Leg locks...The new standard?

That's all true, but it's also important not to forget that the mount gets four points in BJJ because of strikes, not submission opportunities. Sometimes what the DDS guys are doing looks like tightened-up Shooto as much as it does BJJ.

I guess the good ship Fighting Applicability sailed out of Sport BJJ Harbour some years ago now, but these developments do seem to drift them even further apart. Does anyone know if Danaher has said anything on the topic? Especially given he wrote the pretty-much-definitive explanation of the positional hierarchy doctrine in Mastering Jujitsu.
 
The difference is strategic. 20 years ago if someone voluntarily let go of mount to take a kimura grip or instead of trying to pass guard fell back into a leg lock all the old black belts would shake their heads about giving up position to chase a submission. Now, people are starting to understand that the kimura isn't just a submission, it's a position in and of itself that might give you more routes to a finish than mount (in no-gi). Same with leg locks: you're no longer jumping on something and hoping to get the tap, you're going into a position where you can maintain control and all routes lead to a finish. People didn't used to think of many of these positions in that way. I started in 2002 and no one was talking about that sort of thing. Positional dominance meant passing guard and getting to mount or back. The idea that a leg entanglement could also be positionally dominant was totally alien to the thinking at that point in time. So no, the moves aren't new. But the way of thinking about them and the level of important you place on different factors has changed. Dynamism and having a clear route to a finish is being prized much more now than static positional control, and that's a clear change from 15-20 years ago when positional control was everything.

Maybe it was just a difference in the training idk, but I was never instructed to not attack subs, regardless of the position I was in and the training we conducted was almost entirely in preparation for MMA. My instructor and many of the fighters in our gym at the time were from the NHB era and they did preach position before submission. Yet we drilled foot locks all time, including sitting back for them in guard, we even drilled springing onto knee bars and toe holds from the N/S position. We just didn't have all the refinement that these top leg lock gurus have.

Sure we never had a class that taught us in 1 session to latch onto a kimura from anywhere and then try to advance to a finishing position, but we did drill the kimura from every possible position/situation including drilling specifically as a TDD/reversal tool so by the time someone became a blue belt, they multiple ways to use the kimura besides just the traditional guard, or side mount top kimuras.
 
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Maybe it was just a difference in the training idk, but I was never instructed to not attack subs, regardless of the position I was in and the training we conducted was almost entirely in preparation for MMA. My instructor and many of the fighters in our gym at the time were from the NHB era and they did preach position before submission. Yet we drilled foot locks all time, including sitting back for them in guard, we even drilled springing onto knee bars and toe holds from the N/S position. We just didn't have all the refinement that these top leg lock gurus have.

Sure we never had a class that taught us in 1 session to latch onto a kimura from anywhere and then try to advance to a finishing position, but we did drill the kimura from every possible position/situation including drilling specifically as a TDD/reversal tool so by the time someone became a blue belt, they multiple ways to use the kimura besides just the traditional guard, or side mount top kimuras.

Maybe we're just talking past each other. You're talking about going for all these submissions, and I'm saying that people aren't thinking of footlocks and kimuras or whatever primarily as submissions anymore, they're thinking about them first as positions with all that means and only then as submissions. So for example, when I've had the chance to go to DDS seminars, while they do talk about finishing you first spend time on positional control in leg entanglements, then you talk about transitions you can make into different entanglements based on how uke defends the position, and only then do you talk about actually finishing the sub. I don't know about you, but when I first learned the kimura I was taught how to get the lock and finish it from a few different positions. What I wasn't taught that you would be now is the notion that the kimura *grip itself* is a position, that while there are times you can finish there are also times when you're use it to transition to the back, or to an arm bar, and that the most important thing is to maintain the grip and keep control of the position through uke's transitions and only finish when you can do so with certainty that you won't lose it. I think the mindset is pretty different than it used to be. Maybe that's just me, but I don't think so.
 
Best leg locks are from catch

Bjj leg masters like lister learnt from catch

Some of the Gracie boys are doing leg locks

They have noting on funaki ken shamrock Suzuki sakuraba

lister learn from sambo.

gordon ryan is going to hh all of them, at the same time, get fucking real.
 
