Heel hooks

deadshot138

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After watching Gordon Ryan in ADCC, I'm betting we'll start seeing a lot more heel hooks at our respective gyms. I've been grappling for 14 years and never really got good at leg locks due to their inherent danger to training partners. If you apply them slowly they're fairly easy to escape, but setting them on too strongly can cripple your partner and get you kicked out of the gym. Because of this, I usually avoid them because I don't like learning submissions halfway and have them not work if I need them to. What do you guys do in regards to training leg locks?
 
After watching Gordon Ryan in ADCC, I'm betting we'll start seeing a lot more heel hooks at our respective gyms. I've been grappling for 14 years and never really got good at leg locks due to their inherent danger to training partners. If you apply them slowly they're fairly easy to escape, but setting them on too strongly can cripple your partner and get you kicked out of the gym. Because of this, I usually avoid them because I don't like learning submissions halfway and have them not work if I need them to. What do you guys do in regards to training leg locks?
Sounds to me like a focus to controlling the leg and the overall position would be a great asset to your leglock game. The more control you have, the less rushed you are to finish. Learn how to tie your butterfly, x-guard, etc. to your leglock game, practice sweeps and chains from leglock positions, refine your control so that you don't even have to leglock your man from a leg control position and see where it goes from there.
 
risk/reward on using them is great for you but terrible for your training partners, i stay away from using them in sparring for such reasonings

good to know and drill, if you want to compete then should be familiar with them
 
I don't train a lot of no-gi ....mainly an old school gi guy but we do allow them at blue and up. I agree in regards to they are dangerous ( heel hooks ) to your partner and although we allow them many choose not to apply them. We usually get to the position and let it go
 
wut? hh and leglocks its pretty much what no gi has become since DDS hit main stream. Hell its

Yea, I think it’s been years now that it’s become less taboo in both tournaments and gyms. That isn’t to say at gyms people should be ripping them in training. You can work for and secure a heel hook without wrecking the persons knee and then it also is important for the opponent to recognize when it’s locked in. Takes some mutual cooperation I guess which can be a problem. I think people who are new to it defensive wise need to be over generous to tap early and very slowly allow the progression to get farther and farther once you feel more comfortable about what you should be doing once you are in real danger. I say this because a lot of times become fuck up their own leg by trying to escape turning hard the wrong direction. You have to get it drilled into your head what you absolutely can and shouldn’t not do when stuck in the position. Afterwards, you can begin trying to learn slipping your heel but it’s key to have the right training partners to test this with.

Edit: also, if you get good with putting them on, you really need to be careful how much you put it on as even an additional inch can be a very bad consequence to your training partner. Catch and release definitely should be considered and only try slightly applying with people who also know what’s going on. Additionally, like I said above, you almost need to be aware the person you are putting this on has no idea how to escape and be very very ready to let it go if you see them go the wrong direction. It’s just not worth ruining a gym partners leg.
 
Sounds to me like a focus to controlling the leg and the overall position would be a great asset to your leglock game. The more control you have, the less rushed you are to finish. Learn how to tie your butterfly, x-guard, etc. to your leglock game, practice sweeps and chains from leglock positions, refine your control so that you don't even have to leglock your man from a leg control position and see where it goes from there.

Our gym has a 10th planet brown (who has a great leglock game) who just came over a few weeks ago and he does exactly this. He was telling me that to attack the heel/ankle or knee, you have to control the joint above it. So what he does against me and the other leglock scrubs is try to lock down my knee from saddle or K guard and then instead of falling back into a heel hook or straight ankle lock (which would be a guaranteed sub), he just palms the top of my foot and slowly starts pushing down. He says he does this when there's a leglock skill disparity because it forces him to have super clean leg control but also allows more control on the foot pressure so he doesn't accidentally jack up someone's ankle.
 
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After watching Gordon Ryan in ADCC, I'm betting we'll start seeing a lot more heel hooks at our respective gyms. I've been grappling for 14 years and never really got good at leg locks due to their inherent danger to training partners. If you apply them slowly they're fairly easy to escape, but setting them on too strongly can cripple your partner and get you kicked out of the gym. Because of this, I usually avoid them because I don't like learning submissions halfway and have them not work if I need them to. What do you guys do in regards to training leg locks?

I have a mainly cross ashi leglock game (saddle, honeyhole, double trouble...) with Reverse X and butterfly entry

I took the advice of the ''leglock leader'' of our gym and started to focus on kneebars from that position. If you can manage a knee bar from inside ashi, that means that you could have had a heel hook like 20 seconds ago

So I get the inside position and focus on sitting on the guy and to work from there on a knee bar.

Nobody gets hurt or gets his panties in a bunch, you can do it in Gi also so your saddle entries can be useful all the time
 
wut? hh and leglocks its pretty much what no gi has become since DDS hit main stream. Hell its

Yeah this kind of already happened five years ago.


I started heel hooking at white belt a decade ago. If I'm in a strictly IBJJF gym I'll stay with footlocks and toeholds. Usually go catch and release for heel hooks in nogi unless we've talked about it ahead of time.
 
Fuck me. I'm still working on my Gordon-style smothering chest wrap full mount...

Our gym is catch and release - both gi and no gi.
I'm the heel hook guy/toe hold guy among the blues and whites (I'm a four-stripe blue). I like to get to ashi from knee shield half guard.
 
Sounds to me like a focus to controlling the leg and the overall position would be a great asset to your leglock game. The more control you have, the less rushed you are to finish. Learn how to tie your butterfly, x-guard, etc. to your leglock game, practice sweeps and chains from leglock positions, refine your control so that you don't even have to leglock your man from a leg control position and see where it goes from there.

Both have to be somewhat knowledgeable. We had a leglock seminar and the next day, I was training with someone in my team that didn't attend. I was practicing a few of the things control wise I learned from the seminar. Weren't going hard at all. Person I was training started to move and twist their leg at a pace and in directions I wasn't comfortable with so I just let go before any change of injury occurring.

If you don't know, you don't know and it affects everyone
 
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