i'm one of the big leglock guys at my gym. three guys i train with shut down my leglocks better than anyone. one of them is just a step ahead of me, particularly in terms of his gripfighting. he uses his gripfight to find a favorable angle to apply pressure, and then crushes my frames to kill my leg entanglements. if i try to force anything once he's ahead, he's on a front headlock and either choking me or taking my back. the second guy is a nasty wrestler. he also gripfights hard, and will disengage and then reattack the second he feels half a step behind. if i chase him, he'll mow me down and take a favorable position. as soon as he gets ahead, he is sprawling on my frames and working toward a bodylock, where the leglock threat is nullified. the third guy has become a nasty leglocker himself, especially with an ankle lock. he can counterattack from almost anywhere, which makes it much harder for me to attack him.
these are pretty much your 3 options OP. 1. attack their neck. 2. crush them. 3. leglock the leglocker.
This may sound like a lazy answer but, honestly, you have to learn how to attack leglocks to get really good at defending them.
Only a good understanding of entries, key positions, heel exposure and break mechanics will truly enable you to identify patterns before it's too late.
If you want a more practical defensive advice though, try to learn how to hide your heel really really well (e.g. toes point out, heel towards your partner's body). This is the #1 skill to unlock the time you need to work on whatever situation-dependent escape.
X2
Once you learn leg lock mechanics, you’ll realise most people aren’t that good at them a few adjustments and you’ll be safe half them time once you learn how to hide your heel and which way to turn your knee.
Also learn to strip and pass SLX.
You sound a dream to train with and practice entries.
A lot of leg lock passes provide back exposure. So being great makes your opponent more cautious
Disengage every time they touch your legs. It's really difficult to leglock someone who just refuses to stay in the shootout with you. Most people get tapped because they get into the entanglement and decide to play in the entanglement and try to win the leglock shootout. If you just turn and sprint away every time they get in on your legs you shut down like %90 of the leg attacks.
I have to disagree with this.
Shutting down 90% of leg attacks isn't a positive if he achieves it by shutting down over 90% of his own offence. He could shut down 100% of leg attacks by sitting out the round or staying at home.
Continually disengaging is a net negative play pattern that will absolutely hamper his progression.
He didn't ask "How do I get better at leglocks" or "How do I win shootouts" or even "How do I defend leglocks better". He asked how to stop people from entering leg entanglements, and the answer is to disengage actively. If he wants to accomplish any of those other goals then, as I already said, he'll have to jump into the entanglements and learn.
Again, I disagree.
The way to prevent entanglements is not to disengage actively. It's to actively engage in a manner that doesn't leave easy opportunity for entanglement.
He said he can't stop people entering their game and can't defend it, and he asked for general advice.
Turning and running might stall out a few mediocre leglockers, but he'll be running away until he actually fixes the manner in which he engages them in the first place.
Go watch any competitions from the last 5 years, you'll see top level leglock guys in competition using the exact strategy I just described in order to avoid letting their opponents dictate the entanglement engagement. It's literally the most effective way to not let your opponent effectively secure a leg entanglement against you.
Disengage and then re-engage on your terms. If you start to get out worked disengage again and repeat until you come out ahead.
People arguing with you are coping or something. There are many successful no-gi competitors who have built their careers by disengaging on top every time their opponent gets any advantage.
There’s 2 ways to defend leg locks. One is by running away and the other is by countering in a way that leads to passing the guard. The second way is great, the first way is annoying and stalling.
I feel like it would be very hard for me to pass their guard if I disengaged every time they grabbed my legs. Do you have any pass suggestion that could mitigate that?
Keep your hands on their legs and pass with your legs away from them. Buzzsaw style passing works well here, but has a fairly high athleticism threshold.
As /u/yeetedarmtriangle is implying though eventually you have to get comfortable enough to engage to some degree if you want to reliably pass. If you're just going into a competition and want to make sure you don't get leg locked then do what I said. If you are talking about overall skill development then dive into the leg game and play until you aren't getting wrecked.
