Key Takeaways
- No-Gi Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks Diego Pato DVD Review — a two-part, roughly 66-minute No-Gi instructional that maps one connected path from the straight ankle lock into the heel hook, built around grip retention.
- Diego “Pato” Oliveira teaches his own finish — the Pato Lock — alongside the Kiss of the Dragon entry and the Kiss of the Tilapia finish.
- The real value is the decision tree: what to do when the defender boots, rotates or fights the grip, not just the entries themselves.
- Compact and narrow by design — it assumes base leg-lock familiarity and is No-Gi only, so Gi-only and beginner players will get less out of it.
- The heel-hook half only unlocks under No-Gi brown/black, ADCC and submission-grappling rulesets, not every division.
- Rating: 7.5/10
DOWNLOAD: No-Gi Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks Diego Pato DVD
The straight ankle lock made Diego “Pato” Oliveira a problem long before most of the sport caught on to his leg-lock game. No-Gi Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks, his two-part BJJ Fanatics instructional, promises to turn that finishing threat into a teachable path from entry to heel hook. The only question that matters for a buying decision is this: does Pato actually teach a connected system under resistance, or does he just wrap familiar leg-lock mechanics around a decorated name?
On paper, the answer looks promising. Pato is not a coach who filmed a career highlight reel and talked over it; the course is structured around a single claim — that the straight ankle lock is not the submission you settle for, but the doorway to the heel hook.
The Straight Ankle Lock’s No-Gi Problem
The straight ankle lock occupies a strange place in No-Gi. Everyone learns it early, yet almost nobody treats it as a primary weapon. It is the move you threaten while hunting the heel hook, or the “safe” finish under rulesets that ban twisting leg attacks. For most players it sits in second place permanently.
Pato’s framing flips that. In his system the ankle lock is the entry point, and the grip that finishes the straight ankle lock is the same grip that walks you into the heel hook when the opponent defends. That reframing matters because leg locks fail for most people at a predictable place: the grip dies the moment the defender starts to move. Pato’s stated answer is not a harder squeeze but an understanding of what the grip is doing and where the finish hides when the ankle lock alone is not enough.
That is also the honest test of the whole product. Plenty of instructionals promise a “system,” then deliver a list of moves. The question here is whether the connective tissue — the grip-retention decisions and the reactions that force the transition — is actually taught, or just implied.
Diego “Pato” Oliveira
Diego Oliveira Batista, known everywhere as “Pato” — Portuguese for “duck,” a nickname he earned for unusually large feet as a teenager — is a black belt under Cicero Costha and currently trains under the Art of Jiu-Jitsu (AOJ) banner. His competitive record is elite: five IBJJF World titles (2021, 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026), two No-Gi World titles (2021 and 2023), Pan and European championships, and ADCC medals at both 2022 (bronze) and 2024 (silver). He competes at light-featherweight — roughly 64 kg / 141 lb — and lists footlocks among his favourite positions, which undersells a career built partly on them.
The timing of the release adds weight. It lands after Pato’s fifth Gi World title and his public decision to step away from Gi competition, which makes a course on No-Gi leg locks feel less like a side project and more like a statement of where his attention is going. It also helps that the Pato Lock is not theoretical: he finished Owen Jones with it in roughly 85 seconds at ADCC 2024. This is a move with tournament receipts behind it.
No-Gi Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks Diego Pato DVD Review
The Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks Diego Pato DVD is compact, No-Gi only, and assumes you already speak leg-lock. For the No-Gi player who keeps losing the grip and wants a sharper bridge from ankle lock to heel hook, it is a strong, well-organised buy. Overall, this No-Gi Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks Diego Pato DVD Review lands at 7.5/10 — a sharp, narrow instrument that earns its place for the right buyer.
Part 1: Entering And Building The Ankle Lock
Part 1 is the foundation, sequenced the way Pato actually attacks. It opens with a finishing overview of what a straight ankle lock genuinely requires — the wedge-and-fold mechanics, foot angle and hip placement — before any entry is shown. That is the right order, and it is where a lot of ankle-lock instruction falls over: too many courses rush to entries before making sure the finish itself is sound.
From there Pato moves into entering the position and, crucially, into passing and maintaining the grip while the opponent defends. This middle chapter is the heart of the product. The stated premise — that leg locks fail when the grip dies under movement — gets treated as a problem with concrete answers rather than a slogan. The Kiss of the Dragon entry then feeds the transition that gives the course its name: how the same ankle-lock grip leads directly to the heel hook when the defender changes shape to survive.
