How many of you are playing with leg locks?

[machomang]

In the last year or so, guys like cummings and tonon have definitely shown that leg locks are a definitely a serious threat.

How many of you guys are actively studying it and incorporating it into your game? I've recently just started to after months of watching instructionals on it.

I'm just curious how the rest of the bjj community is changing their attitudes about it, when I first started 3 years ago, I never cared to learn them or neither did I know anyone (except 1 guy) actively going for them. But now that I've started, it feels like I've got a brand new toy to play with.

At my current gym, maybe only 3 or 4 other guys are adding it to their game. What do you guys think? Are more of your gym mates going for them? Are your instructors teaching them more?

 

[Shot]

Train them pretty much everyday. Have been for the past 2 years. I split time at a Renzo school in central NJ, Garry Tonon's Brunswick BJJ and Renzo NYC. All them are leglock heavy. In the gi, i'll usually try to stick with toeholds and kneebars, but in Nogi everything is game.

While not everyone I train with dedicates themselves to leglocks, they all have a high understanding of the positions and they know how go attack if they wanted to. If you don't, you'd just get leglocked repeatedly, as I learned the hard way a couple years ago when one of my main instructors was learning his leg game from Eddie Cummings and John Danaher.

 

[GKY]

I self taught myself the straight ankle lock half way through white belt. I honestly never understood why the legs were considered taboo, always seemed like an unexplored target to me. At blue I started studying heel hooks and found they mix really well with ankle locks. Since then I've become addicted to the dark side. I watched the shit out of Bodycombs DVDs, Dean Listers DVDs, and Sambo Steves rolled up episode. Last year I started studying Danahers leg lock system after I heard Eddie Cummins mention how he finishes the heel hook differently than other people and that it's supposed to break the ankle before it breaks the knee as well as demotivate the roll. I was really confused by this and honestly kind of skeptical.

Since that time I've been fortunate enough to go down to New York a few times and actually train with the Danaher death squat guys. Lo and behold it's true, a properly applied heel hook feels like a really powerful toe hold, and will indeed snap the ankle before the knee. I got to learn the basics of their leg lock approaches, general leg locking concepts, positioning, etc. Overall I'd say they have the most sophisticated approach, but there is definitely value that can be found in other places too. None of the Danaher guys have released any of their system on tape and I don't think they will for another few years, but definitely the closest thing currently available is Josh Hayden's 80/20 DVD. There's a lot of overlap between them. There are differences as well, but I think that's a really good place to start learning Danahers stuff.

Bodycomb also recently did huge seminar I believe and there's a ton of really good information there as well. He definitely has a different approach to the Danaher guys, but when it comes to fundamentally understanding leg locks as a whole I'd say it's also great place to start as well.

As for my gym, after I started maybe 3 of 4 guys caught the leg lock bug, but the vast majority of people still won't touch them. The defenses are being discussed more often, but very little offense is taught.

 

[Gambledub]

Since that time I've been fortunate enough to go down to New York a few times and actually train with the Danaher death squat guys.

 

[Forceof1]

I'll play them in the gi with a couple of the colored belts I roll with.

Our gym prefers white belts not do them- not from a safety aspect, more that they just have so much other stuff to learn.

 

[Shot]

Lo and behold it's true, a properly applied heel hook feels like a really powerful toe hold, and will indeed snap the ankle before the knee.

I'm glad you mentioned this because people never believe me when I say it. The first time I got heelhooked by Eddie Cummings it felt like that famous mallet hitting the foot scene in Misery. I still haven't felt anything like that since.

The amount of sheer pressure he can put on your ankle in a heelhook from outside Ashi-Garami is absurd. I had an existential crisis on the train ride home from Renzos that day

 

[ijustwannasurf]

I've played everything but heelhooks since ever since. The footlock was the first submission I ever made my own. Heelhooks came with advanced nogi and MMA, even though I don't play those rulesets very often.

 

[JustTheTip]

I've always liked straight anklelocks. I have pretty much every instructional on the subject. Then after watching Masher Khera vs Erberth Santos I've been hooked on Single Leg X guard.The thing that Cummings success has done for me is widening the possibilities from Single Leg X for me. Prior to him, I thought heelhooks had to be from the reaping position.Single Leg X in itself is such a powerful position and adding a game ending heelhook attack from it just blows my mind.

 

[bjj revolution]

I have been using leglocks since I was a white belt long before they were the cool thing to do but mainly Achilles locks and knee bars everyone I train with has atleast a good defensive understanding of legal locks

 

[Steve08]

Me. I don't go for any of the twisting ones because I suck at them and I don't want to hurt anybody by accident. I sometimes attempt kneebars from say top side control or KOB but that hasn't worked for me well yet (because I suck, not because it does not work). So mainly just straight ankle locks right now, but I feel reasonably confident in finishing them. I also recently discovered the wonders of the Single Leg X guard-- right now I am using it mainly to sweep as I have never had a good sweep that seems to work a lot until I started trying that, but you could also use that to go right into the straight ankle or heel hook. I don't plan to really fuck with heel hooks for a while, maybe I'd go for one if I knew the guy was knowledgeable enough to not try and spazz out and destroy his knee by accident, but yeah.

