The Foundational Guide To Learning Leg Locks

Leg Locks: Obscurity to Ubiquity

For the past decade leg locks have been the hottest thing in submission grappling. There are good reasons too.

Leg locks are immediately accessible from bottom and easily integrate into pre existing guards. The submissions are fast and direct, and the act of attacking lower body submissions often helps the bottom player sweep or stand up if they don’t get the submission. IBJJF rules aside, it’s surprising leg locks weren’t always a bigger part of no gi grappling and Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Because leg locking has saturated the sport, some are wondering if the effectiveness has been diminished. Everyone is aware of them so the submissions don’t have the same surprise factor.

Even if leg locking isn’t as overpowered as it was five or ten years ago it’s still a must study skill. Because everyone else is aware of leg locks, you better be proficient if you want to have any success in no gi competition. Where you should start studying leg locks is a whole separate issue.

With so many niche positions and high level leg lockers, many people are left wondering what the most accessible place to start is. There are countless leg lock instructionals to study and entire social media accounts dedicated to the submissions but I have yet to see any resource bring all of the major leg locks and positions together, clearly define and differentiate the positions, and explain what submissions are available from those positions.

If you are dipping your toes into the terminology of leg locking, or you want one consolidated resource to go through the major leg locking positions, this post is for you. We’re going to help you make heads or tails of the situation so you can finally explain the difference between 411, saddle, and cross ashi.

Spoiler - they’re the same.

We’re going to start at the end with the submissions and work our way backwards into the positions to simplify and understand the leg locking game. When all is done, you’ll be familiar with the leg locking game and you’ll even have a place to start studying leg locks. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Finishing Leg Locks

Let’s back up and talk about why leg locks can be so devastating.

Submissions are effective to the degree that they immobilize the limb so force can be directed through a specific isolated section of it. Bigger, stronger muscles involved = more capacity to isolate and direct force.

A good arm bar works because your opponent’s arm can’t rotate and you can direct force through their elbow.
A bad arm bar allows people to move their shoulder or forearm so they can avoid damaging their elbow and wiggle out of the position.

So, leg locks can be brutal for two primary reasons:

1. Legs don’t move as freely as arms. Your shoulders have a ton of movement available and hips aren’t afforded the same freedom. This relative lack of flexibility means there is considerably less wiggle room in certain submissions.

2. The most devastating leg locks directly involve your most powerful muscle group, the posterior chain, to not only direct force through one piece of it, but also hold the limb. Contrast that with the arm bar where your adductors are used to pinch a section of the arm. Comparing adductor to posterior chain strength is like comparing apples to avocados. Sure they’re both technically in the same group, but, c’mon, no one is ever going to confuse the two.

One Broad Difference with Leg Locking Mechanics

When studying leg locks there is one broad distinction that divides the submissions. Does the finish come from a straight extension or a twisting force?

The straight submissions are straight ankle locks and knee bars. Let’s look at some examples of both starting with an ankle lock.

In all reality the leg lock above is rudimentary. There is a ton of space around Sylvia’s leg and nothing controlling Sylvia’s free leg to prevent him from standing up. Contrast that with the knee bar below.

Because Tonon fell on and controlled the secondary leg, Gasanov was completely stuck. You can also apply the knee bar from top half. This relatively rarer submission is known as the dog bar.

A submission similar to knee bars that stretches the hamstring instead of attacking the knee joint itself is known as the Suloev stretch.

In general the twisting submissions tend to be more devastating and direct than the straight hyperextensions. The twisting leg locks are the toe hold, Estima lock, Aoki lock and heel hook variations. The simplest and most readily available twisting leg lock is the toe hold.

Toe holds are incredibly versatile. You can attack them from top and bottom, and there’s a dumb cliche that says at the end of every knee bar is a toe hold.

Another twisting foot lock is the Aoki lock. It looks similar to the straight ankle lock, but the finish comes from turning the foot outward into eversion.

