Chapter 41 – Footlocks
In the world of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, armlocks, triangle chokes, rear naked chokes and gi chokes are their predominant offensive weapons. When we look at Russian Sambo, leglocks, hip locks, knee locks, foot locks, heel hooks, anything attacking the legs, these are their predominant weapons. When two people are rolling on the matt, and one fella gets stuck in another’s guard, if the person in the guard is good, he will not try some futile attack from an inferior position, but instead, instantly attempt to pass the guard. Now, we are at the junction of the game where the rubber meets the road. Getting out of somebody’s guard is what separates the men from the boys. Which brings us to a very logical question. What happens if you can not pass this person’s guard ? The answer for most Brazilians with a chuckle is … “Well my friend, if you cannot pass my guard, you will eventually get exhausted trying, and you will trip over a sweep, a choke, an armlock, or a triangle. We in Jiu-Jitsu, call this the way of the Dodo”.
However, there is another option, if you can not pass the guard. Attack the feet. When one shifts from an attempted guard pass, to a foot attack, they must fall on their back and simultaneously snake the ankle. When this happens, both fighters are in a mutual reference point. One person is no longer in the other person’s guard. But instead, both are in the identical position like a mirror. Now the $64,000 question becomes, who has spent most time in this position? To give this answer it’s due diligence, we must digress for a moment and talk about psychology. The reason Brazilians are not particularly good at footlocks, has to do more with honor than attributes. If you are in a tournament in Brazil, and you see one fella attacking the foot instead of passing the guard, even if he makes his opponent tap, everyone whistles. (Whistling in Brazil is like Booing). The Brazilian paradigm/protocol mandates that one passes the guard, goes cross side, and attacks. This is the way real men do it. Therefore one can extrapolate that if footlocks are considered “pu55y moves” then very few folks will ever get really good. At the end of the day, whoever has spent the most hours training footlocks and counters, from the footlock position is going to win. In conclusion as we have obviously navigated this problem through and through, I will give you my favorite answer. Spend two hours a day from the footlock position only for 50 days, and you will have logged 100 hours at footlocks, this is probably considerably more time than most Black Belts have put in in their career. And now when you are stuck in the guard of a great Jiu-Jitsu man, instead of failing to pass his guard over and over to complete exhaustion, and eventually falling the way of the dodo, your new option (after a month and a half of training) is to sit back, take the foot, hear the tap and call it a day.
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