Favoured Techniques: Straight Leg Lock (Achilles) into Toe Hold.

For the second of this Favoured Techniques section of my Jiu Jitsu ramblings I thought I would delve back into my past (about a year and a few months ago) and review a move that I really fell in love with until I realised I'd wouldn't be able to use it in competition for quite a few years (til Brown Belt I believe). Now I learned this combination of techniques in three parts. The first through your standard teacher student learning set up that the lions share of your Bjj techniques are learned through. The second part was more through a childhood memory and a search on Youtube. The stringing together of the submissions I found much later, also on Youtube, as a bonus and I was totally chuffed and blown away by it.

Ian Rossiter taught me the first part in one of the classes I attended down in Burnham. The Achilles leg lock or straight leg lock was originally taught to me as if I was standing and my opponents back was on the the ground with his legs in the air around me (standing in an opponents guard). You'd then wrap one of your arms around one of the opponents legs, your left to his right or vice versa. With your forearm around the guys achilles you'd then place your hand on the inside elbow of the opposite arm (some people just grip hands and pull up but I find this way much tighter) and put the hand of that arm on your opponents shin bone. Your opponents foot by this time will be handily pressed against the back of your armpit. You then lean your weight back on the foot whilst squeezing your forearm against his achilles and pushing down with your other hand. Now obviously in that lesson we were also taught a few variations on the move including if the guy tries to roll out, how to hit it from your knees and also how to get the position after breaking your opponents closed guard along with the part where you go to your bum and tuck one leg up against his hip to stop him from moving forward to block. I used to use this move a lot during my early days in Burnham and in the first few months of being at Sweat FA in Weston and had great success with it. I had the technique nailed down really well and people rarely hung around in the hold before tapping. Nowadays, as I haven't used the move much at all I've found my skill with it a bit stale and I only tap guys with it about one time in 3 (Maybe time for a refresher on it).

Now the second part of this write up, namely the Toe Hold, came from my youth in the good old days of watching corny old WWF Wrestling. Now back in those days a guy named Ken Shamrock (yes as in the former UFC champion) utilised a fantastic move called the Ankle Lock which was basically a Toe Hold submission. I later found out that the way Ken applied it for the theatre of wrestling would never have finished a real submission match as it would have been easy for his opponent to roll out. He does however hold quite a number of MMA victories by legitimate leg locks. Anyway as soon as I started Jiu Jitsu I wanted to find out how the move could effectively be put on an opponent so I trawled the interwebz and found a few vids of it in action. I should have been tipped off about the move as I only really found No Gi or MMA style vids but that didn't deter me as I really liked the move. Besides, the Burnham class at the time was anything goes except for Heel Hooks so I was free to try it sans guilt. I think I only hit it about twice but it didn't stop me trying the move any oppotunity I had.

So the move (or the variation I favoured) featured me breaking open my opponents guard, reaching back with my hand to grab the outside edge of the toes of the guy, once again left hand to right foot or vice versa, then bringing my other arm over the top of that leg, tucking it underneath and securing a hold of my forearm so my arm along with his leg form a kind of figure four. I'd then put my same side foot over on to his hip and brace against the ground with my other foot and at the same time push down with both my hands, kind of pushing his toe downward and his heel up. Now as I said this probably isn't the perfect technique for it but it worked twice and came to some near miss situations a couple of other times and I really liked the move.

Then one day I had a real amazing moment while I was once again searching the net for Bjj moves. I found a Gracie Insider Position of the Month featuring Rener and Ryron Gracie showing the sitting down version of the Straight Achilles Ankle Lock then transitioning it into a toe hold using a near fool proof method. It's easy, you're on your bum on the floor, the guys foot is threaded through you arm and you've got the Achilles secure but for some reason the guys not tapping. Maybe you've got the arm just a fraction too low or too high or maybe he's just got legs that do well against that kind of hold. For whatever reason move isn't working so instead you use the arm resting on the shin to secure the leg down while you release the other arm (the one that was wrapped around the leg) but still keep some downward pressure on it, and quickly reach back with that hand for the toes. As soon as you've got a good grip, push down with the hand gripping the toes so your opponents leg goes out at a right angle to you and then wrap the other hand underneath said leg gripping your forearm to fix up the figure four shape and push down as before. Bam! Tap tap tap.