 

[NateTx4112]

As more and more of our guys get promoted to brown belt...it's becoming increasingly more important for sure for me.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I work on them. I've put quite a bit of time into working from the saddle with kneebars and straight ankle locks, as well as working from 50/50 and the truck on various leg locks. I'd really like to get into the heel hook game, I'm honestly waiting for more Danaher material to be made public before I start going deeply into it.

Also, I love love love the Estima lock. There's no risk to throw it, and it's there a lot once you start looking.

 

[the heed]

I mostly use Estima lock from guard passing. Mostly to keep them in check.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I mostly use Estima lock from guard passing. Mostly to keep them in check.

That's the most common use case, though I also like it as a check to guys who like to invert from RDLR. You can stop that inversion in its tracks by throwing a fast Estima as they go under.

 

[number9dream]

I've loved the straight ankle lock since the first day I stepped into an MMA gym like a decade ago. The coach had fought in Pancrase, trained with Erik Paulson and had some sambo exposure so leg locks weren't frowned upon unlike a lot of places at that time... Barely know how to apply a heel hook or knee bar, but hit straight ankle locks on everyone I roll with (even if it's the only thing I hit when vs better guys haha). My instinct is to go to ashi garami from almost everywhere...

I used to love toe holds but I've kind of forgot how to do them properly, need to brush up. Like someone above me said, Reilly Bodycomb's content is just awesome for leglocks... Although I believe my initial inspiration was that old Imanari super grappling dvd (as well as some of Reilly's earliest videos, I think he used to post them on Lockflow?).

EDIT: This video is a perfect description of my default reaction anytime I'm in trouble:

 

[HtomSirveaux]

I've always liked straight anklelocks. I have pretty much every instructional on the subject. Then after watching Masher Khera vs Erberth Santos I've been hooked on Single Leg X guard.The thing that Cummings success has done for me is widening the possibilities from Single Leg X for me. Prior to him, I thought heelhooks had to be from the reaping position.Single Leg X in itself is such a powerful position and adding a game ending heelhook attack from it just blows my mind.

Yeah, my gym sticks to ibjjf rules, and I really gravitated to the classic strait ankle lock and single leg x position. Have quite a bit of success using the threat of it to add a dimension to my passing on top, and Ive swept good guys with it from bottom. Although it's not really a guard I find myself directly going for, I seem to end up there more often while escaping bad positions eg tech mount.

I'm open to learning the rest of the leg lock game someday, but it's not what my coach teaches. I at least feel like having a grasp on the single x position gives me an ok foundation I could later build off of

 

[Badger67]

Pretty much always have except when coach tells me not to.

 

[machomang]

I've loved the straight ankle lock since the first day I stepped into an MMA gym like a decade ago. The coach had fought in Pancrase, trained with Erik Paulson and had some sambo exposure so leg locks weren't frowned upon unlike a lot of places at that time... Barely know how to apply a heel hook or knee bar, but hit straight ankle locks on everyone I roll with (even if it's the only thing I hit when vs better guys haha). My instinct is to go to ashi garami from almost everywhere...

I used to love toe holds but I've kind of forgot how to do them properly, need to brush up. Like someone above me said, Reilly Bodycomb's content is just awesome for leglocks... Although I believe my initial inspiration was that old Imanari super grappling dvd (as well as some of Reilly's earliest videos, I think he used to post them on Lockflow?).

EDIT: This video is a perfect description of my default reaction anytime I'm in trouble:

beautiful stuff. thanks for the vids. i started watching bodycomb's stuff, and now i'm studying cummings. how are the dean lister instructionals?

 

[Steve08]

Yeah the Estima lock is some straight ninja shit, I forgot about that sub until now. I was watching Victor Estima's DVD, and when he explained how easy it is to hit from a guard passing situation, my mind was blown. It's definitely an effective submission too because Braulio snapped someone's foot with it a few years ago-- Romulo Barral, perhaps?

 

[Steve08]

beautiful stuff. thanks for the vids. i started watching bodycomb's stuff, and now i'm studying cummings. how are the dean lister instructionals?

I haven't personally watched it myself, but from what I heard, Lister mostly focuses on leg positioning and finishes, as in how to do a leglock once you've already entered the position. For people who are looking for specific leglock entries, Reilly Bodycomb or Scott Sonnon (saddle guy) as well as film study is probably better. If anyone on here has seen the KATCH series then feel free to correct me, though.