Arm locks can be straight, rotational, or compression based. A straight arm lock example would be a ‘standard’ arm bar or juji gatame. Another would be a crunch arm bar or ‘ude gatame’. These attack the elbow joint. We don’t refer to the wrist lock as a straight armlock variation, and it’s considered it’s own thing.
Conversely, there are rotational locks such as Americanas and Kimuras. These attack the shoulder joint via twisting the hand and elbow as a ratchet lever.
Lastly there are compression arm locks, such as bicep slicers, that stretch the tendons in the elbow.
Leg locks are more complicated.
Some leg locks, such as heel hooks, have both linear (straight) force and also rotational force applied at the knee joint. Whereas the elbow is broken by hyper extending through the normal plane of motion, knees can be attacked with lateral pressure as well as - extending them perpendicularly to their normal range of motion.
Rotational locks on the arm attack the shoulder joint, so people might expect rotational attacks on the legs to attack the hip joint. However, they generally damage the knee ligaments instead.
Additionally, while the hand extends straight out from our forearm, the foot cuts a 90 degree angle. This gives us a lever that we can use for rotational control adding more opportunities for submission options compared to an arm. We can rotate the foot to attack the knee ligaments or rotate the foot to attack the ankle ligaments.
Interestingly, while wrist locks aren’t considered an armlock, attacks on the ankle ARE considered leg locks. That’s really not consistent, but it is what it is.
There are also compression locks of the knee known as calf slicers or by nonsensical names such as “ham sandwhich”. Go figure.
Lastly, there is a submission known as a cloverleaf that I don’t believe has a real analogue to the arms, wherein you break one shinbone by pulling it into the other shinbone. This causes a lot of pain before there’s any threat of submission, so it gives defenders plenty of heads up that it’s coming. For this reason, it’s allowed at white belt level at our gym.
You don’t need to be good at capturing and applying all of these submissions. I, for one, am most definitely not. I’m decent at straight ankles and inside heel hooks, and am familiar with the rest. I do however, expect you to know what all of these are if you’re purple + at the gym.
Some leg locks don’t cause pain when they’re applied. All arm locks do.
Kimuras hurt when they’re being applied. So do Americana (or ‘American locks’), straight arm bars, crunch arm bars, and even wrist locks.
Many leg locks do not cause pain before ligaments are injured. There’s a feeling of ‘tightness’ in the joint, but not pain before something gets damaged. Many people (who know more about this than I do) say that this is because these leg locks attack a joint in a plane that the joint doesn’t naturally hinge and that there aren’t nerve endings to detect this potential damage.
Regardless, if you wait until something hurts when someone heel hooks you before you tap, you’re going to hurt yourself. You have been warned. Don’t be a knuckledragger.
This isn’t an absolute, but generally you need control of three joints in order to finish a joint lock. Here’s a link to our article about the 3 joint rule:
If you like audio learning, here’s a great podcast on it as well:
https://podcast.bjjmentalmodels.com/243161/13666778
The leg you’re entangling with your legs (and attacking) is called the primary leg. Their other leg is called the secondary leg. For most entanglements, their best tool to escape the position and free their knee line is to push off of you with their secondary leg. Because of this, when we control the secondary leg we prevent their most useful tool of escape.
When we have this control of the secondary leg with our legs, it’s often called Double Trouble. This name also refers to a specific positional variant of Cross Ashi, so there’s a little bit of confusion surrounding the naming conventions.
This concept actually comes from a Danaher leg lock instructional that really changed the modern meta in the game. It’s applicable to arm bars as well as leg locks but is a huge component of the games that we’ll play in class.
If you like audio learning, here’s a great podcast on it as well:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-30-double-trouble/id1448833161?i=1000445575730
https://www.buzzsprout.com/243161/1406281
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In general, when we’re trying to control a leg entanglement we want to be close to our training partner controlling their hip and keeping a tight hold on their knee to prevent them from clearing their knee line. However, often when we go for submission holds, we have to sacrifice some control of their leg in order to get to the foot.
This is a common theme for joint locks. If I want to hold you in armbar control, I’ll play differently than I will when I want to actually break your grip - sacrificing control of the torso for increased leverage on the arm. When I go to finish an armbar, I’ll often sacrifice even more control of the torso in order to align my hip with the elbow to increase breaking leverage.
For legs, this is also true. When I coach leg entanglement games, I often give 3 perception cues that are somewhat at odds with each other:
The first two are focused on stability of the position, and the last is focused on submission threats.
When Danaher’s team went on a winning spree and leg locked everyone at the highest level in the sport in the 2010’s, they were predominantly working to enter into the legs (control) first, then transitioning to heel exposure for finishes.