I loved this move for the very short amount of time I used it for. I think I tapped about 4 people with it in sparring in the space of a month. It was around about this time though that I started going to Italo Ferriera's class in Bristol. Now up there was a different kind of class as explained in a previous log. They were more geared to Bjj as a sport and consequentially the first time I went to slap that move on someone they snapped at me saying what the hell was I doing. I was bemused as I didn't realise at the time there was a no leg locks except for the Straight Achilles as per Ibjjf official comp rules. When this was explained to me I was mega bummed. At the time, half my game was about the leg locks. Achilles, Toe Hold and this cool Calf Crusher that I really loved too, all weren't allowed up at the Bristol class and wouldn't be in a competition either. So I made a decision from that point on to avoid using leg locks for the foreseeable future and concentrate on stuff that's would be allowed in competition. It was only in the last few months that I have even gone back to trying the odd Straight Leg Lock an as I said before, I'm pretty rusty.

Anyway, here for your viewing pleasure is the GracieInsider Toe Hold Footlock vid. Enjoy and use it wisely.

That's all for now. \m/

My first big tap and the joys of You Tube.

Into the first few months of my training and I was feeling ok with my Jiu Jitsu. I was still doing traditional Jiu Jitsu with a heavy lean towards Bjj at the time, so we were still training loads of takedowns, hip tosses and over shoulder throws, most of them ending with the word "oshi" (but I can rarely remember the names of throws), leading into some cool ground finishes. I was still pretty much in basic armbar, americana, cross choke and rear naked choke territory with my finishing. In rolls against opponents of my own level I would do well in the first one or two rolls, then my god-awful cardio would take over and I would generally end up on my back gasping for air and trying to get my opponent off me. If however, I rolled first against an opponent of moderate to advanced skill level (orange belt and above in traditional), I would do the popular beginners thing of struggling with all my might and blowing myself out in the first minute.

No matter how many times people told me not to use all my strength all the time, as soon as I rolled against someone far superior in ability to me I'd revert to type and struggle my balls off. One person who always tried to help me with this problem was Big Matt. Matt was a brown belt Tjj and he stands about  6' 2, maybe a bit more, and weighs about 120 Kilos (hence the name big Matt). Matt's ability, alongside his strength and weight advantage, meant he could pretty much play with almost anyone at the club except for Ian or Gary (the instructors). Because of this, Matt would happily start off rolling from a number of very unfavourable positions and let me try and tap him while he tries to escape. Inevitably he would escape all the time and then I would end in the unfavourable position and he would try to coach me on how to get out of it. Let me tell you, a nearly twenty stone bloke laying on top of you in side control is not the easiest thing to shake off. But it did help me with learning to exert myself in a more controlled manner. And for that I thank Big Matt a lot.

It was during one of these positional rolls where Matt had started in turtle and I'd managed (although I'm sure he half let me) pull him over so I had his back with both hooks in, that I managed to pull a bit of magic out of the hat. Well not magic exactly but for my level at the time it was a good move. You see I'd be doing the thing that every newly obsessed with Jiu Jitsu young (well not so young) white belt does and trawled the internet looking for some moves. I'd found loads on you tube and one had particularly caught my eye. The armbar from back. Now I'd only that week looked at the move and I'd thought, wow that looks pretty easy to land, so I thought next time I've got back control I'll try for that instead of the choke. So there's Matt in my back control and casually defending the choke like a bear swatting aside a gnat, when I suddenly remembered my big move. One of my legs was already semi wrapped around Matt's middle at the hook so, securing his arm I leant sideways whilst pushing Matt's head the other way and wrapped my other leg around his head and leant back. Matt by this time realizing what I was doing just managed to get a half grip with his hands but could feel it rapidly slipping and I was pulling with all my might as only a young newbie would. Matt, whilst laughing like a proud mentor, quickly shouted tap and said he didn't want to get to the point where his grip slipped because I was torquing his arm so hard I probably would've really hurt him. He also said that he was impressed with the move because he knew I hadn't learnt it at the club so he was impressed with the fact that I'd gone out and done a bit of research and learnt from it.

I left class that day with a really good excited feeling inside, not just from the tap, (which in all realism I never would've got in a million years at that point in my training against a guy like Matt) but from the compliment he paid me after and the fact that he seemed so excited that I was learning stuff. It's the little compliments like this that really encourage a guy to carry on and raise his commitment level to try and improve his game. This was the first move that I'd dug off the internet and successfully used and I loved it. After that I was always on the internet looking for inspiration for techniques to use in different situations. I have now also developed a bit of an addiction to Bjj technique manuals of which I will probably be reviewing in the coming months. But the additional research all stemmed from the successful use of this one single move. A move that I still regularly and successfully use today. Even tapping an opponent out in competition with it.

And this is the exact video I learnt it from.

Cheers for now guys. \m/