What separates Part 1 from a generic ankle-lock survey is the connective tissue. The chapters are not isolated techniques; they build toward the grip-retention decision tree the description promises. The trade-off is pace — the whole part runs just under 37 minutes including a short intro, so concepts arrive quickly rather than being exhaustively drilled.
Part 2: Finishes And Applying The System
Part 2 is where Pato’s own stamp appears. The Pato Lock — his competition-tested variation that breaks differently from the standard finish — gets its own chapter, followed by the Kiss of the Tilapia finish. “Breaking the Posture” then tackles the scenario every leg-locker dreads: the opponent who defends well, hides the heel and forces you to win the positional battle before the submission.
The closing chapter, “Applying It Everywhere,” is the payoff for the whole framing. Pato takes the mechanics from the earlier chapters and shows how the same finishing logic travels across the positions where the straight ankle lock and heel hook appear. It is a genuine attempt to close the loop on the “one connected path” promise rather than leave the system as a grab-bag of moves.
The honest limitation is scope. Two parts and roughly 66 minutes is compact, and it assumes a working leg-lock vocabulary — ashi-garami shapes, heel exposure, the reaping rules — because there is not room to teach those from scratch. This is a focused upgrade for someone who already attacks legs, not an entry point.
Don’t Settle for Ankle Locks
The most realistic way to use the course is to treat the ankle-lock grip as the anchor of your No-Gi leg game for a training block, then layer the heel-hook transition on top once the finish is automatic. The material is dense enough that a single chapter — especially “Passing and Maintain the Grip” — can feed several weeks of positional sparring. Budget the 66 minutes across a handful of sittings rather than one binge; each chapter repays re-watching because the decisions are subtle.
One integration note is worth making explicit. Because the system hinges on the defender’s reactions, it only really pays off in live rounds where partners actually defend. If your gym rarely plays heel hooks or your training partners tap early, the connective tissue between the ankle lock and the heel hook will not reveal itself. You need the resistance — and ideally a ruleset that permits the heel hook — to test the full loop.
No-Gi Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks Diego Pato DVD – GET IT HERE
Who Is This For?
This is aimed squarely at the No-Gi player, blue belt on up, who already attacks legs and wants a sharper, more connected finishing path from the ankle lock into the heel hook. It suits competitors training under ADCC or the No-Gi brown/black IBJJF leg-lock rules where heel hooks become legal, and anyone who keeps losing the grip in leg entanglements. It also fits lighter competitors who play the outside-position leg game that Pato built his career around.
Who should not buy it: brand-new leg-lockers, because there is no foundational primer here; Gi-only practitioners, because nothing in the system translates to the Gi jacket or IBJJF Gi rules, where heel hooks stay illegal; and anyone hunting a broad leg-lock encyclopedia.
For the comprehensive, system-driven treatment, John Danaher’s The Ankle Lock goes far deeper; for the IBJJF-legal straight ankle lock finished under hard defense, David Mitchell’s Ankle Locks Don’t Work is the sharper fit; and Chris Wojcik’s Woj Lock the World covers the wider spread of No-Gi ankle-lock variations. Pato’s course is narrower than all three on purpose.
Pros & Potential Drawbacks
Pros:
- A genuinely connected system — the ankle-lock-to-heel-hook path is one decision tree, not a highlight reel, with grip retention treated as the core problem.
- Elite competitive credibility — five World titles and two ADCC medals from an active light-featherweight whose signature move this actually is.
- Real finish variations — the Pato Lock and Kiss of the Tilapia are his own, not re-branded standard mechanics.
- Sensible sequencing — the finishing overview comes before the entries, so the foundation is set before the flashier transitions.
- An honest focus on the failure point — the grip-retention material targets exactly where most leg-lock games stall.
Potential Drawbacks:
- Short for the price — roughly 66 minutes at $79 is lean next to multi-hour leg-lock courses in the same price bracket.
- No-Gi only — the system does not carry over to Gi competition, and the heel-hook half is illegal in many divisions.
- Assumes existing leg-lock vocabulary — beginners will be lost without ashi-garami and heel-exposure fundamentals.
The Verdict – Will Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks Work For You?
No-Gi Ankle Locks To Heel Hooks is a focused, credible and genuinely useful product, but it is a scalpel rather than a library. Pato delivers what he promises: one connected path from the straight ankle lock into the heel hook, built around the grip-retention problem that sinks most leg-lock games. The Pato Lock and Kiss of the Tilapia add value you will not find in a generic ankle-lock course, and the competitive resume behind them is real.
