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Garry Tonon On Heelhook Injury at EBI 5 Kids Match

Garry Tonon On Heelhook Injury at EBI 5 Kids Match

 

A heel hook is a leg lock affecting multiple joints, and is applied by transversely twisting the foot either medially or laterally. The torsional force puts severe torque on the ankle, which in turn transfers torque to the knee.

The heel hook is generally considered to be a very dangerous leg lock, with a high rate of injury, especially to ligaments in the knee. It is banned, except in advanced competition, in many combat sports featuring other leg locks such as Brazilian jiujitsu and Sambo. Where it is allowed, holding it for too long is considered a serious infraction.

Garry Tonon, leg lock expert and winner of the recent EBI 5 event, decided to comment on heel hooks in BJJ in light of the recent kids match between Riley Breedlove and Sophia Lee. In that match, Breedlove applied a heel hook on Lee who took a while before tapping. Breedlove was even giving her a ‘Are you going to tap?’ look. Lee was injured in the process.

From Garry Tonon Facebook:

“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.”

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