Wrist Lock Tutorial: Simple & Effective

By Corey Kuropas, May 26, 2016

For the tutorial, I am going over the oft forgotten wrist lock. Wrist locks are passed over quite a bit for a couple of reasons. The first is the stigma that wrist locks don’t “work”, which comes from the impractical use of them from most TMA’s (traditional martial arts). The second being that they are somewhat of a dirty technique, so for that they aren’t taught or used. This particular wrist lock is effective because it is used as a counter to when someone attempts to free themselves from a triangle choke. It has a very easy set up and you will submit people with it. Take a look below.

In this first picture, I am going for a triangle choke. I have my partner’s arm across my body and I’m attempting to get the finish.

wristlock

When I was going for the finish on my triangle, my partner gets her arm up and tries to lock her elbow down into my stomach to relieve some pressure and attempt to escape the triangle.

wristlock

Before my partner can properly defend or reinforce her arm that’s being attacked, I make my move. I put my hands over the top of her hand. First I put my right hand over, then my left hand, while I have my left hand and fingers covering my right hand. This way, I reinforce my attack. Next I put my thumbs close to her wrist and begin to make my finish happen.

wristlock

Now this where I will finish the wrist lock. My clamp my elbows and forearms to my body and make myself do a mini crunch for added pressure. To finish, I simply apply pushing pressure down on her hand, which turns this into a wrist lock for the tap.

wristlock

This is a high percentage technique. Once you get good, you can actually bait the triangle just to get the wrist lock. What makes the wrist lock easy to tap an opponent with is because the human wrist only needs a small amount of pressure to become severely hurt. The wrist, unlike the elbow, shoulder or ankle joint is particularly weak. When someone leaves the wrist open and it can be controlled, then it can easily become submitted. Also what is beautiful about the wrist lock is that it has many set ups. This is just one that I happen to use a lot and enjoy. Try it out in rolling if you and your partner allow a variety of different submissions. It’s a quick and it works.