ALTA Week 4 Wrestling
Wrestling – Bodylock takedowns
Anytime you’ve got your hands joined as your arms are wrapped around the torso of your opponent, you’ve got a bodylock. You could be in front of, beside, or behind them. There are numerous different takedown opportunities from the bodylock as you’ve got supreme control of their hips at this point. We’ll cover a selection. It’s not important to know every single variation. As you work through them, it’s likely that one or two will work for you and those are the ones you should latch on to and make part of your game.
Hand Grips
S-Grip, Gable Grip (palm to palm), butterfly grip or C-Clamp grip are the 4 main grips that you can use. Interlocking your fingers is not a good idea. It’s not very effective. You can’t do it with gloves on and you run the risk of dislocating your fingers. All of the 4 good grips keep your fingers tightly pressed against each other for support.
- S-Grip: curl your fingers into a hook on each hand and connect them
- Gable Grip: Connect your palms together with a quarter turn so that your fingers are perpendicular to the fingers on the other hand. Then curl them around the back of each hand.
- Butterfly Grip: Cross your wrists and curl your hands around your lower forearms.
- C-Clamp: Make the letter C with one hand and use that to tightly grab the wrist of the other.
Entry to the bodylock
For practice purposes, we’ll enter the bodylock from the 50/50 over/under position. One person will pummel to get to double unders and join their hands behind the back of their opponent. Now you’re into the bodylock sequence.
Traversing around the body.
It’s important to be able to work your way around the body while maintaining the body lock grip. Starting from chest to chest (Front Bodylock), circle your feet to one side, keeping your head on the chest. This brings you to Side Bodylock (head on chest variation). Pause there. Now “shook” their arm over your head with a shrug or your underhook shoulder as you continue to circle your feet to the back. Now you’re in Back Bodylock. Pause there. (Be sure not to put your leg between theirs when on the back body lock. There’s leg lock danger there. Also keep your ear pressed against their spine to avoid elbows or the “Batman Backfist”. Now circle your feet again in the same direction, keeping your ear on the back this time. Now you’ve reached Side Bodylock (head on back variation). Pause there.
Takedowns from 4 Bodylock positions
As you’ll notice, there’s 4 primary bodylock positions. Let’s do 1 takedown from each.
- Front Bodylock = Limbo Spine Crush
Put your forehead on the centre of your partner’s chest and bring your bodylock grip down to their lower back. As you drive your head forward, pull their lower back towards your, making them limbo under the pressure. Walk your feet forwards outside each of their feet to end up in full mount.
- Side Bodlylock (head on chest variation) = Power Twist and/or Knee lever
Step your leg that’s currently behind your partner in front of them, hip to hip. Use the bodylock grip to twist them down towards the mat. They will put an arm down for balance. As soon as that arm touches, now you change direction to drive forward through them putting their back on the ground.
The Knee Lever is available if you step in front of them (hip to hip) to attempt the power twist and they re-step in front of you to stop it. In that case, you bump their hamstring with your quads and pull them backwards to the ground.
- Back Bodylock = Lift and Trip
Hop your feet closer to them and get your hips against their butt. Slightly lift their feet off the ground using the bodylock while simultaneously sweeping their two legs to one side. As they come back down, they’ll land on their side (as long as you got their feet far enough sideways).
- Side Bodylock (head on back variation) = Jack Russell mat return.
Clamp your thigh around their leg that’s closest to you. With your head on their back, throw your weight forwards towards where they’re facing. This will cause them to put their hands on the mat. As they fall, you stay on your feet, shuffling to stay beside them as you upgrade your grip to a chest lock (your bodylock just slides higher around their chest). Make sure you stay heavy over their upper body so that they cannot lift their hands off them mat. From here you can pull them sideways to sit them on a hip.