Turning the foot the opposite way into inversion from top is known as the Estima lock. The Estima lock the fastest submissions in jiu-jitsu. The main reason the submission is so quick is because there isn’t much holding the leg in place. You need to jump on it quick or you risk missing it.

While toe holds, Aoki locks, and Estima locks put the majority of the force through opponents’ ankles, heel hooks attack the knee.

There’s a bit of a misnomer that says heel hooks turn the leg. What you’re trying to do is use your legs to lock the thigh in place while your upper body holds their lower leg in place and your hips extends through the side of the knee to damage the connective tissue. Make no mistake about it, heel hooks are the most direct and destructive lower body submissions.

The outside heel hook above primarily damages parts of your knee that are more flexible. As such, the outside heel hook is generally inferior to the inside heel hook. The inside heel hook might be the most devastating submission in all of grappling.

Because heel hooks are the most devastating leg locks that have most effectively saturated the modern grappling game, we’ll be spending most of this article discussing the positions that lead to heel hooks.

The Odd Ones Out - A Few Novel Angles For Leg Locking

There are a few leg locks that are outside of the neat characterization of twisting and hyperextending. Let’s start with the rarest and most dangerous one, the Z lock. I actually had the displeasure of hearing the knee below get ripped apart mat side.

The z lock quickly directs lateral pressure through your opponent’s knee to get a devastating submission. This submission basically puts your whole body into the attack so it takes very little force for a horrendous tear. Like, seriously, be careful with this one - seems like the only way this ends is quickly and painfully.

Another novel way of attacking the knee comes from forcing it to close over one of your limbs. This submission is known as a calf slicer.

The only joint of the leg we haven’t touched on yet is the hip. Frankly, that’s because the hips are hard to hurt.

While your hips might be less flexible than your shoulders, they’re still very mobile. More importantly your hips are guarded by a lot of big and strong muscles. It’s pretty hard to hurt the hips, but there is one way to attack them and the groin from a variety of angles. By forcing your opponent to do the splits you can either come up from underneath or tap them out from quirky positions. You’ll hear this next submission called a banana splits or crotch ripper.

When attacking the hips from below and forcing the splits as such, you’ll hear the technique called the electric chair. The grip on the leg is different than the banana splits, but the mechanism of injury is effectively the same.

Now that we’ve touched on all the main ways to attack the legs, let’s briefly touch on some terminology from an important principle.

Defense + the Primary And Secondary Leg

When studying leg locks you will hear the terms primary and secondary leg. The primary leg is the leg that is being attacked and the secondary leg is the other leg that allows for much, if not all, of the defensive maneuvers to escape leg locks. If you can control your opponent’s secondary leg, generally, they will not be able to defend and escape the attack. This brings us to another term that you’ll hear a lot, and divides two of the modern leg locking schools.

To finish a heel hook you need to control the knee line. The knee line is an imaginary line created by your knee - no points for bring clever! Your hips need to be past the knee line, closer to your opponents hips, to finish heel hooks.

There are two primary schools of thought for modern leg locking coming from John Danaher, and by extension Eddie Cummings and Gordon Ryan; and Lachlan Giles. The way these two groups attack leg locks shows a split in thinking and positioning.

Danaher’s school of thought goes from inside out. Namely, they secure the knee line before going back to attack the heel hook.

The style that Giles popularized at ADCC 2019 goes outside in. Giles secures the lower leg before entering into the thigh and locking the knee line.

Both of these broad strategies can be successful. However they will lead to different positional controls that we’ll discuss now.

Positions

There are two broad naming conventions that you need to understand to play with modern leg locks. The naming conventions describe the orientation of your legs and body relative to your opponent’s primary leg. Your grip on the leg will determine what submission you’re doing.

One of those naming conventions is based on Japanese terms and the other is based on numbers. Let’s start with the Japanese terms.

Ashis and Sankakus

Two Japanese leg lock terms you will regularly hear are ashi garami, shortened to ashi, and sankaku. Ashi garami means leg entanglement and sankaku means triangle. These terms will be modified by adding inside, outside, cross, etc.. John Danaher and his teams, the Danaher Death Squad and New Wave Jiu Jitsu, popularized this style of leg locking. They go inside to get secure the knee line, and go back out to attack a heel hook.