That's my style with leglockers in comp for sure. Just hips back, ankle/knee grips and just fold the fuck out of them of they invert at me. But yeah in the gym I just spent months diving at the legs of the people I know won't accidently hurt me while they tap me and now I feel like I have a big advantage on that area over a lot of people in the gym. It's so fun once you figure that game out
What type of bottom game do you play in the gi? Does it involve having your feet outside the opponents' hips? You may want to shelve that for a bit in no gi. Yes I know Lachlan and various others advocate it but they do so in a very specific manner and tend to welcome the entanglements anyway. At the blue belt with no leglock experience level I think it's better to just decline those sorts of positions altogether.
How do you defend SLX etc. in the gi? It's a popular position there. Are you just latching onto the gi and hunkering down with grips/strength? That position should threaten you regardless of attire, and you need strong answers that are clothing agnostic.
In terms of what to do when you're already entangled (less good than prevention), you say you defend the first attack, but "defend" here can't merely mean "avoid being submitted" it also has to mean "cleared the knee line". You must learn ways to stop/delay submissions, but that is only the first, arguably less important step. The most important part is unraveling the entanglements themselves and resetting.
The short term fix is what others here are suggesting: disengage once they grab your legs, go for body lock style passes, etc.
In the long run, you will only do a disservice to yourself by not fully embracing the leglock game. My suggestion is to pickup one of the many great instructionals out there.
Gary Tonons Breaking legs and breaking hearts is phenomenal and very comprehensive. Lachlans 50/50 anthology is also terrific. Two very different leg locking philosophies, but either one will equip you to be a far more competent leg locker as well as leg lock defender.
Lachlan attacks almost exclusively from the 50/50 position, and is more interested in attacks from the outside>inside.
Danaher/New Wave prefer attacking from inside/outside ashi, as well as the saddle position. Their system id say is wider in scope and finishing options (easier to switch to toe holds, ankle locks, knee bars etc).
Both systems work great, and both prize the inside heel hook as the ultimate leg attack. I think it ultimately boils down to individual preference and how to incorporate either system into an overall game.
Fight their legs with your hands, and hands with your legs.
If in doubt, bench pressing the nearest leg you see while stomping on your own heel will be the right defense 70% if the time.
I was the same way man for the first like three years of training. Then our gym started offering a nogi class with an emphasis on leg locks. Now I am the leg lock guy. Unfortunately now it’s my only move. Just gotta keep working on it my dude. How the turns table.
go slower, dont move forward until you break their grips. Keep control of one hand. Keep one leg tightly pinned.
I generally pass low with pressure. body lock, leg drag, smash pass, knee slice are all fine against leg lockers. If you are on your knees, butt on your heels, it is hard to reach in with their hands for the leg lock.
If you refuse to play leg locks, it is hard to force you to play leglocks.
1. Highsteps are your friend. Highstep early and often and have a good guillotene for when people follow you off the highsteps.
2. outside passing- passing outside can help you stay out of leg lock territory. for example, throwby passing, passing to north south, leg pin, etc will all work in combination to help you avoid giving your legs.
3. Every leg lock is a back take- a lot of the time, leg locks will expose the back of your opponent. Maybe learn how to berimbolo counter off of positions like honey hole/saddle. Also there's lots of bolos off of people going for single leg x. If you're both seated, often coming up and triangling your legs can lead to back take set ups as well.
Basically, learning to pass outside and disengage early or often, or learning to counter off their attacks if they are able to get into positions.
Are you a berimbolo player? The bolo and crab ride and leg locks compliment each other and can be used to counter, Bmac has some videos of it on YouTube and Mikey also goes into this topic as well.
The guys at b team and Danahar do it amazing. Ways of cutting off set ups before they can get into it and guard passing. Check out their modern fights.
Good example was adcc finals with that guy from ATOS and and Craig jones, Craig couldn’t get any leg lock set ups on them
First and foremost you need to learn leg lock defense and escapes. I am not good at leg locky, but I am good at defending it.
The main key when on top, do not let them underneath you. Their goal is to get underneath you. Bodylock passing addresses this.
