Kids and heel hooks

[Pat Campagnola]

Wanting them and being able to intelligently teach your students how to apply and defend them as well as when to know you're done is a completely different thing.

She looked like she had never been in that spot before. No attempts to escape or defend, just waiting to tap, and waiting too long.

[Chris Herzog]

Wanting them and being able to intelligently teach your students how to apply and defend them as well as when to know you're done is a completely different thing.

My comment was in response to a bunch of lazy boy recliner quarter backs that said she didn't know heel hooks we legal during the event.

Clearly wanting them and know them are 2 different things.

[Chris Herzog]

Personally I would like to never see heel hooks in kids matches again, regardless what the kids or their coaches agree to. It's just too much risk with very little reward. EBI is such an amazing event, this kind of thing threatens it's reputation. Who cares if kids don't get to go for heelhooks? Does anyone think the matches won't be just as entertaining without them?

No heelhooks for kids.

More risk than what? All submission are a risk if not trained correctly or consistently.

Did Rani not know that armbars can injure you if you hesitate to tap?

The risk to getting injured by heel hooks is lack of training, education and drilling.

and the real issues isn't heel hooks, its knowing when to tap.

[Chris Herzog]

Message by Garry Tonon:

Dear jiu jitsu community,
It has come to my attention that heelhooks are being used more and more in mainstream competition in both MMA and BJJ. I am excited for this but it comes with a responsibility. You absolutely must educate your students, or bring someone in who can, on how to intelligently apply and defend these submission holds, and all submission holds. How can you as a coach, in good conscience, allow a student of yours to compete were a submission hold is not only legal, but common, and not educate them about it. I've said this before and I'll say it again. There are a lot of serious injuries happening in gyms and competitions every year. 99% of them are preventable and or able to be made less serious by proper education. Your students need to understand that this submission hold is powerful and can do great damage if it is not respected. I am not sorry that people get injured in these moves. We operate in a COMBAT SPORT! When intelligent defence is not applied, and a person does not tap, limbs break and people go unconscious. This is real stuff we're dealing with. Tell your students that! Make it clear, if you are not responsible and educated you will get unnecessarily hurt or unnecessarily hurt others. As well as education about the actual techniques it is your job as an instructor to rid your school of ego. If you teach your students to consider taking pops in moves just to not tap in the gym just to not get submitted by someone injuries will happen. If you let your students apply moves aggressively and recklessly in spite of people, injuries will happen. Ok rant over. There's probably some stuff I missed but please consider my message.

[Pat Campagnola]

Message by Garry Tonon:

Dear jiu jitsu community,
It has come to my attention that heelhooks are being used more and more in mainstream competition in both MMA and BJJ. I am excited for this but it comes with a responsibility. You absolutely must educate your students, or bring someone in who can, on how to intelligently apply and defend these submission holds, and all submission holds. How can you as a coach, in good conscience, allow a student of yours to compete were a submission hold is not only legal, but common, and not educate them about it. I've said this before and I'll say it again. There are a lot of serious injuries happening in gyms and competitions every year. 99% of them are preventable and or able to be made less serious by proper education. Your students need to understand that this submission hold is powerful and can do great damage if it is not respected. I am not sorry that people get injured in these moves. We operate in a COMBAT SPORT! When intelligent defence is not applied, and a person does not tap, limbs break and people go unconscious. This is real stuff we're dealing with. Tell your students that! Make it clear, if you are not responsible and educated you will get unnecessarily hurt or unnecessarily hurt others. As well as education about the actual techniques it is your job as an instructor to rid your school of ego. If you teach your students to consider taking pops in moves just to not tap in the gym just to not get submitted by someone injuries will happen. If you let your students apply moves aggressively and recklessly in spite of people, injuries will happen. Ok rant over. There's probably some stuff I missed but please consider my message.

This reminds me that I am due for a visit to Rochester.

[Craig Murray]

More risk than what? All submission are a risk if not trained correctly or consistently.

Did Rani not know that armbars can injure you if you hesitate to tap?

The risk to getting injured by heel hooks is lack of training, education and drilling.

and the real issues isn't heel hooks, its knowing when to tap.

Getting your arm hyperextended and getting your ACL torn are two different levels of injury. I'm not disputing that a lack of training or education is the reason someone got hurt. I'm saying that the greater BJJ community already has a misunderstanding of heelhooks (which is the reason Garry would write that letter to the community). So in the face of that, I think it's better to just remove them from kids matches. It's also common knowledge that there is much less pain before injury in a heel hook. Yes you should understand the position and know when to tap. But these are kids and kids do stupid things sometimes, especially in the heat of the moment.

I see no advantage to having heelhooks in kids matches and I see a danger to the reputation of the event, warranted or not. I'm not blaming EBI or the rules, but plenty of people are. It's just not worth it in my opinion. The reputation of the event is more important than allowing kids to attack twisting leg locks.

Just my opinion.

[Fabian Parker]

Craig, I don't know if I agree with the idea that the heelhook doesn't cause pain prior to injury. In my experience guys I apply it to feel highly inclined to tap if you know what I mean. Also, Garry shares this point as mentioned on his Facebook earlier today I quote:

"There's some false belief out there that you don't feel a heelhook till it's too late to tap that's insane a properly applied heelhook in the gym gives plenty of warning to tap"

I would love to hear Coach Zog's view on this (heelhooks and feeling pain).

Also banning submissions based on damage incurred before pain would mean that wrist locks should also go? What about individual differences in flexibility and/or pain tolerance in say a Kimura for example? I think we are all in agreement about keeping people safe but the best way to do that is to have people informed not simply banning submissions.

[Pat Campagnola]

It seemed like it was a serious injury in the moment, but I saw that she went to the ER and there is no serious damage. There was plenty of time for her to have tapped sooner. Riley secured the position and waited for the tap as most of us are taught.

[Craig Murray]

Craig, I don't know if I agree with the idea that the heelhook doesn't cause pain prior to injury.

Ok, maybe that's true. But my opinion is not based on the reality of heelhooks, it's based on the larger community's perception of heelhooks and how it looks when kids get injured from them at EBI. I see no advantage to having them in kids matches and I see significant risk to the reputation of the event.

[Eddie Bravo]

All 4 kids in EBI 5 wanted heel hooks, all of them including Sophie. So I let them. She was taken to the hospital right after her match. She's home now and very positive about the whole experience. She won't know the extent of her injury until she gets her MRI results