Locoplata

What This Is

The locoplata is the gogoplata delivered from the top. The same shin goes across the same trachea and the same head is driven onto it, but the attacker is in mount rather than underneath, which reverses who gravity is working for. It carries its own name because that reversal changes almost everything about how it is reached and how likely it is to finish, even though the finishing surface is identical.

The gogoplata’s difficulty is that a guard player has to elevate their hips, hold a leg in place against a posturing opponent, and press upward — three things all working against gravity and against the top player’s whole structure. From mount none of that applies. The shin arrives from above, the opponent’s head has the mat behind it, and the attacker’s weight is on the correct side of the exchange. Where the gogoplata is a low-percentage attack that demands unusual flexibility, the locoplata is the same finish with the mechanics on the attacker’s side.

It belongs to the 10th Planet vocabulary and is most associated with the monkey mount, a mounted control in which the opponent is held on their side with their head controlled and one arm pinned. That position exists partly to produce this submission, which is why the entry section below spends more time on getting to the position than on the finish itself.

⚠ A second definition circulates. Several encyclopaedia-style sources define the locoplata as a guard-bottom gogoplata in which the free foot pushes up under the choking foot to add pressure. That sentence has propagated widely, but the technique taught and drilled under the name is the mounted version described here. Both descriptions are recorded because a reader will meet the other one.

Safety First

Drill the locoplata at lower pressure than the gogoplata, not the same. Everything that makes it a better submission — the weight on the right side, the mat behind the opponent’s head, the shin arriving downward — also makes it easier to apply more force than intended to the least forgiving structure the corpus attacks. Tap immediately on throat pressure; release immediately on any tap.

The Invariant in Action

Everything else on the page assumes the leg landed deep. A shallow leg produces a position that looks like a locoplata, holds the opponent uncomfortably, and does not choke — and the correction is never more pressure, it is coming back to the base-and-step that creates the depth.

Arm first, then head, then leg. The sequence is the reverse of the gogoplata’s, where posture is broken by hip elevation before anything is pinned, and it is the part that transfers least well for someone arriving from the guard-bottom version.

The corollary is a safety one. An angle that makes a submission easier to finish makes it easier to overload, and the trachea has no margin to absorb the difference. The locoplata should be drilled at lower pressure than the gogoplata precisely because it is the better version.

Setup and Entry

From Mount — the Full Sequence

The primary route. From mount the attacker climbs high and hooks the opponent’s head with one arm. The opponent’s near arm is put flat on the mat and the shin is brought over to pin it there — that arm is the only tool they have for clearing a shin off their own neck, so it is dealt with first. With it pinned, the attacker overhooks the far arm, uses that overhook to lift the shoulder, comes up onto their foot and bases out with the free hand. That base is what buys the distance for the next step.

From the base, the leg swings over the opponent’s shoulder and under their chin, landing close to the shoulder so the shin reaches deep. Rotating the leg brings the shin across the throat, directly under the Adam’s apple, and the free arm presses down on the head.

From the Monkey Mount

The position the finish is usually named alongside. The monkey mount holds the opponent on their side: one arm controls the head from underneath the neck, the opposite arm is pushed to the mat, and when they bridge and reach for an underhook the attacker props a leg against their back to keep them turned. From there the locoplata is a small adjustment rather than a sequence — the arm control and the turned opponent are already in place, and the leg only has to travel.

When They Give Up the Near Arm

Under mount, an opponent who extends the near arm to frame, to push, or to hunt an underhook has offered the limb the entry begins with. Pinning it is cheaper at that moment than extracting it later, and the whole sequence is downstream of owning it.

Finish Mechanics

With the near arm pinned and the leg landed deep:

Rotate the shin across. The leg turns until the shin sits directly under the chin, across the Adam’s apple. The contact point is the bony ridge of the shin on the trachea, the same surface the gogoplata uses.

Press the head down with the free arm. Forearm across the head, driving it onto the shin. This is the half the guard-bottom version does with two hands pulling; from the top one arm and gravity do the same work.

Let the weight do the pressing. The advantage of the top position is that the attacker does not have to generate the force with hip flexion. Settling rather than straining is the correct feel, and straining is usually a sign the leg landed shallow.

Expect it to arrive quickly. More force reaches the trachea here for less effort than the gogoplata needs, and the airway has no margin to absorb the difference. Apply as a graduated settle, never as a drop.

Defence and Escape

Priority 1 — keep the near arm off the mat: The sequence starts by pinning that arm flat with a shin. An elbow kept tight to the ribs, framing with the forearm rather than extending, denies step one and therefore denies everything. It is the same discipline that defends the mount armbar, doing double duty.

Priority 2 — deny the turn: The monkey mount holds you on your side and the leg travels over a head that is already lying sideways. Staying square, with both shoulders toward the mat, denies the geometry. Turning away from mount pressure is the standard instinct and it is what this position is built to collect.

Priority 3 — bridge while the leg is travelling: An attacker coming up onto their foot and basing out has committed a hand and a leg to something other than holding you down. That transit is the narrowest their base gets and it is the best window the position offers.

Priority 4 — tap on the shin loading: With gravity behind an airway attack there is no survivable phase to work through. Tap when the shin arrives, not when the pain does.

Common Errors

Drilling Notes

• Pin the arm, nothing else. From high mount, practise putting the near arm flat and bringing the shin over to hold it. Partner works to retract it. Three-minute rounds. This is step one and it is the step that can be drilled hard.
• Base and step. With the arm pinned, practise the overhook, the shoulder lift, coming up onto the foot and basing out. Stop before the leg travels. The drill is about the distance created, and the partner reports whether the attacker’s knee got close to their shoulder.
• Deep versus shallow. Land the leg from a low base and from a high one, alternating, at zero pressure. Partner reports where the shin sits — jaw, chest, or across the throat. Makes the depth error visible from the attacker’s side, which it otherwise is not.
• Settle, do not strain. With the shin correctly placed, the attacker relaxes onto it rather than pushing. Partner calls stop at first contact. Teaches the feel that distinguishes a placed locoplata from a forced one.

Ability Level Guidance

Ruleset Context

The locoplata is a choke and carries the gogoplata’s ruleset position. It is not a spinal lock and not a neck crank, so the restrictions that apply to those categories do not reach it. Verify current ruleset versions before competing.

Also Known As

Related Pages