Leglocks

Leglocks are great. They just increase your arsenal of submission moves and at the same time help develop the jiu jitsu game further, taking it to a new level.

I have to say that I know only a few moves at the moment and I guess this is partly because leglocks tend to be a more advanced area of focus. Judo does not allow them at all, while Sambo perhaps overemphasizes them, at least in some classes.

That said, if you are roughly aware of them, you can evade them and dominate using just judo newaza techniques.

When I think about the effectiveness of leglocks and their importance in jiu jitsu, I think of Mauricio Shogun Rua's fight against Kevin Randelman. Shogun is a brazilian jiu jitsu black belt and really knows his leglocks. Randelman was caught by Rua and simply did not do anything. An amazing fight in my opinion, proving that leglocks are a crucial part of mma, grappling and even street fighting.

For the moment, I am not comfortable doing leglocks because I have not had enough practice. I tap out quickly as soon as one is performed correctly on me and it feels that if I do go for a leglock in a sparring match, the fight may end in a draw with both me and my opponent competing who is more resistant to pain. It just seems that most of the time, my opponent will also be able to get me in a leg lock as soon as I go for one. I will surely need to work on this further.

I am also thinking of buying some instructional DVD materials on the subject. The number of leglocks available is incredible and I think knowing 5-6 well would be very helpful. There are plenty of materials out there worth taking a look at.