MMA and me; day 257

Yesterday we covered one of our favorites, a sweet leg lock flow. Starting from the guard, you posture up and begin a lunge pass, and as you do, bring your forward leg up into a knee shield. Drive the knee shield over their thigh, pinning it to the ground. As you slide it over, swim your other leg around their body and plant your foot on the mat, in front of their stomach, and immediately slide it under their upper body to defend against the toe hold. Scoot your hips in tight to theirs, your bottom foot should have the boot on in the middle of their crack, and cup their knee that is in between your legs to pull it in tight, and then pinch your legs together. From here, slide your hand up to the toes of the top leg (keeping constant pressure) and bring the leg up to 12:00 and then compress their foot over your quad muscle for a compression lock. Next, scoot your hips out a couple short bumps, and bring your other arm out and around the back of their leg that you are still grabbing the toes of, and grab your own wrist. Shrug your shoulders, put your head on your hands, and turn their foot away from your body for a toe hold. Shrimping your hips back in tight, release the toe hold, and with your top side arm, trap the foot in your arm pit, and wrap around the heel with your forearm, clasp your hands together, and turn for a long heel hook. Slide your wrist down so your radial bone is right on the back of their heel, and instead of twisting, just pull it straight back for a short heel hook. Shrimp your hips out, reach under the leg for an ankle lock, and then shrimp back in, post up on your bottom side elbow and then ratchet back on the post, looking over your shoulder until they tap. Next, straighten out your top side leg in front of you, and post up on the foot. Facing directly away from them, sit down on their butt, and lean back for the half crab. Lastly, reach down to cup the knee of their leg that you have under your arm with your free hand, pop up your other leg so you are on both feet, reach your other hand down so that both hands are cupping the knee, then sit back and pull up for the tap.

I really like this flow, and it really sheds a whole new light on leg locks as a whole. Some of the options for leg locks are not available until you get to more experienced levels of competition, but that's fine by me, I love 'em! Great day of class, and it's almost home stretch time for Arlington!!