However, there’s another option that we’ve seen more commonly employed in the last 5 years, which is to expose the heel BEFORE you secure control of the legs. In some of the positions we’ll talk about below, you can have control of the foot without control of their hip and knee. You can expose the heel from these positions and then work to control the knee and hip.
Note about controlling the hip. Depending on what type of leg entanglement, we often don’t have a good way to control the hip of the leg we’re attacking. In these cases, we often control the far hip in order to control the near hip. This is similar to ‘standard’ arm bar control where our feet control the far shoulder in order to control the near shoulder. Just keep this in mind when looking at some of these positions.
Here’s a podcast about this difference.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bjj-mental-models/id1448833161?i=1000607075445
These pathways are closely intertwined. When you’re in a leg entanglement, depending on the reactions you get and the directions your training partner moves, attempting back takes or guard passes from these positions is often the path of least resistance. Being able to tie all of these options together is invaluable for your long term skill development if you want to integrate legs into your game.
However, it is kind of complex and it will take a long time (like several years for most people) to get good at the interplay between these movement pathways. Additionally, some of these pathways are going to be inherently difficult depending on your physical affordances.
If you’re 150 lbs, you’re probably going to find it easier to invert and attack the back compared to if you’re 250 lbs. I personally play a lot of back takes stuff off of leg entanglements and I think it’s a really fun game. I most likely will not be playing that style of game in my 60’s.
Regardless, you should have some awareness over these options, because you will spar with people who DO play these games even if you don’t. You don’t have to be proficient at crab ride entrances from 50/50, but if you like 50/50 you should know that this movement pathway exists and recognize when your training partners are looking to attempt those movements.
First, a note about etiquette. If your training partner doesn’t tap to a leg submission, don’t be a psychopath and break their leg. Use your words. I have a buddy who won’t tap to leg locks. It’s kind of annoying, but I’m not a degenerate psychopath who is willing to tear their friends ligaments to get the satisfaction of a tap. Maybe you think you have it but they don’t realize it. Maybe you don’t actually have it. Use your words to find out, just ask them to pause and figure it out with your training partner. Many leg locks don’t cause pain before something is in danger of tearing.
Second, you don’t need to know how to do all of these well. You should know the names for all of them if you want to play legs, and have an idea of the breaking mechanics of them regardless of whether or not you play them. This is important because many of these are rotational based, and understanding how they work helps to prevent you from accidentally applying them on yourself by moving in the wrong direction.
The content for this part of the article doesn’t include what submissions are most commonly used in what positions. We’ll cover that after the section on the various positions we have names for in jiu jitsu.
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As the name implies, this is a linear submission threat. It causes some pain before ligaments are damaged, and it’s generally considered the ‘safest’ leg lock in this list (I disagree and think the cloverleaf is the safest).
It is the first leg submission that most of us learn. Do not think that this means it isn’t as good as the others on this list - the straight ankle has made a resurgence and is a relatively common submission at the very highest levels of competition in our sport. It was my favorite submission as a white belt, and the first submission I ever caught a black belt with.
If you are new to leg locks, this is where you should start. Every white belt should learn to be a menace with a good straight ankle.
This is the best course I’ve found on the straight ankle by far:
https://submeta.io/@lachlangiles/courses/straight-ankle-lock
This second course also covers straight ankles but includes aoki locks and is more advanced than the first course: https://submeta.io/@lachlangiles/courses/straight-ankle-and-aoki
Here’s a new course about defending the straight ankle & aoki lock on submeta:
https://submeta.io/@lachlangiles/courses/ankle-lock-defence
This is currently the most common submission at the highest level of our sport. Not the most common leg lock, not the most common joint lock, the most common submission.
Outside heel hooks are often harder to get and harder to finish, but inside heel hooks are incredibly powerful and an invaluable submission to add to your arsenal as a leg locker.
You can attack inside heel hooks both with rotational pressure via rotating the foot while counter rotating the knee and hip, or by hipping into the knee to apply lateral knee pressure. Lateral knee pressure is a stronger breaking mechanic, but that does not mean you can’t get finishes from rotational application alone.
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This course is what I would recommend to get started:
https://submeta.io/@lachlangiles/courses/understanding-heel-hooks
Outside heel hooks are generally lower percentage compared to inside heel hooks. That does not mean that they’re not a viable submission option. I find RNC’s higher percentage than guillotines, but I still hit a lot of guillotines.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d recommend starting with the same submeta course linked to in the inside heel hooks section (Lachlan covers both types on this course):
https://submeta.io/@lachlangiles/courses/understanding-heel-hooks
This essentially the inside heel hook but attacked on your opposite shoulder. It has gotten relatively popular in the last few years.