Notes on training with the famous Leo Kirby

[JohnnyS]

I've seen Marcelo Garcia do the one-legged x-guard against Cafe in the Campeonata a few years back, except he had an underhook instead of an overhook on Cafe's right leg with his left arm. He swept Cafe with it once and tried it again but Cafe avoided it the second time. At the time I thought it was one of the coolest things I'd seen and I managed to get it on of my training partners.

[nbo10]

Hey Aesopian,
I don't mean to hijack your thread but.... Where do you train at in FL? I'll be down in South West Florida in Dec. & Jan. for winter break and need a place to train?

Again some good stuff!!!

[Aesopian]

I train at Gracie Barra Tampa (http://www.tampabjj.com/) which is ironically in Clearwater.

[Hedgehogey]

At my own academy, I am generally known as "the squirmy little ankle lock fag" (with full emphasis and sneer). I'll actually launch into the position in the first picture from standing.


Things to remember:

1: Always be ready to go belly down to finish this. If you can go belly down with full control of the foot, then sit out on the back of their knee, you can almost always finish.

2: It's almost always helpful to use your inside leg to kick the inside of their knee and force their legs to splay.

3: Avoiding footwars is easy if you keep the initiative. Generally when they've fallen back, my outside leg comes over the top of any grips they may have on my lapel in order to clear it. Once the grips are clear, I thread the outside foot under their thigh. The inside foot continues to kick out their thigh/knee, putting painful pressure on the hip.

[Zankou]

Oh hell's yeah. I have been using something like this instead of x-guard because ... well, I guess because I'm just not any good at x-guard, I'm decent at leg locks, and this is a lot easier to get than the x-guard anyways.

I think of it as "leg lock guard." You can do it with either the overhook (for the ankle lock) or the underhook (for the legoplata/heel hook sweep or spinning the other way for the kneebar sweep).

Note that Pe de Pano does something similar when his opponent brings his hips up and tries to flip him over.

I strongly second the "turn to your belly" move for ankle locks. The half boston crab is a killer!