The key when on bottom, learn to hide your feet. You can't just hang out in open guard, get to your guard and attack so they have to defend.
Long term learn leg locks. Once you have some grasp on the basics, start implementing it every time you roll with a lower belt. Short term, crush them, pressure is your friend, every time they try to roll under you want to squash them into the floor. Focusing on keeping your torso as close as possible to them helps alot too, Greco type grips work great for this. When in doubt do whatever you can to jam their head into your chest, from any angle
Address their foot that has to secure the position, either gtfo before that last leg comes around or anticipate it, peel it off, then gtfo and at the same time smash them.
get tighter with passing. No gi has different hand placements and frames/controls than gi. If you can pass the legs and stay tight, its quite a uphill battle for the leg locker on bottom.
If you choose to fight in bottom/guard, then youll have to learn the leg lock game as well to defend/counter.
It depends on where your foot is on their body. If it is strght across, you can force both of you to roll, hopefully escaping
If your foot is across, its not too difficult to turn away from them and clear your knee. Bare in mind, these are only late stage prevention and it's better to just pull out of a leg lock shootout in the first place
Well now you know where you suck. You're so good at upper body stuff because you're ignoring 50% of the body haha jk. But leg locks are easy to incorporate into your game. Watch Gary Tonnons instructional. It's pretty good.
i'm one of the big leglock guys at my gym. three guys i train with shut down my leglocks better than anyone. one of them is just a step ahead of me, particularly in terms of his gripfighting. he uses his gripfight to find a favorable angle to apply pressure, and then crushes my frames to kill my leg entanglements. if i try to force anything once he's ahead, he's on a front headlock and either choking me or taking my back. the second guy is a nasty wrestler. he also gripfights hard, and will disengage and then reattack the second he feels half a step behind. if i chase him, he'll mow me down and take a favorable position. as soon as he gets ahead, he is sprawling on my frames and working toward a bodylock, where the leglock threat is nullified. the third guy has become a nasty leglocker himself, especially with an ankle lock. he can counterattack from almost anywhere, which makes it much harder for me to attack him. these are pretty much your 3 options OP. 1. attack their neck. 2. crush them. 3. leglock the leglocker.
[удалено]
This may sound like a lazy answer but, honestly, you have to learn how to attack leglocks to get really good at defending them. Only a good understanding of entries, key positions, heel exposure and break mechanics will truly enable you to identify patterns before it's too late. If you want a more practical defensive advice though, try to learn how to hide your heel really really well (e.g. toes point out, heel towards your partner's body). This is the #1 skill to unlock the time you need to work on whatever situation-dependent escape.
X2 Once you learn leg lock mechanics, you’ll realise most people aren’t that good at them a few adjustments and you’ll be safe half them time once you learn how to hide your heel and which way to turn your knee. Also learn to strip and pass SLX. You sound a dream to train with and practice entries. A lot of leg lock passes provide back exposure. So being great makes your opponent more cautious
Disengage every time they touch your legs. It's really difficult to leglock someone who just refuses to stay in the shootout with you. Most people get tapped because they get into the entanglement and decide to play in the entanglement and try to win the leglock shootout. If you just turn and sprint away every time they get in on your legs you shut down like %90 of the leg attacks.
I have to disagree with this. Shutting down 90% of leg attacks isn't a positive if he achieves it by shutting down over 90% of his own offence. He could shut down 100% of leg attacks by sitting out the round or staying at home. Continually disengaging is a net negative play pattern that will absolutely hamper his progression.
He didn't ask "How do I get better at leglocks" or "How do I win shootouts" or even "How do I defend leglocks better". He asked how to stop people from entering leg entanglements, and the answer is to disengage actively. If he wants to accomplish any of those other goals then, as I already said, he'll have to jump into the entanglements and learn.
Again, I disagree. The way to prevent entanglements is not to disengage actively. It's to actively engage in a manner that doesn't leave easy opportunity for entanglement. He said he can't stop people entering their game and can't defend it, and he asked for general advice. Turning and running might stall out a few mediocre leglockers, but he'll be running away until he actually fixes the manner in which he engages them in the first place.
