Leglocks are inherently dangerous submissions, right?

[trustdoesntrust]

Hey guys, I was glancing at the Palhares thread here and want to take a slightly different look at it.

In BJJ (it has been a few years since I practiced BJJ though so I'm asking you guys), you can't do any kneebars or turning submissions up until brown or black belt tournaments, right? Like, even purple belts aren't allowed to crank on each others' knees. Why? because those sorts of holds are inherently dangerous and tend to lead to injuries, and in particular, injuries that are difficult to recover from.

So the fact that Palhares is frequently applying those subs makes it more likely his opponents are going to get injured. Is the UFC really just blaming him for being a master of dangerous subs? IS it not HIM, but the submissions that are dangerous?

You're completely right about the inherent danger of leglocks, which is why a master of such dangerous submissions should be the MOST sensitive to the risk of injuring others. I agree that it rings a bit hollow for a sport that promotes brutal fighting to punish a guy for being good at brutal fighting, but that doesn't mean you should take altruism out of the sporting values.

 

[Rod1]

He let go in a second. How quickly is one supposed to let go? A second is too long; get out of the sport if a second is too long. Go knit or collect pokemon or something.

Get real. If you have a problem with submissions, get out of my sport. - E

I think he was cut because of the Drwal business, he wasnt cut back then because he looked like a serious contender. Now that he is just a one trick pony as well rounded as Bob Sapp, the UFC cant really justify that liability.

 

[lonewolf210]

All joint locks are inherently dangerous. Getting your shoulder shredded by a kimura is not fundamentally different than getting your knee shredded by a heelhook, and they are both going to take a lot of time and possibly surgergy to heal.

Why the IBJJF has such a pansy attitude towards leg locks at the lower belt levels is their own business, and doesn't necessarily speak to certain submissions being super dangerous.

While it's true that they are equally dangerous to the joint, having a jacked up shoulder sucks and everything but doesn't affect your mobility like a fucked knee.

I know a girl who has two messed up knees from a car accident and I can assure you she would rather have to deal with crappy shoulders than have to wear braces every day just to get around without a wheel chair.

 

[pseudo genki]

Heel hooks aren't teh d3adly forbidden 5-finger death punch of submissions; they're considered risky for 2 reasons:
[1] Because of how the cruciate ligaments are attached across the knee, the window before they feel like someone needs to tap and when they do permanent damage is rather small. By the time someone realizes they need to tap, if the other person is still torquing, accidents happen. This is exacerbated because some leg locks can target multiple joints and the one that hurts a little may not be the first one to give out.
[2] People practice applying heel hooks (and consequently, tapping to heel hooks) much less often than they do other submissions because many competitions outright ban them or only allow them at advanced levels. Even some of those 'advanced' competitors are beginners when it comes to leg locks, just because they've never competed with them before and have spent much less time drilling them than they've spent drilling chokes and arm locks.
Obviously [1] and [2] each make the other worse. Because they have a small margin of error, people are less likely to risk them in training and they're banned in many competitions. Because they're discouraged, people are heel-hooked less often and don't get a good sense of how soon they need to tap if they want to walk home. Because people don't know when to tap to them, they're even more likely to cause damage. Because of their propensity for injury, more divisions of more competitions ban them and more people avoid practicing them and don't get nearly as much experience in how to apply them and how it feels to be caught in one compared to armbars or keylocks.

(Of course, none of this excuses cranking any submission after the ref jumps in.)

When someone puts on leg locks suddenly, or cranks them past where someone is already tapping, stuff like this can happen. (No, that's not a sound effect)


TL;DR: Heel hooks are slightly more inherently dangerous than armbars, but if beginners were only allowed to use heel hooks in competition, drilled 50 heel hooks to the tapping point each leg before class, and were discouraged from practicing armbars until they were advanced, we'd probably think arm bars were more dangerous.

 

[Diablo Ryu**]

Palhares is an inherently dangerous grappler.

And I like it...too many pussy "I train mma" guys. ..feels good to have a legit grappler out there ripping leg locks.

 

[mixmaster staph]

What about the seconds before when Pierce was tapping? frantically tapping? yelling?

You should get off Rousimar's nuts - T

The fight isn't over when someone taps. What's so hard to understand about this? There isn't (or didn't used to be) anything in the rules which says you need to release a submission when someone taps.

 

[Torrid]

The fight isn't over when someone taps. What's so hard to understand about this? There isn't (or didn't used to be) anything in the rules which says you need to release a submission when someone taps.

Sportsmanship, honor, human decency - these things are indeed to understand for 13 year olds and Palhares.

 

[mixmaster staph]

Sportsmanship, honor, human decency - these things are indeed to understand for 13 year olds and Palhares.

Oh ok, human decency in a fight. Guess what; that's up to the people involved. You want to share the love during a fight? Go ahead! But if someone else decides to wait until the ref makes it clear that the fight is over that's their decision. There should NOT be a cut for this.

 

[traficante]

...

I agree with point [1], but I also think that no mather how much you practice heelhooks even if it is as much as with other submissions (and i know people who do that) twisting footlocks are still riskier in terms of injury probability than other submissions. That is so because some time even though you know details of the submission sometimes you just have to crank a litle bit more to get the tap and after you get it there is a very short interval of time to react to it and stop cranking. And even in such a case there are factors like if the referee saw the tap and the intensions of the one doing the heelhook (a good example of that second thing are Palhares' fights).

 

[pseudo genki]

Oh ok, human decency in a fight. Guess what; that's up to the people involved. You want to share the love during a fight? Go ahead! But if someone else decides to wait until the ref makes it clear that the fight is over that's their decision. There should NOT be a cut for this.

