifts, the other releases."

Trying to sweep a flattened partner. If they've already pressured you down to your back, your first job is to recover the sit-up (frame, shrimp, re-stack) — not to force a sweep from a bad base. This is the same frame-and-recover principle covered in our knee shield half guard beginner's guide.

Head position is wrong. Your head should stay on the same side as your underhook, not drift away. If your head floats toward the far side, your shoulder can't fall into the sweep.

No reaction to defense. If they post the far hand on the mat, you shouldn't just try harder. The classic answer is to switch to the hook-and-run (coming up to a single leg) or chain into an X-guard entry. Butterfly works best as a chain, not a one-shot.

Grips too high or too low. The underhook should be deep — hand on the shoulder blade, not the triceps. The far-arm grip should pull their weight toward you, not just hold them in place.

If you're pattern-stuck in any of these mistakes, the fastest fix is to film one 5-minute round from a side angle and watch where in the five-step sequence you break down. Most grapplers find they skip either Step 2 (underhook) or Step 5 (falling to the shoulder).

Where BJJ Memo fits in

The reason you forget techniques like this isn't effort — it's that you learned the move once, maybe drilled it twice, and never revisited it before your next class. By the following week, the specific grip order and the "fall to your shoulder" cue are gone, and you're back to kicking people in the air.

BJJ Memo exists for exactly this problem. When you watch a butterfly sweep breakdown on YouTube, paste the link into the app and you get a structured technique card — steps, key details, tappable timestamps for the moments that actually matter. You save it to your personal library (filed under butterfly guard), and the review flow surfaces it the night before training so the cue is in your head when you sit up on the mat. It doesn't replace your coach or drilling — it just makes sure the detail doesn't disappear between Wednesday class and Saturday open mat. If you want more on this capture-and-review habit, see our guide on how to review a BJJ class the same night.

Frequently asked questions

Is the butterfly sweep good for smaller grapplers?

Yes — in fact, it's one of the best sweeps for smaller or weaker grapplers precisely because it doesn't rely on lifting strength. The leverage comes from falling bodyweight and angle, not from legs. The caveat is that you must get the underhook and the sit-up every time; forcing it on a flattened base is where smaller grapplers get stuck.

What if my partner won't let me get the underhook?

If they're aggressively overhooking, you have two options: keep pummeling patiently (hand-fight for the inside position), or switch sides and sweep the other direction. Butterfly guard is symmetrical, and most training partners defend one side harder than the other. The ability to attack both sides is what separates a working butterfly game from a position you just hold.

Do I need the gi to hit the butterfly sweep?

No. The seated butterfly sweep works in both gi and no-gi. In gi you have extra grip options (sleeve, collar, pants); in no-gi you'll rely more on the underhook, bicep ties, and head position. The core five-step sequence is identical in both.

How is this different from a scissor sweep?

The scissor sweep is from closed guard and uses your two legs as a scissor — one slicing across the knees, one blocking the opposite hip. The butterfly hook sweep is from open seated guard and uses one leg as a hook/lever plus bodyweight falling diagonally. If you want to compare, our scissor sweep white belt guide breaks that one down the same way.

Why do I keep ending up back on bottom when I try to finish?

You're probably releasing the underhook too early. Keep the underhook as you come up — it's your path from the sweep straight into the top pin. Letting go of it mid-roll lets your partner shrimp out and recover guard.

How long will it take to actually land this in rolling?

For a focused white belt drilling the sequence weekly, the butterfly sweep usually starts landing against lower-pressure partners within a few weeks and against resisting partners after a few months. The variable isn't the move's difficulty — it's how many clean reps you get and whether you review the cue between sessions.

Train it, review it, and then try it live

The butterfly sweep isn't an advanced move — it's a sequence-sensitive beginner move that gets dismissed because people skip steps. Sit up. Underhook. Second grip. Angle. Fall to the shoulder. If you drill it in that exact order a handful of times each week and review the cue the night before class, it'll start showing up in your rolling without you having to think about it.

Next time your coach shows a butterfly variation, save the YouTube reference as a technique card in BJJ Memo, file it under butterfly guard, and let the revision flow put it back in front of you before your next session. Build the habit of capturing the techniques you work on — it's the difference between a growing game and a game that resets every month. You can grab BJJ Memo on iOS and Android from bjjmemo.com.

Teacher disclaimer. This article is a study aid, not a substitute for coaching. For real feedback on your butterfly sweep — grip depth, angle, timing — drill it at a legitimate academy with a qualified black belt who can watch you move. BJJ Memo helps you remember and revise; it doesn't replace mat time.

Last updated 2026-10-31.