Legal Leglock Tips With Luiza Monteiro

The more you train, the better you get.  Seems obvious right? It should. However, what I think people tend to forget is that other people, your teammates and your competition are also training, and therefore are also getting better.  As you start to progress in your Jiu Jitsu journey it becomes more and more necessary to gain the ability to setup submissions by first attacking something different, that transitions into what you are going for. 

In skilled practitioners, they will exhibit the ability to string a series of 3 to 4 (or more) techniques together in order to attack the submission they were looking for in the first place.  The bottom line is the longer you train, the more talented you will become. It also means that the longer you train, the tougher the opponents will be that you are competing against in actual competition or just friendly competition on the mats at your academy.  

There is no surprise that many grapplers want to learn a systematic approach that is repeatable every time they are in that particular situation.  The only way to do this effectively in real life is to practice the series, or the system if you will time and time again until you have developed the muscle memory that each step in the series is merely your body’s automatic response.  

There is no question that learning series of techniques strung together is necessary in being able to submit your opponent’s as you climb through the ranks of Jiu Jitsu.  Beyond simply learning a series of submissions, the next goal then becomes to learn the most unlikely series of submissions in hopes of having the element of surprise on your side.  

As Jiu Jitsu is evolving seemingly day by day these days, leg attacks are becoming, or should I say have become, extremely popular thanks to some of the best grapplers in the world for putting this spotlight on the “other half” of the body by winning some of the biggest most popular tournaments out there by way of leg attack.  

The more surprising the better.  Let’s take a look at this Knee bar from Omoplata by Luiza Monteiro and see how she is able to transition from an Omoplata to knee bar attack and effectively surprise her opponent and get the submission. 

 

To start out, we are going to start in an open guard position with our feet in the hips and both hands controlling both sleeves.  Next, releasing the grip on the opponent’s right sleeve grab the opponent’s lapel with your now free right hand. The lapel grip should be across the body and up by the opponent’s chin (for a reference on how high to go).  

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Next to start to get into position we are going to stretch our left leg completely straight, pushing it past our training partner’s back.  From here you must swing your leg and use the momentum from the swing to get your body perpendicular to your training partner. At this point it should look similar to the picture below, maintaining both grips and moving into position. 

We can now use this leg that is over the opponent’s arm to lift our body and finish turning until we have achieved the correct angle and are able to lock our legs over the opponent’s arm.  Notice that Luiza still has the sleeve and collar grips up to this point.  

At this point we are preparing for the opponent to stand up to escape the Omoplata since we are not doing anything to prevent that from happening.  As the opponent stands, maintain the lapel grip but let the sleeve grip go and scoop under the opponent’s leg that is closest to your face. Remember to keep your legs locked in a figure four lock (instep behind the knee of the other leg) to maintain control. 

The goal now is to get control of the knee and sweep the opponent at the same time.  To do that we simply let go of the lapel grip allowing the opponent to stand up and bring out inside leg in between the opponent’s legs with out instep on their inner thigh and out outside leg around the outside of the opponent’s leg with out foot wrapped to the back of the opponent’s hips.  By pushing with your legs, you can then sweep the opponent forcing them to the ground.  

As you sweep the opponent you want to immediately hug the leg and roll to the opposite side.  As you are rolling to the opposite side you want to ensure your legs are on each side of the leg you are attacking with your knees above the opponent’s knees and your feet together behind the opponent’s butt.  

The final step before finishing the knee bar is to move the opponent’s foot to the other side of your face putting the opponent’s foot between your face and the mats.  From this position the finish is as simple as holding the heel of your opponent’s foot and then driving your hips forward while also curling your feet backwards. Doing this will secure the knee bar, and the tap.  Remember any time you are doing leg attacks like this, the submission can come on fast, so be aware and don’t do anything that could hurt your training partner, but obviously train the technique as realistically as you can.

This is just one of many examples of the devastating lower body attacks that Luiza Monteiro brings to her video instructional titled “IBJJF Legal Leg locks”.   Luiza provides a simple yet detailed approach to attacking the legs, a concept that is foreign to many grapplers these days, despite the rise in popularity.  There is no question that studying some of these techniques will take your game to the next level giving you options from a wide variety of guard positions such as spider guard, X guard, 50/50, butterfly guard and tons of others.  Don’t continue to wonder if you’re doing it right, be certain you are doing it right with the help of Luiza Monteiro. 

Update your Fundamental Foot Locks with Luiza Monteiro! These footlocks are 100% IBJJF LEGAL! Leg locks aren’t just for No-Gi. Use your open guard to set traps and land SUBMISSIONS! Add some Legal Leg Locks to your arsenal and prepare to dominate the competition. 

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