How To Escape the Headlock and Kesa-Gatame

The common headlock is often overlooked in BJJ – it’s just not considered to be a very technical pinning position.

But not training your headlock escapes is a HUGE mistake!

First of all, when an untrained person ends up on the ground, then nine out of ten times he’ll wrap his arm around your head and hold on for dear life.

And because this is that untrained fighter’s ONLY strategy he’ll be ferociously single-minded about hanging onto the headlock. This determination in itself can make escaping the headlock quite difficult.

Just like everything else in BJJ, in order to get good at something you need to do it ‘for real’ in sparring.

Since you hardly ever encounter headlocks in BJJ class dealing with them can be awkward. You might not know what to do and won’t be used to dealing with that particular energy.

Also there are other grappling arts (like Judo, Sambo and wrestling) which DO have pinning positions that look a LOT like headlocks. These positions may have fancy names like ‘kesa-gatame’ or ‘head and arm pin,’ but they’re basically just headlock variations.

(What’s even worse is that there are lots of ways to choke, armlock and leglock somebody from kesa-gatame. In fact, if you know what to do from there and your opponent doesn’t then it’s like taking candy from a baby…)

You ABSOLUTELY NEED NEED TO HAVE some good headlock escapes you can rely on!!!

Here’s my very favorite headlock escape. It also works against kesa-gatame and most headlock variations. If you know all the details and do it correctly you can send a larger, heavier opponent flying!

Make sure to practice the technique in this video below!!

Click here to view the same Headlock video on YouTube!

P.S. Check out my Unorthodox Positions and Attacks DVD to find out what your OFFENSIVE options are from the headlock and kesa gatame postions!

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