Musings from the BJJ Gi #10, Lesson 11; leg hook takedown & trap and rolls

So the leg hook takedown, starting from the clinch, the indicator for this is when/if your opponent maintains or creates a wide base once you have clinched with them, so they either already have one, or they take a step back to create one. You take a set up step into the centre of your opponent's base, and then hook the leg (of theirs) which is between your two legs, using the foot which is on their rear side. You kind of lift their calf with your own, and spiral towards the ground in the direction of that hooked leg, maintaining the closeness and clinch grip until just before hitting the ground. You then finish by attaining the full mount with hooks in and hands spread out wide.

There were 3 trap and rolls covered in this lesson; standard variation (both hands strangling you from the mount), punch block variation (punches being thrown at you from the mount), and headlock variation (someone holding you in a headlock from the mount). All 3 operate around the same essential principle of taking out your opponent's ability to brace themselves on one side of their body - you completely control the arm and leg on one side so that they can be rolled over to that side easily.

The standard variation involves using your opposite hand to theirs (so your right would grab their right, or your left would grab their left), to secure a thumbless grip of the wrist, and your other hand to secure a C-clamp grip of their tricep on the same arm. You then trap their foot using your own on the same side again, and then bridge your hips up until their shoulder touches the ground, and when it does, roll and step over so that you land in their guard.

The punch block variation involves a lot of ab crunching. You bring your arms up to make your protective helmet, but you also curl your torso up a bit so that your elbows brace against their thighs. When they sit upright to start throwing punches, you bridge your hips high, and they sort of tip over the top of you, forcing them to brace their hands out to prevent them falling and hitting their face on the ground. Once their torso is close, you clinch tightly with it, keeping your head/face super close to their chest, and still maintaining that high bridge of your hips, so that for them to move, they are dragging all of your weight essentially. You then climb up their body with a couple of little scoots, switch from your clinch grip to like a chin-up grip on their traps, and then pull yourself up so that your head is just below their chin, reach across their back with one arm, to attain a grip of their lat, then wrap up their arm with your free arm, trap the foot on that same side, and then bridge and roll.

And finally, the headlock variation involves trapping their headlocking arm by gripping the bicep, and also pinning that arm against the ground with the back of your head/neck. Your other arm is blocking potential punches from their free arm, until you get the safe opportunity to underhook that arm, trap the foot on the same side as the headlocking arm, and then bridge and roll again.

Once again these techniques were quite familiar to me from back when I did them via Gracie University in 2015, but now they have evolved somewhat, with some brilliant additional details which make them even more effective!
Cheers,

• David.