Craig Jones Continues to Innovate and Add Value to Modern Jiu-Jitsu with His Newest Release

Craig Jones came up quick through the ranks of the elite, and in a pretty hasty manner established himself as a force to be reckoned with at the highest levels of competition.

His leg lock tool box gave him his first major glimpses of recognition, but if you thought Jones was a one trick pony, you were sorely mistaken. Jones has shown us that his versatility isn’t limited to the lower body, and he’s given us plenty of exciting examples of what he’s capable of. His first highly anticipated instructional release gave us some insight into his leg lock knowledge, his style, and it provided a platform from which to launch some of the most dynamic leg attacks in the game.

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Jones’s newest release is now available, and it seems he’s taken things a step further. He’s learned much and has had plenty of time to experiment since his last release, and we’ll reap the benefits of his findings in this new instructional.

Here are two more reasons why Jones continues to cement himself as one of the new and exciting innovators of the modern BJJ game.

The 50/50 position has appeared to take a back seat to some of the other more favored positions in the leg lock realm. The saddle has seemed to emerge as the king “game over” position over the course of the past few years. But the 50/50 can be an incredibly dynamic entanglement if you use it properly.

I’d have to say, the thing I hear the most when the 50/50 gets brought up, is that people feel it’s a race to see who gets to the inverted heel hook first. The complaint is that wit the exact same set of controls each person has the same tools to secure the submission, making it a battle of speed.

This complaint simply isn’t valid. You may be overlooking the amount of options and utilities contained within the 50/50. While entering the 50/50 you do for all intents and purposes have identical position and controls, but there are ways to adjust your body to keep your own legs safe while you begin to attack your opponent. Maybe taking a moment to set yourself up to attack, while also defending your own lower body will alleviate some of your apprehensiveness toward the position.

Have a look at this video with Craig Jones about creating heel exposure in the 50/50. He’s got some very relevant ideas here for you to check out!

Jones begins with addressing the aforementioned problem right away. He begins to set himself up in a manner that keeps his own limbs intact and allows him to launch his own offense. Here’s how he does it.

From the 50/50 Jones begins by constructing a frame on his partners far leg. He uses his thumb to penetrate the space near his partner’s knee, and then gets another pushing style grip on top of the toes on the same leg. As he pushes and works to separate the feet, Jones also hip escapes, shrinking his knee down and making contact with the floor. Keep in mind that this initial movement could take some time, as your opponent will be resisting, but stay the course, and make as many incremental movements as necessary to complete the transition.

This next piece of information is brilliant. After Jones has shifted his hips and allowed his knee to travel to the floor, he then works to bring his top leg over to the other side of his partner’s body. Although his bottom knee is now safe against the mat, this top leg will keep his partner from reacquiring the bottom knee line, giving Jones some freedom to continue his attack.

Once these critical positional details have been achieved, Jones now begins to come up on top of his partner. As he rotates his body, he finds himself facing the opposite direction of his partner on all fours, securing a triangle with his legs.

Its likely that here the bottom player will continue to protect the bottom leg by crossing his feet. Jones controls this bottom leg with a grip behind his partners knee, and begins trying to work at the heel to separate the legs. Again, this may not come so easy, as your opponent will be battling here, but trust in the process.

After Jones separates the legs, his partner will of course try and rejoin them to continue defending. To make sure his efforts don’t go unrewarded, Jones places his head on the mat in between his partners legs after he’s separated them. With the legs separated, Jones can begin to acquire the heel, and start to return to the mat.

For the finish, Jones applies weight to the heel, leaning towards it, and lift his hips toward the sky. This causes devastating outward pressure to be applied to the knee and the submission.

This technique showcases complete and total domination of the 50/50 position. This isn’t your normal race to see who can find the inverted heel hook first from a seated position. Jones takes the steps necessary to completely control the entanglement and use it to his advantage. This is one of the greatest uses of the 50/50 I’ve ever seen, and Ill be working on it the moment I have the chance.

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In previous videos Jones has demonstrated the perils of the outside ashi garami position while your opponent is standing. It seems in his studies;he’s found more than a few ways to exploit the position and turn it in to opportunity.

In this particular video Jones presents us with his variation of the crab ride back take, and he sets it up from the outside ashi position. Check it out.

With his partner in the outside ashi and Jones on his feet, the exchange begins. Jones starts with securing to anchoring points. One with his thumb behind his partners knee, and another on his partners underside hip. He uses these two grips to rotate his partner to the right. He then switches the far hip grip to the to the near hip and with both hands now on the same side he pulls his partner toward him and to the mat.

With his partners hips on the floor, Jones can now take a deep scooping over his partners leg. It’s important here that Jones’s right instep be very shallow, with his partners leg resting on it. From here he enters into a roll. As he performs the roll, he extends his right instep, pushing his partners leg away, and pommels his top leg to the inside to set his first hook for the back control. As he further extends his right leg, he sits his partner up. As he settles in, he secures the seatbelt and transitions to the under-hook side using a body triangle. Jones can now begin attacking in any manner he wishes to do so.

This looks a bit complicated, but I’m thinking once you put some repetitions into it the movements will feel quite natural. This is a pretty common scenario, and this is a great answer to the outside ashi position when you’re on the other end of it. Give it a shot and see I you can put it to work.

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