It is no mystery to anyone who reads this blog that (a) I think lower body submissions may be even more effective than their upper body counterparts, (b) I greatly dislike the traditionally negative (and sometimes even disdainful) attitude towards leg locks in jiu jitsu (even among many, if not most, black belts), and (c) I think that most of the reasons proffered for the illegality of some techniques (e.g., reaping) are post-hoc rationalizations rooted in conservatism more than anything else. The safety canard, for instance, is based on fiction rather than fact—something I hope to show soon with the data set I just collected involving nearly 900 BJJ practitioners from around the world (see here ). For now, I thought I would just focus on the rule sets regarding leg locks from five national or regional grappling organizations—namely, IBJJF, US Grappling, Grapplers Quest, NAGA, and New Breed. Moreover, for present purposes, I will only be focusing on rules for adults since the rules get even more complicated when kids are involved. That said, let’s get started! The rule sets plus my commentary are below the fold!

IBJJF (see here for complete rule set):

Straight ankle locks: White belt and up

Calf slicers: Brown and black belt

Knee bars: Brown and black belt

Toe holds: Brown and black belt

Heel hooks: Never allowed in Gi or No-Gi

Reaping: Never allowed in Gi or No-Gi



U.S. Grappling (see here for complete rule set):

Straight ankle locks: White belt and up (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Calf slicers: Brown and black belt (Gi) + Advanced (No-Gi)

Knee bars: Brown and black belt (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Toe holds: Brown and black belt (Gi) + Advanced (No-Gi)

Heel hooks: Never allowed in Gi + Advanced (No-Gi)

Reaping: Never allowed in Gi + *Advanced (No-Gi)

*The rule set for reaping in No-Gi isn’t especially clear. It states all submissions are legal for Advanced, but reaping, per se, isn’t a submission.



Grapplers Quest (see here for complete rule set):

Straight ankle locks: White belt and up (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Calf slicers: Brown and black belt (Gi) + Advanced (No-Gi)

Knee bars: Brown and black belt (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Toe holds: Brown and black belt (Gi) + Advanced (No-Gi)

Heel hooks: *Never allowed in Gi + Advanced (No-Gi)

Reaping: *Never allowed in Gi + Advanced (No-Gi)

*The rule set on heel hooks and reaping isn’t clear for Gi.

NAGA (see here for complete rule set):

Straight ankle locks: White belt and up (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Calf slicers: Brown and black belt (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Knee bars: Brown and black belt (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Toe holds: Brown and black belt (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Heel hooks: Never allowed in Gi + Intermediate and Expert (No-Gi)

Reaping: Reaping is allowed when heel hooks are allowed.



New Breed (see here for complete rule set):

Straight ankle locks: White belt and up (Gi) + All levels (No-Gi)

Calf slicers: Brown and black belt (Gi) + Inter. and Adv. (No-Gi)

Knee bars: Brown and black belt (Gi) + Inter. and Adv. (No-Gi)

Toe holds: Brown and black belt (Gi) + Advanced (No-Gi)

Heel hooks: Never allowed in Gi + Advanced (No-Gi)

Reaping: The rule set is not helpful on this front as far as I can tell.

I assume that these five rule sets are fairly representative. What these rules suggest to me is that, at a minimum, students should be learning ankle locks and perhaps knee bars early on in their development. These are submissions that are treated as beginner techniques by several major competition organizations. Moreover, given that NAGA is perhaps the most popular organization—in terms of overall number of competitors (especially at lower levels)—and given that NAGA is clearly the most permissive when it comes to the usage of lower body submissions, coaches and instructors do their students a disservice by not teaching them the salient principles and techniques. Indeed, it would be negligent to send a student to a NAGA tournament without first making sure he or she at least knows how to defend against the various leg locks.

But what if a school doesn’t encourage students to compete? Well, if my aforementioned data set is reliable—and I would argue it is—the overwhelming majority of schools encourage their students to compete (see here for details). Yet, at the very same time, the data also suggest that while most schools are leg lock friendly, many are not (here again, see here). These latter schools are being especially negligent if they are at the same time encouraging their students to compete. One should only encourage students to compete if they are mentally and physically prepared. If the aforementioned rule sets suggest anything, it’s that all students need to be familiar with at least some leg locks (and depending on the tournament rule set, even beginning students may need to be familiar with a wide array of leg locks).

Setting all this aside, I think one issue that further complicates these issues is that students who watch high level professional jiu jitsu—e.g., EBI, Polaris, Metamoris, ADCC, etc.—quickly find that leg locks are both ubiquitous and highly effective. Perhaps this represents a sea change in the direction jiu jitsu is heading. Sambo and catch wrestling have been on this wagon for some time now. At a minimum, it should be clear at this point from both high level grappling and mixed martial arts events that being ignorant about lower body submissions is dangerous (and in many cases, stupid).

Of course, not every student or even every instructor of jiu jitsu is a student of the art in the *deeper* sense—that is, while they may show up and train a few days a week, they aren’t studiously watching high level grappling matches, studying techniques outside the gym, studying systems and principles of attack, learning about the history of the art, paying attention to the arbitrariness of competition rule sets, etc. For these more incurious hobbyists, it’s enough to just learn arm bars and triangles—the good ol’ fashioned stuff. That’s fine as far as it goes. But just because some students and instructors actively decide to remain largely ignorant of leg locks, it doesn’t follow that leg lockers should therefore feel obliged to refrain from using them. I never cared much for leg triangles. So, I have worked on them less than other submissions. Does that mean that my training partners shouldn’t attack me with triangles? No. And it would be simply absurd for me to ask them not to just because I don’t prefer to focus on them. And what’s good for the conservative goose ought to be good for the progressive gander. Or so it seems to this grumpy grappler.

p.s. For the traditionalists reading this, note that even Helio Gracie used leg locks!