Outside Ashi Garami — Defending

What This Is

Outside ashi from the defending side. The attacker has an outside entanglement on your leg, and from it the outside heel hook, the straight ankle lock, the kneebar and the tren lock are all available.

This is a more committed position than ashi garami and the differential says so. You have real options and fewer of them than one position back.

It is also the one entanglement on this list where the defender has a catalogued counter-attack rather than only an escape.

Safety First

Four finishes live here and the ankle lock is the least of them. Practise with a partner who names which one they are hunting.

The Two Sides Compared

The same position read from each side. Advantage is one number and it hides most of what matters — the asymmetry worth seeing is in what the position costs each player and how long it lasts.

The key difference: The defender has a real counter-attack here — the Junny lock answers an outside reap by attacking the reaping leg.

Medium risk on the attacking side is not a courtesy. The Junny lock is a catalogued counter from exactly this relationship, and that is what stops the attacker’s number reading low the way the sankakus do.

How You End Up Here

Two routes in, and the second is why this position is met by people who have never deliberately played a leg lock.

From ashi garami, as the attacker moves outside

The step outside is the position changing, and it is visible if you are looking for it.

From a passing exchange the attacker converted

Outside positions sit on passing traffic, so this arrives without a prior leg-lock exchange more often than the inside ones do.

The Invariant in Action

The contested space is being held from outside, which changes which frames work.

Outside decides the submission set — outside heel hook rather than inside.

Foot as handle, knee as target, and the tren lock available here attacks the knee line directly.

The outside heel hook still attacks the knee across its range. Outside rotation buys a fraction more travel than inside, which is a margin rather than a safe one.

Escape Mechanics

Keep the knee driving in

Knee-line discipline is the general answer to the outside family, and it prevents both the heel exposure and the tren entry.

Hide the heel and straighten

Outside heel hooks want a bent knee and an exposed heel. Deny both.

Do not push the leg outside

A natural defensive impulse and the exact input the tren lock entry is waiting for. Clearing the knee line and pushing the leg out are different actions.

Extract straight

Once the knee line is contested, out along the line of the leg without twisting.

What Causes Escapes to Fail

Pushing the leg out to clear it. It feels like progress and it hands over the tren entry.

Bending the knee under pressure. It relieves the feeling and improves the heel hook.

Assuming outside means slow. It means slower than inside, which is not the same as slow.

Counter-Offensive Options

The best on this list, and it is why the differential is 2 rather than 3. The Junny lock is a catalogued counter-attack from exactly this relationship — attacking the reaping leg of an attacker who is reaping you, with the knee-line control supplied by their own commitment. It is advanced and narrow, and it is real.

Common Errors

Defending the ankle lock only. It is the least of four things available here.

Treating the reap as the finish. The reap is the control. The finish comes after and you have until then.

Forgetting the heist. The attacker may not be attacking your leg at all — they may be passing.

Drilling Notes

Drill the push-versus-clear distinction explicitly, since the wrong one of those two feeds the tren lock and they feel similar.

Drill the Junny entry from the defending side, at low intensity, so the counter is something you have felt rather than read.

Ability Level Guidance

Developing. Outside positions arrive early, which is an argument for teaching the defence early rather than a reason it is safe.

Related Pages