Standard ashi is the simplest position. Your legs and hips are straight on with your opponents while you sit between their legs. Your primary attacks from standard ashi will be the attack straight ankle lock, outside heel hook, and toe hold.

Standard ashi is effectively single leg x guard. A clear distinction might be when your opponent is standing you’re in single leg x, but when you knock them down you’re in standard ashi. We’re using the image above for ease of explanation. For what it’s worth, the top player has the opportunity to attack the Estima lock if the leg locker isn’t careful with their outside foot.

Inside ashi is very similar to standard ashi except your legs are now locked inside of your opponent’s. Inside ashi’s primary attacks are outside heel hooks, toe holds, and Z locks.

Inside ashi is also called diagonal ashi, generally when the leg locker has control of the primary and secondary legs. I’m choosing to call it inside ashi as it’s clearer as a contrast to outside ashi. I see diagonal ashi as a subposition of inside ashi.

Contrast inside ashi with outside ashi. The positions are similar but your legs are now locked outside of your opponent’s primary leg. Outside ashi’s main attacks are the outside heel hook, Aoki lock, and toe holds, but the position can also expose your back.

Cross ashi is the most sinister of the leg locking positions. Your legs are locked between your opponent’s legs similar to inside ashi, but your body is outside of your opponent’s legs. This position allows you to attack the inside heel hook on the primary leg, and the straight ankle lock and Aoki lock on the secondary leg.

You will also hear this position called 411, saddle, and honey hole. If you elect to form a triangle with your legs as Cummings is above the position can be called inside sankaku.

From this position you will hear the term double trouble. Double trouble refers to you collecting and threatening both your opponent’s primary and secondary leg. After you’ve achieved double trouble you can attack the secondary leg with ankle locks.

The Numbers Game

The simplest number naming convention to understand is 5050. It is named as such because both you and your opponent are essentially in the same position and have a 50 percent chance of finishing each other with an inside heel hook or ankle lock. From 5050 you can also simply transition to knee bars and toe holds, but the primary attack will be the heel hook.

From 5050 you can advance through two distinct directions, towards the backside or 8020.

8020 is named as such because the ratio has shifted. You have an 80 percent chance of finishing your opponent and they’re left with a 20 percent chance. Not sure about the data validating these numbers - it’s just a clever way to call out your knee’s position.

You might be wondering, we touched on inside sankaku but where is outside sankaku?

Outside sankaku comes mostly commonly 8020. All you need to do is bring the outside leg across your opponent’s waist so the foot is anchored to your opponent’s far hip. You can also hook your inside foot to the far hip before the outside foot goes over to lock the position as well. This protects your legs while giving you a good shot at the inside heel hook and it looks a lot like cross ashi.

Backside 5050 is self explanatory. You are in 5050, but attacking it from your opponent’s backside. As such, they don’t really have an avenue to attack your legs effectively but you have a direct look at the inside heel hook.

It’s worth pointing out a couple of early leg locking maestros here, namely Ryan Hall and Josh Hayden. They terrorized the no gi scene with 5050, heel hooks, and an early version of 8020. We’re focusing on Giles here because he has consolidated more resources around the number positions to create an all encompassing system while Hall was busy rolling into leg locks in MMA and Josh fell out of the limelight.

If you want to go deep on 5050 check out Hall. If you want to see an early 8020 pioneer look for Josh Hayden. If you want to see someone put everything together in modern competition check out Giles.

The Odd Ones Out - Two Transitionary Positions

K Guard

In addition to bringing added clarity to 5050, 8020, and backside 5050, Lachlan Giles also put a transitionary position known as k guard on the map.

K guard is interesting because it looks open and loose but it allows you to move your opponent’s weight easily and enter their legs. You enter into leg locks from the outside by going around their limbs, lending itself well to 5050 and backside 5050.

K guard to a backside 5050 heel hook is probably the clearest example of outside-in versus inside-out.