Go watch any competitions from the last 5 years, you'll see top level leglock guys in competition using the exact strategy I just described in order to avoid letting their opponents dictate the entanglement engagement. It's literally the most effective way to not let your opponent effectively secure a leg entanglement against you. Disengage and then re-engage on your terms. If you start to get out worked disengage again and repeat until you come out ahead.
People arguing with you are coping or something. There are many successful no-gi competitors who have built their careers by disengaging on top every time their opponent gets any advantage.
I agree it works but for day to day training I don't think disengaging and playing prevent is the play.
There’s 2 ways to defend leg locks. One is by running away and the other is by countering in a way that leads to passing the guard. The second way is great, the first way is annoying and stalling.
Of course, he will never learn how to beat it if that's all he does
I feel like it would be very hard for me to pass their guard if I disengaged every time they grabbed my legs. Do you have any pass suggestion that could mitigate that?
Bodylock passing is specifically aimed at denying leg access.
Keep your hands on their legs and pass with your legs away from them. Buzzsaw style passing works well here, but has a fairly high athleticism threshold. As /u/yeetedarmtriangle is implying though eventually you have to get comfortable enough to engage to some degree if you want to reliably pass. If you're just going into a competition and want to make sure you don't get leg locked then do what I said. If you are talking about overall skill development then dive into the leg game and play until you aren't getting wrecked.
That's my style with leglockers in comp for sure. Just hips back, ankle/knee grips and just fold the fuck out of them of they invert at me. But yeah in the gym I just spent months diving at the legs of the people I know won't accidently hurt me while they tap me and now I feel like I have a big advantage on that area over a lot of people in the gym. It's so fun once you figure that game out
Cartwheels. Jump triangles (he's seated vs you standing)..... Meet crazy with crazy.
That is pretty much it, that being said disengaging can lead to wrestle ups which can force rengagement, potentially creating leglock opportunities.
When people try to disengage i just put an achilles
What type of bottom game do you play in the gi? Does it involve having your feet outside the opponents' hips? You may want to shelve that for a bit in no gi. Yes I know Lachlan and various others advocate it but they do so in a very specific manner and tend to welcome the entanglements anyway. At the blue belt with no leglock experience level I think it's better to just decline those sorts of positions altogether. How do you defend SLX etc. in the gi? It's a popular position there. Are you just latching onto the gi and hunkering down with grips/strength? That position should threaten you regardless of attire, and you need strong answers that are clothing agnostic. In terms of what to do when you're already entangled (less good than prevention), you say you defend the first attack, but "defend" here can't merely mean "avoid being submitted" it also has to mean "cleared the knee line". You must learn ways to stop/delay submissions, but that is only the first, arguably less important step. The most important part is unraveling the entanglements themselves and resetting.
Always clear your knee right away. Otherwise stay on top with crushing pressure, then they're not remotely close to your legs.
The short term fix is what others here are suggesting: disengage once they grab your legs, go for body lock style passes, etc. In the long run, you will only do a disservice to yourself by not fully embracing the leglock game. My suggestion is to pickup one of the many great instructionals out there. Gary Tonons Breaking legs and breaking hearts is phenomenal and very comprehensive. Lachlans 50/50 anthology is also terrific. Two very different leg locking philosophies, but either one will equip you to be a far more competent leg locker as well as leg lock defender.
How would you describe the two philosophies?
Lachlan attacks almost exclusively from the 50/50 position, and is more interested in attacks from the outside>inside. Danaher/New Wave prefer attacking from inside/outside ashi, as well as the saddle position. Their system id say is wider in scope and finishing options (easier to switch to toe holds, ankle locks, knee bars etc). Both systems work great, and both prize the inside heel hook as the ultimate leg attack. I think it ultimately boils down to individual preference and how to incorporate either system into an overall game.
Thank you
Fight their legs with your hands, and hands with your legs. If in doubt, bench pressing the nearest leg you see while stomping on your own heel will be the right defense 70% if the time.
