Week 8: Straight Ankle Locks as Powerful as Heel hooks 🦵🩼: Mateusz Szczeciński’s Belly Down Straight Ankle Lock

This week's focus will be Mateusz's Belly Down Straight Ankle Lock Sequence

In a recent Lex Friedman podcast appearance, the B-Team members Craig Jones and Nicky Rod mentioned that they were all submitted in training by Mateusz Szczeciński with straight Ankle locks.

Achilles locks have been underestimated for a long time because of heel hooks (specifically modern heel hooks) and the fact that they have been very dominant over the past 10 years in No-Gi competition.

It's only when a new approach to old techniques appears that people start respecting and paying attention to techniques that were once considered "beginner techniques" or not high-percentage. The same thing happened with heel hooks almost 10 years ago when the DDS guys started winning EBIs.

Mateusz Szczeciński is doing it again with his new approach to ankle locks. He has submitted some of the toughest names in his division with Achilles locks. However, the truth is that he does have a different take, and some of the things he advocates for are among the things we were taught not to do when we first learned to do straight ankle locks.

In this article, I will break down what I believe to be his strongest finishing sequence: the Belly Down Achilles Lock from Butterfly Ashi.

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Before we jump into the technique itself, I want to make sure you understand the way Mateusz Szczeciński finishes the Straight Ankle Lock:

Detail 1: Go deep 💪!

Contrary to what I learned from Dean Lister many years ago, Mateusz prefers to grab the lock with his arm as deep as possible instead of keeping it shallow to use the bony part of our forearm:

He explains that this way, he can actually use his entire upper body to put pressure. He likes to use this Kimura-like grip, which he calls the “Shotgun Grip.”

“Dean Lister was Wrong” (I can’t believe I wrote that! 😂 )

Detail 2: Heel on the ribs 🩻

Make sure you grab the foot as far away from the knee as possible.

You should feel the heel on the ribs without going all the way into an Aoki Lock:

Detail 3: This is what you do with your legs 🦵🦵:

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Technique/Sequence:
The Belly Down Straight Ankle Lock from Butterfly Ashi.

This technique will work better when you cannot finish the straight Achilles Lock with the details I just gave you, and your opponent stands up like so:

Tangent A: If they go for a heel hook, off-balance them to the outside and go for the straight ankle lock:

Otherwise, don't try to off-balance them because putting them down to a hip will be super hard. If they don’t rotate, go to the next step instead.

Step 1: Change your feet configuration to Butterfly Ashi and free your hips:

Your hips should be off the ground, and you should be able to follow them when they move.

Step 2: Off-balance them towards their head: Your goal is to get their hands on the mat.

Use your free hand to grab their free leg and use your hips and butterfly ashi hook, to off-balance them towards their head, making them post their hands on the mat:

Here’s another angle:

Step 3: Finish them by bridging your hips down into their leg:

Keep your butterfly ashi hook, use the same grip we covered before, and be careful with the finish, If you follow every detail, the submission will come fast, so be careful with your training partners, please 🙏

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Related Resources

Watch it in action:

• Explanation by Mateusz

• William Tackett vs Mateusz Szczecinski 2022 ADCC World Championships

• Polaris 17: Submission of the Night | Mateusz Szczecinski

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Training Plan for the Week

• I train 3-4 days per week (I drill at home with a dummy almost daily). To make it easier for you and everyone else to adapt this plan to their training schedule, I'll divide the week into 2 parts.

First Half of the Week:

• Drill the whole sequence and try the positions with your training partners before you try them while rolling. Make sure you understand how to make your hips movable from butterfly ashi. That’s the most important detail to make this work.

• Focus on rolling playfully with smaller, weaker opponents that are way below your skill level. If you can roll playfully with someone that knows what you are trying, that’s better. Tell them to resist, but ultimately let you win and try the positions.

• Remember, the first half of the week is meant to get reps and feedback on what you are doing wrong and how to fix it.

Second Half of the Week (Training sessions 3 & 4 of 4 for me):

• Gradually start picking better and better opponents until you cannot perform the move anymore. Once this happens, start going down and picking less skilled opponents until you get to a sweet spot where you are performing the move more than 50% of the time you try it.

• Try to finish your week performing the move as flawlessly as possible with someone, no matter how low their skill level is: You want to make the last rep as perfect as possible. That's the repetition we internalize the most when we leave the training room.

That’s it for this week!

🫱 👊  🤼‍♂️

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