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Thread: Leg Locks don't work

  1. #1
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    Leg Locks don't work

    Alright, clickbait is out of the way. But not really.

    I figured I'd throw up the bat signal to guys like Cecil and our other Martial Arts enthusiasts about the sometimes controversial subject of leg locks.

    A number of MMA fighters and even BJJ competitors do not play a leg lock game. I think even MMA fighter Vinny Magalhaes once famously said "Leglocks don't work" (before he subsequently had his leg broken by Australian BJJ player Craig Jones) and his opinion isn't by any means uncommon. I'd heard that some guys would not tap to leg locks whatsoever (which seems risky to me) because they'd always been viewed as a "dirty" technique.

    Nevertheless, the inside heel hook is possibly one of the most devastating joint locks in the sport of BJJ in that you can totally twist a persons knee to the point of rupture of multiple ligaments. You can quite literally cripple someone for life with a heel hook in a way that is only possible in few other submissions.

    The potential for damage/injury aside, I'm interested in looking at leg locks from a defensive standpoint. I tend to see them as the "anti-grappling" solution. They seem to have evolved for the purpose of and been popularized by submission only grappling tournaments, and especially by guard players, who tend to not play as much wrestling/judo.

    You still do occasionally see them in MMA fights, where ostensibly you must deal with getting punched in the head and some guys have used them to varying degrees of success such as Rousimar Palhares, Ryan Hall and I seem to recall Beneil Dariush basically breaking Tony Ferguson's leg with one.

    Nevertheless, you must deal with strikes in a real fight and if you're talking about a very serious situation where weapons can be involved, you really REALLY need to be careful of letting your opponents have free access to both of their hands.

    To me, leg locks in a weapons based environment sound dangerous, and leg locks for anything not rising the the need to cripple or maim someone seem like a difficult position to defend legally.

    So my opinion is actually...yeah...leglocks don't work. They're incredibly useful in competition, and can be used to set up passes, sweeps etc and often you find them from half guard, butterfly guard, and especially against a much larger opponent and if you play competition BJJ, then at a certain point you will need to learn how to recognize and defend them, but if you're playing BJJ as a supplement to a strategy of self defense, then leg locks are probably of limited value.

    That said, I do love me a good leg lock while playing the sport of BJJ.

  2. #2
    Member Sal Picante's Avatar
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    My take on it?

    "When the system has failed" ... "Fuck it. Try a leg lock."


  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Les Pepperoni View Post
    My take on it?

    "When the system has failed" ... "Fuck it. Try a leg lock."

    No lie, I have been leglocking fools left and right lately. And not even good leglocks either.

    Like calf slicers bro. The most trash submission.

    (Glad you've survived the cervezavirus BTW.)

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    Is it trash if it works?

  5. #5
    In the past Leg locks tended to be looked down upon in the BJJ community. Historically, there are three reasons this was so.

    1) They were seen as cheap because they generally only were used when nothing else better could be done. When someone could not pass guard, or stay on top, or finish from the top, leg locks were the answer. It was a mark of someone who was not that good at jujitsu.

    2) They cause a lot of needless injury in training. Leg locks are mostly applied against the knees and ankles, which are much weaker in construction than other body parts, and there is a much narrower window of the start of the submission to the point of injury. With a kimura for example, unless there is some underlying physical condition, most people can take a lot of movement and articulation before things tear and break. With the knee especially, only a very tiny range of movement can blow out the ACL and leave someone needing surgery and long recovery.

    3) Until recently, they were more of an “add on” to jujitsu, and therefore there was a lack of congruence with those attacks versus the typical BJJ offense. In other words, with most proven attacks like a straight armbar or a rear naked choke, it came out of positional dominance. With leg locks, they more generally were sudden moves that either worked spectacularly, or failed miserable because they were not positional based. That has changed over the last few years, mostly through the work of the “Danaher Death Squad” and the Renzo Gracie gyms, but it was true for most of the past.

    These issues with leg locks do matter for self-defense as well. Obviously the injury part is important. None of us can afford to be on crutches for six months because we needed ligament reconstruction after a session of drilling leg attacks. And that idea of them not being integrated into the conceptual matrix of “position before submission” is key because while if it fails in competition or training, it is just an ego crush, but for self-defense it could be your life.

    But along with those concerns, there are two other problems that need to be taken into account with leg locks when we are dealing with the self-preservation idea.

    The most pressing is that to do almost any reliable leg lock you need to use both your arms to control and attack the legs. But when you do so, that leaves your opponent’s arms to be completely free to do whatever he wants to include defending and countering your leg attack, as well as striking, or the crucial part that he can deploy and use a weapon. We don’t see leg locks in MMA to the extent that we do in grappling only matches because just adding the striking component makes it more complex and difficult. Just imagine how much worse it could be if the person getting locked could pull a gun, knife, etc.

