2 No Gi Heel Hook Setups For BJJ From Craig Jones

Unlock The Power Of Leg Attacks With ADCC Champion And Grappling All Star Craig Jones!

As one of the most prominent members of the Danaher Death Squad, Craig Jones knows a thing or two when it comes to submission attacks on the lower body. Craig Jones is an Australian grappler and Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt under Lachlan Giles who competes for the Absolute MMA Academy. Jones is a household name right now amongst the grappling community. He is considered by many to be one of the best grapplers of his generation. Jones has made headlines time and time again for victories in ADCC, Worlds, Polaris, EBI, and Kasai. His list of accolades is truly impressive.

Craig Jones is known for his leg locks, but he also is a great guard passer. One of his favorite guard passing approaches is to use leg locks to attack for the submission, yet open doors to pass the guard.

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Not only is Jones a remarkable competitor, he is also a world class teacher. His instructional series “Down Under Leg Attacks” includes tons of lower body attacks that have been tested at the highest level of international competition. Let’s take a look at two no gi heel hook setups for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu from Craig Jones!

Crazy Inside Heel Hook Setup

Leg entanglement is a very effective way to set up leg submissions. Positions such as inside sankaku have been used widely in the high level BJJ competitions. Inside sankaku is a great position because it is a powerful way to entangle your opponent’s legs using your legs as a triangle. To get to inside sankaku, Craig Jones starts off from a butterfly guard position. Jones’ guard is slightly modified to be like a reverse X guard. Notice he has both hooks on one leg, using this for pressure. From here Jones takes an under hook on the same side as his foot hooks. As he takes the under hook, Jones scoots his butt up to his opponent’s knee. Now he can use his opposite arm to reach inside and grab his training partner’s toes – this prevents him from getting sprawled on. At this point Jones lifts and elevates his opponent and extends his legs through. He puts his left knee behind his opponent’s knee and rolls him over into inside sankaku, finishing in the saddle position for an inside heel hook.

Standing Heel Hook Setups

When your opponent is standing you can easily go for a heel hook. Doing so is easy. Jones demonstrates how. He starts off with single leg X in order to switch into an inverted position to start attacking heel hooks from. He uses his hand to hook the back of his opponent’s foot to pull him into the inverted position. If your opponent steps back you can switch to a hooking grip and switch your legs. Jones uses his knee to slice at his training partner’s knee, taking him down in a fashion similar to a scissor sweep. This puts him in the perfect position for a heel hook.

In the event that your training partner steps all the way around, you can still hit the heel hook. Simply bring your far leg around to the front of your training partner’s hips to sweep him. No matter where he steps you can use one of these setups to get the sweep and hit the heel hook. Keep in mind that both of these techniques involve staying very active with your hips in order to control your opponent’s movements.

The next time you are training no gi be sure to give these heel hooks a shot! What is great about Craig Jone’s approach to leg attacks is that they can be done from virtually any position, no matter your level of experience! So if you liked these then definitely check out Craig Jones’ “Down Under Leg Attacks” available exclusively right here on BJJFanatics.com!

Craig Jones has a secret weapon in jiu jitsu... his leg lock system. It Is a System Craig’s that is very easy to learn. There are some pieces to it, but he was able to go from a Purple Belt to one of the best Black Belts in the world in just 2 years. That isn’t to say that everyone who learns it will get as good as him, but they will surely be able to be a lot better than they are and submit a lot of upper belts – even black belts, if they learn it well enough. No one else trains this stuff.   

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