Escape from Ankle Lock

**Vulgar** · Posted On: 1/18/2006 4:16am

Coming over the top is more of a NHB/MMA technique, as I understand it. The things that omega listed would be better suited for a grappling match. It's not that coming over the top isn't a valid technique, but you may not always trade up positions.

Most people at my gym don't even do the straight ankle by triangling the arms. We use a guillotine hold and try to make sure the sharp part of the wrist is under the achilles. But we also do no-gi, so maybe this is why? It taps people a lot quicker.

**relytjj** · Posted On: 1/18/2006 9:57am

Another small tip is to put your 'boot' on. As in keep your foot perpendicular to your shin by flexing and pointing your toes up. It makes it more difficult to get your ankle straight. I always put on the boot and then work to clear the leg and sit on their other leg and then focus on sitting up.

**Gumby** · Posted On: 1/19/2006 9:29pm

Originally Posted by EternalRage

I'm a total BJJ newbie, only been crosstraining it for about a year now.

The bane of my rolling experience so far has been the ankle lock. Do any of you guys have any good escapes or counters to the ankle lock? And by ankle lock I mean something like the following:

The more senior students in my class showed me a couple that don't seem to work for me, but they said it was only pain and to not tap to it and try not to get into it in the first place (which my sensitivity isn't that great yet, so I can't anticipate it).

Im surprised no one mentioned the little flaw with this picture- that is an illegal footlock under cbjj gi rules. You are not allowed to cross your outside leg over your opponents knee like that and you certainly cant lock a triangle on it- it becomes a twisting knee lock. If he brought his right leg over in a triangle, then its legal.

Anyways, two quickies for that one. First off, footlocks in gi are harder to pull off than in no gi, and the simple reason is that you have a collar to grab a hold of. If you constantly keep a hand in the collar, it will be very difficult for someone to fall back on your foot, and if they do, you can use the collar and the momentum to take the top position. Your opponent has to arch his back to complete the footlock, so by holding that collar and pulling him towards you, you can prevent him from doing this and buy you time to get your foot out.

Another real easy and basic technique is to simply turn your foot as soon as your opponent grabs it. If your opponent wraps, for instance, your right foot, turn your heel in to escape your foot. For example, he grabs it when your toes are pointing up- turn your toes towards the wall so that your heel turns toward his ribs. Now you can simply pull your foot out of the lock. The catch to this escape is that its harder to do in gi, due to the friction of the jackets and such, but the trade off is that in gi you can use the hand in the collar, so its not a big loss. In no gi, this is very effective due to the sweat and slipperyness of your opponent.

**FictionPimp** · Posted On: 1/20/2006 7:14am

Originally Posted by omega

I swear BJJ is turning into fucking Judo.

Well the more it turns into judo, the better I'll be at it because I'm really good at laying on my chest praying for the ref to stand me up. Its an uber defense move on the street too.

**Bob Saget** · Posted On: 1/22/2006 7:57pm

you can use their momentum from falling back with your leg, to sit up and transition into a bicep slice.

or just put your free foot on their ass and push off really hard