Keep The Knee Line and Dominate The Legs With Lachlan Giles

If you’re a leg locker, then you know one of the most paramount concepts of attacking the lower body is keeping the knee line. Especially with twisting style leg attacks, this critical principle will always be something that needs careful observation. If we lose the knee line, the attack is essentially over. There will be times where we can get away with not having the knee line, for example, with certain straight ankle variations and such, but this is generally a fairly strict guideline to adhere to when were looking to finish our opponents with a lower body submission.

With his absolutely phenomenal absolute division performance at ADCC 2019, Lachlan Giles has been working tirelessly to compile his leg lock anthology and ITS HERE! After a rough first day of competition at ADCC this year, losing to Lucas Lepri in the first round, Giles came back, and with a true David and Goliath performance, managed to submit three of the largest competitors at the tournament. He finished each of these three opponents with inside heel hooks, that were just incredibly well done, and earned him bronze ADCC hardware. 

These heel hooks were even more impressive in that Giles was able to apply them on such powerful, large bodies. Simply using strength and horsepower to rip themselves free of these attacks was just not enough, and in many other cases, it is. This speaks to the incredible ability of Giles to keep a knee line under such conditions. 

While Giles compiles his anthology and we wait impatiently for the release, he’s been giving us snip-its of what to expect. In this video, Giles gives us a look at some different concepts for keeping the knee line. He presents us with ideas from a few different positions and discusses the mechanics of keeping that knee, so that we can begin to launch effective attacks no matter where we are. This is important stuff! 

 

Giles begins straight away with something we may be over looking. The first order of business is creating a bend in the knee. A straight leg can be easily removed from a leg attack set up and ultimately lead to loss of control. As Giles explains, simply pinning the knee and hoping for the best, will not yield the results were looking for. We must create a bend. 

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Regardless of the position Giles is attacking from, he treats the leg as a lever, using his hips to push in tot eh back of the knee and his upper body to create a bend at the foot. In this first example, Giles’ outside leg is on the inside in a sort of modified saddle variation. By creating this bend, you can see that his partner will only drag him upon trying to remove the encapsulated leg. Upon further study we also find Giles opening his leg that’s connected to the floor very wide and an arch in his back. All of these elements together create a seemingly inescapable hold on the opposing party’s leg. Giles demonstrates how this control can also be achieved from a 50/50 scenario using the same details. 

In a second method, Giles uses the crunching of his body to create an extreme bend in the leg. By bringing his knees in tight and curling his torso he’s able to create an even more extreme bend that looks to be incredibly controlling. As Giles explains this form of control can be very beneficial if we haven’t penetrated deep into our partners legs with our own. Giles can still expose and begin to capture the heel here as well.

From the 50/50, Giles still employs his lower body as a means of creating a bend, but simply uses his hand to push down on the foot, again creating a scenario where the removal of the leg is nearly impossible. This will stop a common method of escape here where the player on defense will shrink their knee in tot eh 50/50 space, hence removing the knee line from danger. As his partner retreats to a belly down position, Giles follows and uses this same bending concept to keep his partner from straightening his leg and pulling it free.  

I think it’s quite obvious that this is just the very tip of the iceberg. I think where many people including myself have the biggest trouble with leg locks is right here in these beginning stages. The finish is so sought after that we lose sight of mastering the most these early concepts. I’ve always heard of the concept of keeping the knee line and the idea itself makes sense, but Giles is actually showing us here how that should be done so that its effective. You can only squeeze your knees together for so long before your legs gas out. Giles is using the physiology of the body to create a bend and keep it, and that’s just incredibly smart. If we focus on this idea of keeping a bend, the knee line is surely ours. This will give us the ability to control, leading to better finishing rates and quite honestly more time to think about what were doing. 

If This release is anything like Giles’ previous ones, were in for some serious study time. Giles is incredibly through and leaves no stones unturned. I have no doubt that this will be a comprehensive step by step instructional with details on another level.

I look for this to set a new standard in the leg lock realm and if you’re a fan of attacking the lower body, its not one to be missed. Giles’ exploration and innovation on this subject is going to add considerable value to the leg game and I’m certain it will have massive effects on your own personal lower body attacking endeavors as well! Coming soon!

Lachlan Giles is FRESH off of a heroic ADCC 2019 performance where he defeated three +99KG superstars back-to-back-to-BACK with heel hooks. Leg Lock Anthology 50/50 by Lachlan Giles covers the TECHNIQUES that lead Lachlan to defeat 3 of Jiu-Jitsu’s BEST athletes in a row. Learn the nuances that make Lachlan’s leg lock approach unique and effective!

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