Me

When I was a white belt, we learned and did ankle locks, and heel hooks, in a gi, or during slap grappling in no gi, with the Russian leg knot, when we could get it.

And, I competed in the first Pan American tournament (the picture on my profile with a very young Carlos Machado as the ref in that picture)

where a bunch of Russians entered the black belt division,

and submitted a bunch of brazilian black belts with leg locks,

and a couple months later the Confederation announced that "knee reaping" was now illegal due to safety concerns.

Safety concerns, my ass...

They were then labeled “cobblers”, kinda like Fadda and his students in the day.

Luckily my instructor when I started (Carlson Sr direct student), showed leg locks. He also explained them and I also learned when you go to other schools, they may not be welcomed. Also when rolling with other ppl you don’t know, make sure to ask if it’s allowed, and don’t crank them.

I’ve also gotten flack before that I show leglocks right off the bat, but then have also had people come to me solely to learn leglocks.

Sapateiros.

Which is what my student, Josh Leduc, named his tournament.

I have that down the sleeve of my walk out sweats, as I very much am

Guns and knee reaping, we have the same tastes it seems

If you eat your beef very rare, and drink liquor, and black, bitter, strong coffee, we may then be related.

And for all you Europeans, yes, yes, I like my steak tar tar, when cut, and not put through a grinder.

And my dark beers.

And to the great dismay of the heads of the Gracie Gods Pantheon, I even enjoy cigars from time to time.

What can I say, I am not that kind of coach...

Dad?

Hahaha.

Yeah, I don't see anything wrong with teaching leglocks to white belts, as long as you can do it safely. I want my students to be comfortable with leglocks, so they don't end up like me. I'm still terrified of leglocks, particularly the worry of hurting somebody else if they do something nuts while trying to escape. So I never use them in sparring (except kneebars, that one for some reason doesn't worry me).

So yeah, hopefully the Leuven Camp in July with Lachlan Giles and Craig Jones will help me with that. It's all leglocks and all nogi, neither of which I like, but should be good medicine. ;)

I look at it like a gun. You have them around and your kids see them, but aren’t allowed to use them, and you won’t show them.

They will use them on their own and end up hurting someone or themselves.

So teach them right off the bat and they will respect them, and use them correctly.

WELL WELL WELL... let me just jump in here with all you dirty fish..
I started learning leg locks while stationed in Germany. Why? Because there were a couple of Russians and Germans on my base that played with the Judo team (I was literally the only BJJ guy there) and they were straight up ruthless Sambo competitors. This was circa 1999... so when I got back to the states and started trainging again at official "Gracie" academies, I was labeled as a shitbird because within 30 seconds of your ass hitting the ground in guard I was leglocking.
I teach my students leg locks as well. I teach the in's and out's, the good and the bad, and how to do it all SAFELY. As long as you teach it right, and you have a community NOT full of selfish dicks, it seems to work out just fine.
And yeah, I think we are all probably related somehow to each other here.. hahaha

My first long-term BJJ instructor was Roy Harris. We learned leg locks as part of the requirements for blue belt. To this day I have no issue with teaching them (and yes reaps!) to beginners, although as most of my students today are hobbyists, I allow them to choose whether heel hooks are allowed or not in their individual rolls. Most non-competitors don't seem to want to use them, but those who do have always used them safely enough.

Leg locks! I love them, I teach them and I am sorry about IBJJF. Because IBJJF rules move us to "pussyfication" of jiu-jitsu.

However, the biggest weakness of leg locks is that they do not need side-control, and one can stun so easily.

I think white belts should learn leg locks, but 90% of the lessons should focus on opponent control and guard passes.

I just teach white belts %100 leg locks


I kid of course

I started toying with legs as a white belt -- glad I did since I can use them in no-gi now.

I don't care if you teach 'em leg locks or not,

so long as you teach them takedowns

and what I would call basic boxing, or some surrogate.

Of course, I also favor CPR and first aid training,

and firearms training.

But, what do I know?

I'm as confused and blind as everyone else.

All I know, is that we're all gonna die.

And I would not want to live forever, anyway.

My wife once said heel hooks / leglock education is like sex-ed. Better get that started sooner than later, ignorance only leads to risk behaviour later on :)

I agree! I just warned against leglocks only. Leglocks are great for submission only rules. They are less suitable for points.

Not a fan of that term: 'watering down of jiu jitsu', perhaps. ;)

During my visits to foreign gyms I discovered teachers who were afraid of the mortality of students and take-downs taught so that take-downs did not hurt anybody.. gently, slowly and carefully ... just then I discovered that term :(

+1 on Jorgen
"My wife once said heel hooks / leglock education is like sex-ed. Better get that started sooner than later, ignorance only leads to risk behaviour later on :)"

at our gym in Tokyo, the coaches sometimes explain the heel hooks mechanics in gi classes to white belts, with the same logic : it's safer to know how it works and be careful/mindful when you apply them with training partners.

Similarly, we also teach knee-bars and toe-holds to blue and purple belts : "better to know about this and work on it over the years rather than be surprised at your first brown belt competition"

There's also our dedicated no-gi/grappling instructor for thursday nights, where all leg-locks are allowed, but sometimes when he covers a gi classes everyone knows that leg locks are part of the game.

different use cases :
- IBJJF / JBJJF rules
- Grappling rules
- Just understanding how Jiu Jitsu works, independent of rule sets.

I think we're past the "leg locks are bad" days.

I feel pretty strongly that ankle locks are the first leg lock newer folks should learn. It requires a lot of nuance to finish so it will require them to really understand the control positions to be able to work on it. After that, everything. To me, an ankle lock is as much a part of the basics as an armbar or a RNC.

In my first go-around with BJJ in 2001, the gym I trained at was pretty gritty. It was more of a Gold's Gym no holds barred atmosphere vs a Planet Fitness gym comparable we see a lot nowadays in BJJ. We were taught leg locks and wrist locks from the get-go.

Skip ahead to my second BJJ life that started in 2017. I tried out a few gyms and most of them had the Planet Fitness atmosphere and had the belief (at least it seemed to me) that leg locks were the Devil's tool and you weren't able to dance with the Devil as a white belt.

The gym I chose shows leg locks to all, with the explanation that you need to be careful when performing them. Just like you have to be careful with an armbar, a RNC, etc.

Leg locks and ankle locks are great! Really levels the playing field in my opinion.
We use and teach them all the time. White belts are taught leg and ankle locks but aren't allowed to roll with them till blue belt.
Hopefully by blue they have more control (not spazzes) and have learned not to roll in the wrong direction while defending.
Our approach to heel hooks is different they are taught (attack and defenses) but only used in a catch-n-release mentality until they grow into them.
Since this approach injuries are down and folks can roll longer and more often. Different strokes for different folks.

As long as you aren't teaching wrist locks, we're all good here.

There are two things I cannot stand:
1. People who ignore 50% of the human body in Jiu-Jitsu, and
2. Wrist-lockers

Lol. Seriously, I'm all for either wrist or leg locks. As a caveat, however, my knees SUCK, and I do not play with heelhooks due to this. UNLESS I have a trusted partner, who will do "catch and release". I know when to tap, and if I am caught I won't spaz to get out - I will tap. I don't need a hungry white belt ripping my heel like its the ripcord on the last parachute on a diving 747. Knee bars, ankle locks, all is good with me, and I will play them when I see them. Not that I'm good at them, but I'm probably not good at jiu jitsu compared to some of you anyway ;-)

I catch a lot of grief from some teamates about wrist locks. I don't know why :/

Yes wristlocks are bottom of the barrel.........



I teach those also

I must confess that I am a dirty wrist locker. :-)