Taking a Look at the Estima Lock - Budo Jake Chats with Victor Estima

The Estima Lock is powerful submission that affects the tendons and ligaments of the foot, the same way a toehold does. Victor Estima created this technique nearly 10 years ago as a way to deal with the tricky guard of his brother - world champion Braulio Estima.

While not previously a fan of footlocks, the Estima Lock quickly became a favorite tool of Victor. In fact he submitted all of his opponents with it at the Nogi World Championship in 2011.

Shortly thereafter I brought Victor in to film his seminal instructional - The Estima Lock by Victor Estima.



There are few techniques in Jiu-jitsu that catch your opponent totally by surprise but that was one of them. I found that during training my sparring partners wouldn't have time to tap if I applied it full on. I wondered if Victor found the same result in his training:

When I just started I used as many reps as possible. Very quickly I realized how powerful and dangerous it was for my training partners. This made me change how I trained. I would put it on but never lean all the way back. This helped my partners and I to still be able to practice.

Nowadays leglocks are more popular than ever before. Heel hooks in particular are getting a lot of attention but I wonder, why aren't Estima Locks as popular? Victor says:

The Estima lock is a very specific technique but not many people had the opportunity to learn it properly. We had instructional videos but it’s not enough. It needs more time to be developed further. Also the rules makes it difficult for lower grades to invest the time on learning it. Having said that, I hear many people applying Estima locks in tournaments like Edwin, Buchecha, Felipe Pena and many others. I used to get it done quite often in tournaments as well. It’s getting more and more popular. Think about a wrist lock It doesn’t happen as often in higher grades but many consider them to be efficient techniques. From time to time you get someone really good at them and they can catches them.

The Estima lock is also dangerous to practice at training so that makes people hesitate getting them on in training. But with some adjustments on how to practice they will change the game.

Check out the preview for the Estima Lock instructional and grab a DVD here or watch it On Demand right now!