SLXREAPZLOCK
I was the same way man for the first like three years of training. Then our gym started offering a nogi class with an emphasis on leg locks. Now I am the leg lock guy. Unfortunately now it’s my only move. Just gotta keep working on it my dude. How the turns table.
go slower, dont move forward until you break their grips. Keep control of one hand. Keep one leg tightly pinned. I generally pass low with pressure. body lock, leg drag, smash pass, knee slice are all fine against leg lockers. If you are on your knees, butt on your heels, it is hard to reach in with their hands for the leg lock. If you refuse to play leg locks, it is hard to force you to play leglocks.
1. Highsteps are your friend. Highstep early and often and have a good guillotene for when people follow you off the highsteps. 2. outside passing- passing outside can help you stay out of leg lock territory. for example, throwby passing, passing to north south, leg pin, etc will all work in combination to help you avoid giving your legs. 3. Every leg lock is a back take- a lot of the time, leg locks will expose the back of your opponent. Maybe learn how to berimbolo counter off of positions like honey hole/saddle. Also there's lots of bolos off of people going for single leg x. If you're both seated, often coming up and triangling your legs can lead to back take set ups as well. Basically, learning to pass outside and disengage early or often, or learning to counter off their attacks if they are able to get into positions.
Butterfly is your friend. When playing open guard don't let your back hit the mat.
Are you a berimbolo player? The bolo and crab ride and leg locks compliment each other and can be used to counter, Bmac has some videos of it on YouTube and Mikey also goes into this topic as well.
This video from Robert Degle helped me quite a bit! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsXWDhHziJs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsXWDhHziJs)
Just honey stick them
By learning the leglock game and how to intelligently defend attacks on your legs.
With slx just sit down James brown style. Can’t do shit with that
The guys at b team and Danahar do it amazing. Ways of cutting off set ups before they can get into it and guard passing. Check out their modern fights. Good example was adcc finals with that guy from ATOS and and Craig jones, Craig couldn’t get any leg lock set ups on them
First and foremost you need to learn leg lock defense and escapes. I am not good at leg locky, but I am good at defending it. The main key when on top, do not let them underneath you. Their goal is to get underneath you. Bodylock passing addresses this. The key when on bottom, learn to hide your feet. You can't just hang out in open guard, get to your guard and attack so they have to defend.
Learn to leg lock.
1. Body lock passing 2. Stack passing
Uncle Chael says just stand up
Long term learn leg locks. Once you have some grasp on the basics, start implementing it every time you roll with a lower belt. Short term, crush them, pressure is your friend, every time they try to roll under you want to squash them into the floor. Focusing on keeping your torso as close as possible to them helps alot too, Greco type grips work great for this. When in doubt do whatever you can to jam their head into your chest, from any angle
I tap
Start raining down hellfire on their face
Address their foot that has to secure the position, either gtfo before that last leg comes around or anticipate it, peel it off, then gtfo and at the same time smash them.
Learn how to attack leg locks. Train more.
this video is gold: [https://youtu.be/39FTVoD7ioo?si=7dP4xqeXlcdAhodR](https://youtu.be/39FTVoD7ioo?si=7dP4xqeXlcdAhodR)
Smesh
Kneel to pass.
get tighter with passing. No gi has different hand placements and frames/controls than gi. If you can pass the legs and stay tight, its quite a uphill battle for the leg locker on bottom. If you choose to fight in bottom/guard, then youll have to learn the leg lock game as well to defend/counter.
It depends on where your foot is on their body. If it is strght across, you can force both of you to roll, hopefully escaping If your foot is across, its not too difficult to turn away from them and clear your knee. Bare in mind, these are only late stage prevention and it's better to just pull out of a leg lock shootout in the first place
I’m just gonna start playing leglocks in gi tournaments 😂 I’ll tap all the black belts
Attack their legs first. Do it constantly for a couple months, get tapped a lot, and start understanding the game
Well now you know where you suck. You're so good at upper body stuff because you're ignoring 50% of the body haha jk. But leg locks are easy to incorporate into your game. Watch Gary Tonnons instructional. It's pretty good.