Is the kneebar applicable in MMA?

**Fighting Cephalopod** · Posted On: 8/01/2007 3:48pm

Originally Posted by fatherdog

(From half guard)

Sit up. Spin your outside leg over his head and plant it, sole of the foot down, next to his hip. Hook his leg with your arm, PUSH hard off the ground with your foot and fall to your back. You should now be back to the ground with him belly down, with little danger of strikes to the back of the head. Finish the kneebar.

Reposting with the important bolded detail that I was too drunk to include when originally posted.

**Fighting Cephalopod** · Posted On: 8/01/2007 3:52pm

Originally Posted by UpaLumpa

This is actually partially how we're taught leglocks.

It's a good place to start with toeholds, because you're already controlling his other leg, which is 90% of the time what leglock-happy newbies fail to do when they start rolling every which way looking to twist your ankle off.

**Roidie McDouchebag** · Posted On: 8/01/2007 4:15pm

And an armbar takes more power than a heelhook; that doesn't make it a "power move".

I didn't mention the heelhook as a favoured lower-power submission because you can still lose in MMA even after you've successfully torn out the knee. Also notice that the armbar is at the end of my list of favoured submissions due to it requiring more power than some others.

If they triangle their legs you should be immediately switching to the toehold on their other leg, which is much harder to defend against and leaves an immediate opening for you to finish the kneebar if they try.

If I get offline, you're not getting the toehold either, and you're not getting back to top position without winning the ensuing scramble.

The thing is, I'm not disagreeing with you that the kneebar is a valid technique for MMA, and if you like it, good for you, but it shouldn't be a favoured submission because the risk is greater than with other submissions. I don't think that's particularly deniable, the risk is simply greater, the chances of landing it are worse. It doesn't matter if you can come up with something else you'd be able to do from there, the risk is still greater and the percentage still poorer, and that's not me saying that, I have the weight of the statistics on my side and you don't.

**Donkey_Fizzle** · Posted On: 8/01/2007 4:48pm

I find a lot more arms hanging out there begging to be armbared then I see legs ripe for a kneebar. And even if an armbar takes more effort to finish than a kneebar. The trade off is in the set up. And I am speaking only from an MMA point of view. But IME, kneebars require a lot more set up. More than likely though it's because I don't train them as much as other submissions and I am just missing openings. I love leg locks and I use than more than anybody else on my team. But in live rolling I have rarely been able to tap a guy from a kneebar. What wind up happening is a scramble, a roll to a different set up or an escape.

**gdel** · Posted On: 8/05/2007 8:06pm

If you do a knee bar from side mount, they wont be able to hit you with strikes

**Boyd** · Posted On: 8/05/2007 11:33pm

I respect kneebars and all, but they've always come off to me as armbars with a grossly disfigured risk/reward ratio. The difficulty of controlling a leg vs. an arm, the ease of escapes, the severe positional sacrifices imposed by failure are generally analogous between the armbar and the kneebar, by amplified by the leglock.

**Roidie McDouchebag** · Posted On: 8/06/2007 12:34am

Sweet vindication.

**Nickeroon1987** · Posted On: 8/06/2007 3:01pm

Originally Posted by fatherdog

(From half guard)

Sit up. Spin your outside leg over his head and plant it, sole of the foot down, next to his hip. PUSH hard off the ground and fall to your back. You should now be back to the ground with him belly down, with little danger of strikes to the back of the head. Finish the kneebar.

I'm a little confused by this description. I take my outside leg and move it all the way to the otherside (his other hip)?

**Scrapper** · Posted On: 8/06/2007 3:12pm

I like them when I see 'em...but I never really "go" for them. I can usually make a toe hold happen or get a heel hook if they get squirmy.

Ithink it's as good as any other sub.

**Fighting Cephalopod** · Posted On: 8/06/2007 8:03pm

Originally Posted by Nickeroon1987

I'm a little confused by this description. I take my outside leg and move it all the way to the otherside (his other hip)?

Yep. You're swinging it over his head, like you're doing a roundhouse sweep.

You can also backspin, swinging it over his feet, which has advantages and disadvantages.