Key Takeaways
- A No-Gi instructional looking at ankle locs for white to purple belt competitors.
- Features positioning essentials, many different finishing variations, and setups.
- Just over 2 hours of high-quality material by a proven top-level competitor.
- BJJ World Expert Rating: 8 out of 10.
JACOB COUCH LEGLOCKS DVD GET HERE:
The Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD. Quite a mouthful, this title. What it may lack in imaginative naming, though, this instructional certainly delivers in terms of content.
This is one of the better organized and scaled instructional I have seen that covers legal leg locks, a.k.a. ankle locks. It is just long enough, with Jacob Couch and Heath Pedigo presenting everything anyone needs to get a tap, while skilfully building up the complexity to match blue and purple belt levels.
Should You Stick to Legal Leg Locks Only?
Hard one. I usually advise people to do everything in terms of submissions, particularly leg locks. However, there is a point to be made about sticking to legal finishes only, particularly if you compete often with the Gi, or in rulesets that only allow legal leg attacks.
As far as your options go, you’re only restricted to one category – ankle locks. the good news is that there is as much variety in the realm of BJJ ankle locks as there is among all other remaining high-percentage lower-body finishes. Sticking to what you can do is going to make you a lot better at it than trying to do all kinds of leg locks from all available positions.
Since you need balance in perfecting legal stuff and learning and developing the ‘illegal’ locks, I’d recommend that you restrict yourself to using the stuff from the Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD either on open mats only or during competition training. No heel hooks during these classes, but feel free to explore them along with ankle locks during all your other rolls.
The Hillbilly Hammer Jacob Couch
Jacob Couch is one of the most notable members of the Daisy Fresh team and if you know their exceptional story, then you know who I am talking about. The team captivated everyone during COVID-19 when their multi-part documentary came out showing how people train BJJ in a former laundromat in the heart of Mt. Vernon, St. Louis.
In all honesty, the team is named Pedigo Submission Fighting but we all know them as Daisy Fresh. The man in charge of the team is Heath Pedigo, a black belt under Rodrigo Vaghi from the Rickson Gracie lineage.
The team that Pedigo formed included people who loved grappling and opted to live in a gym, but who couldn’t afford the fees at training centers such as Atos. Among those early standouts was Javcb Couch, now a black belt under Pedigo.
With a couple of ADCC trials and local titles, as well as medals from the Pans, and WNO, Couch, who got his black belt in 2022 is still making a name for himself in the professional circuit. A No-Gi specialist, 29-year-old Couch has been terrorizing people of all levels with his leg locks since his purple belt days.
Now, through the Jacob Couch Legal Leglocks system, you can learn exactly what made him such an effective competitor.
Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD Review
Throughout this Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD we see material delivered in No-Gi, spanning a total of 2 hours. The instructional features great organization, and most impressively, perfect scaling to all levels from white to purple. It contains four different volumes.
Part 1 – Basic Positioning
As this DVD kicks off, Jacob begins at the very foundations of leg locks, but at the complete opposite side of the spectrum compared to Danaher or Gordon. He simplifies things rather than complicating them, offering only the essentials that lead to legal leg locks, mostly from the ankle lock variety.
The initial few chapters focus on the Single Leg X-Guard position, without too many guard details outside of those that are of interest for leg locking. A few great tricks on positioning your elbows to cause off-balances feature, along with an easy sweeping drill that only serves to get the top person’s butt to the mats.
This is where the Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD earns its name. While for beginners getting to this point is probably enough focus, Couch offers offense and defense cycles once the butt is on the mats, providing attacking and counterattacking leg lock opportunities.
Part 2 – Ankle Locks
The star of this Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD is the ankle lock, appearing in several different variations, one of which is particularly interesting and innovative.
This second part of the insturctional is fairly short, only covering the finishing mechanics that follow that sweep from the Single Leg X-Guard. The only other chapter in this part covers an outside grip variation, named by Couch himself. We’ve seen it in his matches, so its effectiveness is beyond doubt.
Part 3 – Switching Sides
As we pass the halfway point of the DVD, the material gets a bit more geared towards blue and purple belts, as Couch offers his way of achieving one of the key aspects of any leg lockers game – successfully switching from leg to leg.
In this volume of the Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD, the interesting aspect I mentioned earlier appears in the form of the Langhi hook. Michael Langhi is one of the original innovators in inverted guards, which prompted Couch to use his hooking system to finish anke locks, including a particularly nasty belly-down finish.
Part 4 – Grips and Finishes
In the final portion of the Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD Jacob offers some tips and tricks mostly geared towards more advanced grapplers. The one I’d point out is his hierarchy of gripping for finishing ankle locks, which reminds me of Danaher’s heel hook grips.
A few more advanced guard setups that feature the De la Riva guard and 50/50 also feature in this volume, leading to inevitably tight and lock finishes. Let’s not forget the Fatman ankle lock, which also makes its debut in this part of the DVD.
Constraints Lead to Progress
The answer to why you need to stick to legal leg locks if you’re not a brown or black belt competitor is clear, at least when concerning IBJJF and UAEJJF rules. While I am a big advocate of practicing every submission starting as early as possible, it is a fact that you can’t use heel hooks, kneebars, and toe holds until then.
The one thing every seasoned leg locker is going to tell you, though, is that ankle locks have a huge role in their overall game. Whether you attack from the Ashi Garami positions or modern hybrids, you’ll often find that ankle locks and heel hooks work together just as well as toe holds and kneebars do.
While practicing leg locks, do not hunt for heel hooks only. Constrain yourself to finishing with ankle locks only, even when opponents give you their heel. This will teach you how to use this heel hook-anke loock relationship to great effect when you level up or compete in different rulesets.
As we saw from our Jacob Couch DVD review above, ankle locks can stand in for heel hooks from the same positions, and deliver the same, and sometimes even more devastating finishing outcomes.
DOWNLOAD: JACOB COUCH LEGLOCKS FOR WHITE, BLUE AND PURPLE BELTS
Leg Lock Season is Open!
Now that you are ready to set up your ankle locks Jacob Couch style, all that’s left is to practice, practice, practice! The Jacob Couch Leglocks For White, Blue and Purple Belts DVD will open up the world of leg locks for you, but then it is up to you to put in the hours, collecting feet every time you’re on the mats. Happy hunting!
