Dealing With Grips On Ankles

Part of the course: The Lord of the Guards: Guard Retention by Jon Calestine

Dealing With Grips On Ankles
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Jon Calestine
Jon Calestine

About this video

When you're put on your back, the first thing you want to do is to keep your opponent in front of you until you're able to make connections. If your opponent controls your ankles, especially when they're right in front of you, you have an opportunity to either sit up or gain inside position. Here's how:
  1. Pummel your feet to gain inside position. Treat it almost like a spider guard, but without the grips, it's hard to maintain.
  2. Create an egg-beatering motion to strip those grips. This is a reverse egg-beatering motion as opposed to pummeling in. You cannot pummel in from here in order to clear those grips, so pummel over following the thumb line.
  3. Once you've cleared the grips, this gives you an opportunity to sit up. When you sit up, create active hooks and control at the wrists.
  4. From this position, you can get back to a seated position, or just use this to make sure that your opponent is not able to control your feet.
  5. The first thing you want to do is to make sure that your opponent is not able to control your legs to start putting their ankles.
  6. If you're forced to your back and you don't want to stay there, use a motion where it's one leg at a time. Avoid doing both legs at the same time, because you can get stuck. You want to avoid the stack and avoid them cutting the ankle.
  7. Pummel your feet back to the inside as you sit up, pushing the hands down, covering the wristwatch knuckle area, creating active hooks from here, and you're able to get back to a seated up position.

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