    The other problem is sort of a corollary to the above paragraph. While leg locks can be extremely painful and can sap the will to fight from someone (as someone who has been injured by leg locks, I can tell you there was not much I wanted to do afterwards but hold my knee and try not to scream), you are relying on a lot of pain to end the fight rather than damage. Yes, having your knee blown out can end the fight, but since you are already on the ground, and it does not affect the arms, if the other person can overcome the pain they are still capable of fighting at a high level. That is not so true with arm attacks since turning a two armed fighter into a single arm one can be a good way to diminish their capacity to continue, and it is obviously not true at all with chokes and unconsciousness. And some leg attacks don’t even cause injury but are pure pain compliance, such as calf crushers.

    Neither of those two issues should completely preclude the use of leg locks, but they need to be understood and addressed. Understand when they should be used, and when they should not. I would also not make it a priority for people under purple belt level. I think the normal focus on positional dominance and limb control, as well as high percentage fight finishers like chokes should be the main focus until the student is at least with a few stripes on his blue belt.

    All aspects of BJJ should be trained to some level, but that does not mean that each aspect is equal in efficacy.
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  6. #6
    Member Sal Picante's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rd62 View Post
    Is it trash if it works?
    Touché

    That said, there is danger in not controlling the waist for what we do and are training for.

    I like the ashi-salami game a lot and have been digging into it deep, but it is kinda like open guns for me, man... Fun, interesting, but, not the original game I signed up for.

  7. #7
    I've had some interesting leg lock positions come out in ECQC evolutions by good jiu-jitsu players. One of the most notable was Chris Woomer who used an outside knee reap to achieve IFWA and mag dump about 6 sims into a dude's butthole.

    The outside Ashi Garami variants also do a good job of jamming an adversary's weapons into the waist with one's feet and allowing access to your waist with one's hands.

    These are niche' postions and don't come out frequently however it has happened enough in course work in live evolutions that it's something that shouldn't be dismissed at all.

    Here's Wooomer's evolution from ECQC last year.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CBrkDofp..._web_copy_link

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by SouthNarc View Post
    I've had some interesting leg lock positions come out in ECQC evolutions by good jiu-jitsu players. One of the most notable was Chris Woomer who used an outside knee reap to achieve IFWA and mag dump about 6 sims into a dude's butthole.

    The outside Ashi Garami variants also do a good job of jamming an adversary's weapons into the waist with one's feet and allowing access to your waist with one's hands.

    These are niche' postions and don't come out frequently however it has happened enough in course work in live evolutions that it's something that shouldn't be dismissed at all.

    Here's Wooomer's evolution from ECQC last year.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CBrkDofp..._web_copy_link
    That looked interesting, especially because of the traditional IWB position... probably would have worked appendix as well, but that side control-->Half Guard--->ashi garami is a transition I've been working on a lot lately...especially against bigger dudes.

    I don't know who Chris Woomer is, but he's clearly got some solid Jiu Jitsu chops. 6 rounds in the butthole is nothing to sneeze at.

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  9. #9
    Site Supporter Totem Polar's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SouthNarc View Post

    Here's Wooomer's evolution from ECQC last year.

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CBrkDofp..._web_copy_link
    Well executed.


    ”When antisemitism moves from the shameful fringe into the public square, it is not about Jews… it is about the surrounding society or the culture or the country. It is an early warning system—a sign that the society itself is breaking down. That it is dying.” -Bari Weiss

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    I liked Ryan Hall's approach in his most recent 50/50 instructional -- there is a heavy emphasis on not letting them get close enough to punch you in the face while you're sitting there digging for a heel hook. He also puts a heavy emphasis on keeping pressure such that your opponent either needs to keep his hands on the mat or he's going to faceplant -- that seems less ideal than double wrist control, but still a relevant consideration in a weapons based environment.

    I think one other aspect of heel hooks in self defense is the same reason they are/were seen as "bad" or "dangerous" in the gym -- there isn't as big of an "this hurts, so I want to stop" factor before you do damage. If I get a heel hook on someone who doesn't train and I *don't* want to actually rip their knee apart, I'm going to have to explain them what's going to happen if I finish it (I've seen video of this working once... but man, it took some explaining). If I have a kimura grip I can just pull on it a little and they get my point. I've also seen too many guys tough their way out of toe holds in competition to think someone who is serious about doing harm is going to care.

    I'm on board with the "use the positions for sweep/pass" line of thinking for self defense. Leg entanglement entries from mount or back escapes are some of my strongest positional escapes. But I'm not diving after something if they're already on the ground.

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