Heel hooks in the gi, ask Helio

[Craig Murray]

One of the purple belt instructors at my school often says "Heel hooks should always be illegal in the gi because you cannot pull your foot out". That doesn't make any sense to me, but whatever.

I just saw this on twitter, thought it was pretty telling...


https://vine.co/v/eMr3EgmuOLA


Although clearly someone needs to teach Helio about Ashi

[David Rosado]

Shouts out to the Helio filter.

[Damian J]

Ryron and Rener teach heel hooks at the Gracie Academy.

[Mike Nall]

That's awesome! Royler is Helio's son and was also one of the first pure BJJ guys at ADCC (Abu Dhabi) to really use a lot of foot locks. I don't know how many heel hooks he did but he definitely threw a lot of straight ankle locks and toe holds. Yeah the IBJJF (which is not Helio's side of the family) as far as I know is responsible for the whole no heel hooking in the gi thing. It doesn't make much sense to me. I always heard their argument was that you could get injured by the friction of the gi when trying to untangle yourself from the position after the tap, but I wear gi pants sometimes and I've never had any issues untangling my legs after tapping or tapping someone else with a heel hook.

The IBJJF at least needs to make them legal at black belt for their no-gi tournaments. besides having better competitors, the NoGi Worlds is also seen as "less than" ADCC because it just seems neutered to not have heel hooks allowed. When you see Keenan Cornelius and Garry Tonon going at it in the NoGi Worlds but no one can do heel hooks (when they're both awesome at them) it's just lame.