What if someone decides to wait until after the ref makes it clear the fight is over and then cranks again and then ignores the ref's first two attempts to make them let go and has done similar stuff in five prior fights, and has been suspended by multiple promotions and multiple ACs in the past for PED use as well as for the exact same shenanigans with other refs?
If this were an isolated incident, I'd be up in arms about the cut, but it's not, so I'm not.

 

[mixmaster staph]

What if someone decides to wait until after the ref makes it clear the fight is over and then cranks again and then ignores the ref's first two attempts to make them let go and has done similar stuff in five prior fights, and has been suspended by multiple promotions and multiple ACs in the past for PED use as well as for the exact same shenanigans with other refs?
If this were an isolated incident, I'd be up in arms about the cut, but it's not, so I'm not.

With the angle of his vision at the time and the way the ref dived in, he couldn't see him. Seriously, if you know a guy is trigger happy and you're reffing his fight you could at least make it absolutely clear when you're stopping the fight.

 

[traficante]

Oh ok, human decency in a fight. Guess what; that's up to the people involved. You want to share the love during a fight? Go ahead! But if someone else decides to wait until the ref makes it clear that the fight is over that's their decision. There should NOT be a cut for this.

Well there's plenty of people still that don't consider MMA a sport at all. If MMA (in the face of the biggest organisation) wants to make a reputation for itself as a real sport and not illegal fights held in someone basement, then if has to keep such concepts as sportsmanship. And with regard to this Dana White has made the right choice.

 

[RJ Green]

Heel hooks aren't armbars. You dont walk on your hands. You're still mobile with a bum arm.

successful hooks result in permanent knee damage. That's your livelihood. With Paul Harris, youve got someone blatantly trying to end careers.

For a baseball analogy, this is like someone with a great inside fastball who keeps beaning people. Its not the move, its the practitioner.

Lastly, fuck you E. Its not your sport. Also, you can quit signing your posts any time.

 

[DiscipleOfPog]

The main reason people cite for why leglocks are dangerous is that there is a very small pain threshold before injury occurs. This means there is not much time to tap before you get injured.

Lemme ask you guys this. How many of you wait until pain begins to tap to an armbar or kimura? Maybe I never realized I was a wimp but I never wait until pain to tap to these things. I'm familiar with them enough to know when it's time for me to tap.

Another question. Do guys that train Sambo leave the gym week after week limping?

BJJ instructors need to start re-introducing leg-locks and getting over the fear of them. BJJ guys need to start learning the positions and being comfortable knowing exactly when to tap. A lot of guys will still try to defend kneebars, toe-holds, and heel hooks when they are fully locked in because they simply don't know the position as well as they do armbars and shoulder lock positions.

I personally try to work on leg-locks on my own open mat time. It's not acceptable to think that I've been training 4.5 years but someone who has trained with leg-locks for 5 months can walk in and tap me repeatedly.

 

[DiscipleOfPog]

I'll also add that in the current situation, it's not that Pierce didn't tap when he should have (he certainly did.) This time it's because his opponent wouldn't release the hold. The same thing could happen if a dude cranked the elbow or shoulder.

 

[ChrmnMa0]

The IBJJF attitude on leg locks is just 100 year old + drama from the Judo days. That is it. BJJ decided to carry over the Taboo for whatever unknown reason. Kimura's hurt more people than any other submission. All submissions are dangerous. A fucking choke held too long will kill you.

 

[argy-bargy]

Leg locks don't kill people. People kill people.

 

[SummerStriker]

The main reason people cite for why leglocks are dangerous is that there is a very small pain threshold before injury occurs. This means there is not much time to tap before you get injured.

I think a part of the problem is the culture. You shouldn't keep cranking a submission until you get a tap. Most submissions work with minimal effort once they are on right. If you need a lot of force, you are doing a shitty job. People should not continue to crank something until they get a tap because maybe the opponent is ignorant, or has a high pain threshold and doesn't know what you are doing.

When you are sparring lightly in boxing, and someone walks through your shot, you tell them to respect the shot so that you can work the drill - you don't just start going harder - unless you are an asshole. Having a huge problem with it is because of ego, and usually nothing more.

 

[traficante]

I think a part of the problem is the culture. You shouldn't keep cranking a submission until you get a tap. Most submissions work with minimal effort once they are on right. If you need a lot of force, you are doing a shitty job. People should not continue to crank something until they get a tap because maybe the opponent is ignorant, or has a high pain threshold and doesn't know what you are doing.

Amen to that! That's something I've been thinking for a long time and generally I manage to do it with weaker oponents or begginers but when it comes to some stronger guys... sometimes ego gets in the way.

 

[shunyata]

Hey guys, I was glancing at the Palhares thread here and want to take a slightly different look at it.

In BJJ (it has been a few years since I practiced BJJ though so I'm asking you guys), you can't do any kneebars or turning submissions up until brown or black belt tournaments, right? Like, even purple belts aren't allowed to crank on each others' knees. Why? because those sorts of holds are inherently dangerous and tend to lead to injuries, and in particular, injuries that are difficult to recover from.

So the fact that Palhares is frequently applying those subs makes it more likely his opponents are going to get injured. Is the UFC really just blaming him for being a master of dangerous subs? IS it not HIM, but the submissions that are dangerous?

This is actually a bullshit Brazilian myth that is presently fracturing the BJJ side of the grappling community.


It has about as much weight as the bullshit myth of "the kimura is a strong man move that shouldn't be drilled by any true jiujiteiro".

Using kimuras for control and sweeping is one of the major new innovations in recent times in the BJJ community, primarily because of prior generations shunning it.


Similarly current IBJJF rules treat lower body submissions other than the straight ankle lock as absurdly dangerous when in reality you can do just as much damage in any joint submission (including a straight armbar) if you crank it hard and fast and don't let go when the opponent is tapping and screaming.