Maybe we're just talking past each other. You're talking about going for all these submissions, and I'm saying that people aren't thinking of footlocks and kimuras or whatever primarily as submissions anymore, they're thinking about them first as positions with all that means and only then as submissions. So for example, when I've had the chance to go to DDS seminars, while they do talk about finishing you first spend time on positional control in leg entanglements, then you talk about transitions you can make into different entanglements based on how uke defends the position, and only then do you talk about actually finishing the sub. I don't know about you, but when I first learned the kimura I was taught how to get the lock and finish it from a few different positions. What I wasn't taught that you would be now is the notion that the kimura *grip itself* is a position, that while there are times you can finish there are also times when you're use it to transition to the back, or to an arm bar, and that the most important thing is to maintain the grip and keep control of the position through uke's transitions and only finish when you can do so with certainty that you won't lose it. I think the mindset is pretty different than it used to be. Maybe that's just me, but I don't think so.
Maybe we are, the point I was trying to make is that even though we didn't have the same details from these positions/subs we were still drilling them and back then. Even though our instructors still preached position before submission, that was mostly just something to say to white belts and they still drilled us to seamlessly roll from one position/submission to the next position/submission. To the point that by time a white belt became blue they had multiple techniques to chain off of any position, submission, or situation they may find themselves in.
 
Uchi, do you advocate that, once you get a kimura grip, you should never let it go and that there's always a way to something better, either take a superior position or finish?
 
Uchi, do you advocate that, once you get a kimura grip, you should never let it go and that there's always a way to something better, either take a superior position or finish?
You didn't ask me but if I have a kimura grip I see almost no reason to let it go because there's always a sweep, pass, back attack, or another submission right around the corner. Especially without the gi.
 
The best leg lockers in the world tapping guys in light GnP sparring does not mean leglocks are good for self defense.

im not a big leglock guy at all, in fact i rarely go for them in training unless somebody is just blatantly handing me their foot on a silver platter...but strangely enough, ive had to use my training 4 times in the street in the 10+ years ive been training-one of them was a rear naked choke, but the other three were all footlocks, and i never came close to being hit
 
Maybe we're just talking past each other. You're talking about going for all these submissions, and I'm saying that people aren't thinking of footlocks and kimuras or whatever primarily as submissions anymore, they're thinking about them first as positions with all that means and only then as submissions. So for example, when I've had the chance to go to DDS seminars, while they do talk about finishing you first spend time on positional control in leg entanglements, then you talk about transitions you can make into different entanglements based on how uke defends the position, and only then do you talk about actually finishing the sub. I don't know about you, but when I first learned the kimura I was taught how to get the lock and finish it from a few different positions. What I wasn't taught that you would be now is the notion that the kimura *grip itself* is a position, that while there are times you can finish there are also times when you're use it to transition to the back, or to an arm bar, and that the most important thing is to maintain the grip and keep control of the position through uke's transitions and only finish when you can do so with certainty that you won't lose it. I think the mindset is pretty different than it used to be. Maybe that's just me, but I don't think so.

Well said.

It’s literally looking at something we’ve all done and recontextualised it.
 
Every era has a hot trend. This isn't the first time that heel hooks were popular. There was a brief heel hook craze in the late 00's but nothing like now.

Things come along and they are silver bullets for a little while because they change how the game is played. When I started training, the darce choke was the rage, and everyone had to learn it. Just before that it was the x guard and the deep half. The darce changed how people played from side, half, and the turtle. High level guys were getting tapped with uber simple darce setups. Now days the darce is a fairly basic technique that's still very effective but it's not a magic bullet. The same thing happened with the high elbow guillotine/Marcelotine a couple years later. Then the Kimura traps. The the berimbolo. Those were magic bullets too, but people learned them and now they're just a part of a sort of 'new school' era of basics. The arm-in guillotine right now is making a sneaky comeback with a lot of advancements on the low.

The same thing is already happening with these heel hooks. They aren't even the magic bullet they were a year or two ago. People are catching up and embracing them. Not everyone but a lot of people at least. The Danaher guys are still on the forefront of the leg game, and when you watch them play the legs and watch everyone else, you can see they're ahead. But the overall leg lock knowledge has gone up. The major reason why this heel hook phase is lasting so long is because the big part of it is the 'positioning' before the heel hooks.

Everything goes in cycles. There will be a berimbolo phase again. There will be a darce and guillotine phase again. There will be a deep half phase again. Heel hooks will cool off and then get hot again.

Everything in fighting sports goes in cycles.

But the current no-gi meta game is interesting because it's making people re-think what position before submission means. Kimura grips, darce and guillotine grips, 4-11 leg entanglements. None of these are classic position before submission but put you right next door to the end of the match.


This here.
 
