The God-Emperor’s commentary:
HOW DO GRAPPLE?
Hopefully in either picture or video form. My knowledge of BJJ is fairly limited and while I know a decent amount of submission moves, I feel that sweeps is one of the basics I should definately know about… yet I don’t. Help a brother out.
I mean, I take its not your standard leg sweep from standing position.
Well, http://bjj.org/techniques/ has a lot of pictures so you might want to give it a try.
Sweep is basically moving from one position to a more advantageous one.
For example, transitioning from having someone in your guard to mounting them, or getting someone from having you mounted to only being in their guard.
Strangler.
Really? I would count going from being mounted to being in their guard as an escape, but not a sweep. In competitions, escapes get you no points, whereas sweeps followed by posistion is the best way to rack up some big numbers really fast. I was always told that escaping shouldn’t get you any point because if you need to escape, you already made a mistake and aren’t going to be rewarded for it.
In my first and only competition (so far), I got swept to the mount last second and it forced a tie, and then overtime round. For anyone curious, I lost that, and that guy went on to get 2nd.
Or maybe he’s not strangler. Gonna unban him for now, though I’m tempted not to for this post alone.
A sweep is any sudden change in position. They can be done from under mount, in the guard, under side mount, anywhere. Now, one of the most basic sweeps is the gracie gift. 
This one changes position from the guard to side mount. Quite effective. Now, another important sweep takes place under mount. You reach one hand up to grab their collar. The other one comes up too like a basic collar choke. While they’re defending the collar, you jerk their head down and roll over. The guy on bottom is changing a bad situation into something postive by threatning to sweep. 
The second sweep is really a “sport” martial art move. On the street, you would gouge their eyes after jerking their head down.
I would think it would be for a headbutt to the bridge of the nose, but then again I don’t know these secret BJJ techniques of street.
Damn, beat me to it. 
PL
I was going to post a picture of a chimney sweep… 
Gypsy Jazz is correct. A sweep is a reversal to the top from the guard. An escape is a reversal or recovery to guard from a bad position. A sweep scores, an escape does not.
In my TKD class we were taught a reversal from mount. You pull their gi upward and toward you while thrusting upward with your hips; they roll over your head. I have no idea if this actually works; I’ve never seen anything like it work in actual alive environments.
No, it doesn’t. All the guy has to do is put his arms forward and lo! he is still on top of you.
PL
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Poop-Loops again.
(For using the word lo).
My favorite sweep is the collar choke from under the mount. The guy on top falls to the side everytime.
What the hell are you talking about? Even if you’re serious that would be an escape not a sweep.
people say they do bjj and dont even know the difference between an escape and a sweep. and trying collar choke someone while your mounted will get your armbarred everytime, your basically giving them the arm.
this threads rediculous and some of the replies are to.
omg another serious one.