Artemis BJJ (7 Easton Rd), Can Sönmez, Bristol, UK - 02/11/2022
Seated single leg x, also (rather pretentiously and unhelpfully, IMO, unless you happen to be training in Japan) known as ashi garami, is the entry level leg lock position. Typically you'll get there from a sweep, or possibly off an escape from mount, but in order to get the basics, I tend to teach it from both people sitting down, facing eachother. Get your legs on the inside of theirs, then grab their ankle. Holster that to your hip, while simultaneously kicking your same side leg forwards. Put the foot of your leg on their hip. With your other hand, grab their knee (still on that side, so opposite to your hand), then fire your hips as close to theirs as you can.
You want to be turned towards the side where you have your foot on their hip. With your other knee, cover that foot as much as your can. The foot should be curled around their hip bone, as tight to them as you can, toes facing outwards. Your same side hand wraps up their leg, ready to take one of multiple grips. The basic one is to encirlce their ankle with that arm, while your other hand maintains hold of their knee. This is good for preventing their ability to extract that leg.
Alternatively, you can move into a figure four. The hand of the arm encircling their leg grabs the wrist of your other arm, grasping their shin with your free hand. This is useful for preventing them rotating. You can also move directly into a (fairly weak) straight leglock from their, driving your hips into their leg. It's less effective, as your arm is flat, so the sharp radius isn't pressing into the meat of their leg or their achilles (depending how high you have your grip).
A third grip option is to keep their same side leg encircled with your arm, then do the same thing with your arm on the other side. This is best used when they are attempting to stand up. By controlling both feet, that makes standing up impossible: they have to break your grips first.
I'll also keep adding in my safety video, as I don't think this gets emphasised when teaching leglocks nearly enough. Really important: for twisting leglocks (which can happen accidentally, in the not uncommon event that the person being footlocked tries to explosively spin to free their leg), tap to pressure, not to pain.
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Teaching Notes: I could potentially try and cram this into the initial drilling class, but I think it makes sense to separate it out. At the moment, leglocks are still very new to most people at the club, so taking it really slow and avoiding overwhelming makes sense. In future, when leglocks are less confusing for students, I could probably add in some other details. Especially because at this stage time will be eaten up a bit, as I still want to add in the safety chat. If people remember nothing else, I want to make 10000% sure they've all experienced the knee sensation so they know to tap to pressure, not to pain.
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