False Reap

The most effective leg locks, heel hooks, are finished by twisting a portion of the leg to tear the knee’s connective tissue. One of the ways to accomplish this is by “reaping” the leg.

The IBJJF defines a reap as “one of the athletes places his thigh behind the leg of his opponent and passes his calf on top of the opponent's body above the knee, placing his foot beyond the vertical midline of the opponent's body and applying pressure on his opponent's knee from the outside.”

There’s a newer position called the false reap. It is aptly labeled “false” because while the outside calf travels inside past your opponent’s leg the thigh does not start behind the leg, it doesn’t actually turn your opponent’s leg, and it doesn’t truly reap the leg.

What the false reap does do is use multiple of your limbs to hold onto one of your opponent’s legs and allow you to invert into heel hooks and knee bars.

It’s important to note the false reap does not directly yield a leg lock. You use the false reap to enter in on more static positions, like cross ashi, to attack inside heel hooks.

How To Put All Of This Together?

I know I know - we just technically word vomited all over this article and that doesn’t help you understand what’s going on. Let’s condense everything real quick.

The simplest place to start a leg exchange is straight on with your inside leg under their thigh or butt, and your outside leg on top of that thigh in standard ashi. From there you can either lock your legs inside for inside ashi or outside for outside ashi. If you lock your legs inside of your opponent’s legs and your body moves outside you are in cross ashi. Cross ashi is also known as 411, honeyhole, and saddle; and if your legs form a triangle there, not just close, you are in inside sankaku.

Disconnect and start over.

If you and your partner are facing each other with your legs wrapped around each other’s, touching hamstring to hamstring, and shoe laces in each others’ pockets you have entered 5050. To improve your odds in 5050, move to 8020 by dropping your knee below their waist line. If your knee drops below your opponent’s waist line and your outside foot locks over to their far hip you’ve entered outside sankaku.

Where to Start Learning Leg Locks?

This article is foundational, holistic, and simplified to be a starting point. It’s definitely not all encompassing. There are positions which are modifications of what is above; diagonal ashi, 7030, shoelace ashi, etc., and even other submissions and variations of what we discussed. The point is not to dissect every nanometer of every variation on how you can break a leg, but, to simplify a holistic view of leg locking.

You’re either attacking ashis, playing for inside position, and working out for the submission. Or, you’re working outside-in and attacking a variation of the 5050 game. From there you can either hold the limb and twist a joint, or go straight through a joint, forcing it to hyperextend.

Ashis vs numbers : inside-out vs outside-in.

Twisting vs hyper extensions : heel hooks, toe holds, aoki and estima lock vs straight ankle locks and knee bars.

Understand that and overcomplicate leg locking later.

There are countless resources online for learning leg locks. John Danaher and Gordon Ryan have encyclopedic instructionals on the subject, Craig Jones has more direct videos on leg locking from specific positions, and instructional sites have wholly dedicated categories just for niche instructors teaching leg locks. I would advise starting with someone who pioneered the modern leg lock game in competition. I would advise starting with Eddie Cummings.

Calling Cummings a leg locking terror doesn’t do him justice. Cummings has 25 wins on his BJJ Heroes page with 17 of them coming from leg locks. Cummings also took out some early leg locking stars like Josh Hayden and Riley Bodycomb. Cummings produced an extremely informative seminar on heel hooks and you can get it for just $25. I seriously can’t overstate how helpful this seminar is as a starting point.

As far as training leg locks goes, the ashi game integrates into single leg X perfectly. Start in single leg X, get really good at knocking people over from there, and then play around with straight ankle locks before transitioning into ashis and sankakus for heel hooks. That’s the safest and simplest way to add this skill into anyone’s game.

To learn 5050 and the related positions it’s best to simply start specific training from there. Work to 8020, backside 5050, and learn to safely hide your feet there.

Like it or not, leg locking isn’t going anywhere but you shouldn’t be intimidated. Keep it simple and keep that secondary leg active, hide your heel, and just work to stay standing so you can get past those pesky legs.

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