At my friend Bjj gym, the white belts only wants to learn heelhooks.

One of my new students told me that he trained at an mma gym. The taught him heelhookd but he did not even know what a straight ankle lock.

Small competition organisers are now copying lot of the adcc rules.
 
At my friend Bjj gym, the white belts only wants to learn heelhooks.

One of my new students told me that he trained at an mma gym. The taught him heelhookd but he did not even know what a straight ankle lock.

Small competition organisers are now copying lot of the adcc rules.

White belts should not do Hh, no matter what, not only because they are a danger with them, but it will hinder their development as grapplers immensely
 
White belts should not do Hh, no matter what, not only because they are a danger with them, but it will hinder their development as grapplers immensely

Basically at the other gym. Blue belt heelhook the white belts.
 
Basically at the other gym. Blue belt heelhook the white belts.

Another moron... Blue belts shouldn't either, specially to whitebelts. If they're rolling with a higher belt and the rules are set on before rolling it's ok I would say, let's say the higher belt wants to get some training with Hh, so they both go.. But a blue Hhing. White belt? That's just plain wrong
 
White belts should not do Hh, no matter what, not only because they are a danger with them, but it will hinder their development as grapplers immensely


Hinder how?

>uhhh, they won't focus on passing or being on top and stuff...?

So many bjj players do that already. The Miyaos were poster children of this fact; it wasn't until late brown/blackbelt level that they really started becoming proficient in things besides berimbolo backtakes.
 
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Hinder how?

>uhhh, they won't focus on passing or being on top and stuff...?

So many bjj players do that already. The Miyaos were poster children of this fact; it wasn't until late brown/blackbelt level that they really started becoming proficient in things besides berimbolo backtakes.

yes.

Just becasue there was a berimbolo fad doesnt mean no one will ever focus on that besides to play miyaos game you need to have a certain type of physical attributes. To attack the legs you dont.

You need to have a certain understanding of grappling in general in order to start attacking the legs, at least I would like my students to have.
 
Another moron... Blue belts shouldn't either, specially to whitebelts. If they're rolling with a higher belt and the rules are set on before rolling it's ok I would say, let's say the higher belt wants to get some training with Hh, so they both go.. But a blue Hhing. White belt? That's just plain wrong


Well you can blame abcc, dds and ebi for that mentality.

How can you blame them? ..when you read that a 15 years old is submitng bb with hh.

Hh is now the st grall.

Even the latest development for the ibjjf legal stuff like single x guard and straight ankle is very pop ular and people are getting really good at it.

Never seen such level of efficiency in leg lock and it is due to the latest trend.
 
yes.

Just becasue there was a berimbolo fad doesnt mean no one will ever focus on that besides to play miyaos game you need to have a certain type of physical attributes. To attack the legs you dont.

You need to have a certain understanding of grappling in general in order to start attacking the legs, at least I would like my students to have.


Well for starters...

Berimbolo never stopped being a fad, we stopped calling it a fad now because everyone knows it, and forms an important part of the game of a significant number of competitors; berimbolo is a 'good, basic, fundamental' move now.

Secondly, before the berimbolo, it was a 'try to triangle and scissor or hook sweep' fad; bjj players who try to argue against learning leg locks on account of the possibility it could disincentivize playing top for some people have no leg to stand on; that has always been the predominant mode of play in the jiu jitsu universe.
 
Well for starters...

Berimbolo never stopped being a fad, we stopped calling it a fad now because everyone knows it, and forms an important part of the game of a significant number of competitors; berimbolo is a 'good, basic, fundamental' move now.

Secondly, before the berimbolo, it was a 'try to triangle and scissor or hook sweep' fad; bjj players who try to argue against learning leg locks on account of the possibility it could disincentivize playing top for some people have no leg to stand on; that has always been the predominant mode of play in the jiu jitsu universe.

Your confusing learning leg locks with basing your game on them.

I personally don't all that in my class, eventhough I'm probably the biggest leg lock fan in my country. White belts dropping to ankle locks is a no no my class.
 
Well you can blame abcc, dds and ebi for that mentality.

How can you blame them? ..when you read that a 15 years old is submitng bb with hh.

Hh is now the st grall.

Even the latest development for the ibjjf legal stuff like single x guard and straight ankle is very pop ular and people are getting really good at it.

Never seen such level of efficiency in leg lock and it is due to the latest trend.

I believe is my responsibility as instructor to guide them, at least till the turn purple or blue....
 
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