Wrist Locks - How To Lose Friends And Alienate Training Partners
Ideas on this beautiful submission...
When I first started training, leg locks and wrist locks were considered dirty moves. I was fortunate that my schooled allowed them but not everyone trained them. I would always feel a surge of excitement would someone would try to wrist lock me. The voice inside my head would say, “This roll just got a little more interesting.”
Why wouldn’t we want to attack the wrists? They are a very small joint on the body and can easily be overpowered with a basic 2 on 1 grip.
Perhaps part of the joy of a wrist lock is that it is the worst move to tap to. Some submissions require 20 steps but if you can sneak a wrist lock in there it is like going directly to Go and collecting your 200 dollars on step 6.
Some would argue that wrist locks are the new leg locks. They joke, “Why would you ignore .05% of the human body?” I am not qualified to debate that claim. However, I would posit that it would be a mistake to ignore any submission completely just because some would argue it is dirty. That never made sense to me. Why is it classy to break someone’s arm but not their wrist? At a fundamental level, Jiu Jitsu is simply practicing murder and dismemberment without weapons. I am not sure if class has anything to do with the equation.
It will be interest to see what the future holds for wrist locks in Jiu Jitsu. But beyond that it will be interesting to see how the art evolves as a whole. That is one of the exciting thing about Jiu Jitsu, on a certain level it is living, breathing and evolving.
Travis Stevens is widely regarded as one of the best grapplers on the planet, and uses wrist locks as a great equalizer in his training and competition. He uses wrist locks to create openings, as well as submit his opponents - even BJJ black belts - in positions that they would never expect
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