Double leg Takedown leg strengthening exercises?

[Talisker]

Could someone possibly offer some suggestions on the best exercises to increase mobility and leg stength to do the double leg takedown.

In particular, the move where you fall to one knee.

So for the double-leg takedown, you start in a horse stance/surfer squat stance. You then fall to one knee for the front knee to the ground. You swing around the rear leg to behind the other person's leg and bring them down.

I have great trouble falling to one knee from a surfer stance. I just don't seem to have the leg strength to do this manoeuvre. But I also don't know the best exercise to develop the needed strength in the first place.

Any suggestions on the best exercise to build up the strength to fall to one knee gracefully and controlled?

This is the movement I am meaning. Notice the falling to one knee part. You need strength to be able to do that movement. And I am not sure what muscles to work on to do this.

 

[gyoja]

Could someone possibly offer some suggestions on the best exercises to increase mobility and leg stength to do the double leg takedown.

In particular, the move where you fall to one knee.

So for the double-leg takedown, you start in a horse stance/surfer squat stance. You then fall to one knee for the front knee to the ground. You swing around the rear leg to behind the other person's leg and bring them down.

I have great trouble falling to one knee from a surfer stance. I just don't seem to have the leg strength to do this manoeuvre. But I also don't know the best exercise to develop the needed strength in the first place.

Any suggestions on the best exercise to build up the strength to fall to one knee gracefully and controlled?

Lunges and squats are easy to do anywhere and really help build leg strength.

 

[Glaeken]

Hi.

Falling on the knee is bad. Lose that mentality. Your force will go into the ground because of gravity and it'll impede your forward drive. You are fighting your own body weight.

It's more like landing a glider, or diving, by the time your knee touches the ground you should still be moving forward.

The best can pull this off without letting their front knee even touch the floor. They can get it as close as an inch. And don't forget that there should normally be a body in front of you. You are really lunging at a pair of legs, and hoping something is there upon impact, not diving into air.

The best exercises for this sort of thing are the ones people hate most, crab walks, bear walks, burpees. There are also bodyweight BJJ drills that just involve sweeping up and down the floor using that exact legwork. Ask. The best way to practice this is to get comfortable changing level and remember, do not pause or hesitate or think about your forward knee going down. All of you should be going forward.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Glaeken gave a good technical answer, but seconding lunges. You don't necessarily need to use weights, but slow, deep lunges and walk while you're as low as you can be

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

the move where you fall to one knee.

You don't have to fall to one knee for the following reasons:

- You will lose mobility.
- You may hurt your knee on the hard ground.

You just need to step in your leading leg between your opponent's legs.



To use your head to hit on your opponent's belly is a good idea. You step in your leading leg between your opponent's legs, you then step in your back leg next to your leading leg (forward momentum).

To drop your knee into your opponent's groin is a good follow up move.

 

[mograph]

Lunges, lunges, lunges.
... and variations as described by Glaeken.
Be able to get up easily from that position ... eventually. While that's not the move in the video, being able to rise from a low stance will allow you to stay in control. You don't want to surrender to gravity.
Get incrementally lower over time: don't rush getting too low.
... and stay in control as long and as low as possible. Glaeken's answer is good.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I have great trouble falling to one knee from a surfer stance. I just don't seem to have the leg strength to do this manoeuvre. But I also don't know the best exercise to develop the needed strength in the first place.

If you have trouble getting to the knee down position, it's very likely more of a hip and/or ankle mobility issue than a strength issue. Helpful exercises are low squats, duck walks (there are several exercise variations using that name, they're all useful) and samurai style knee walking.

Hi.

Falling on the knee is bad. Lose that mentality. Your force will go into the ground because of gravity and it'll impede your forward drive. You are fighting your own body weight.

It's more like landing a glider, or diving, by the time your knee touches the ground you should still be moving forward.

The best can pull this off without letting their front knee even touch the floor. They can get it as close as an inch. And don't forget that there should normally be a body in front of you. You are really lunging at a pair of legs, and hoping something is there upon impact, not diving into air.

The best exercises for this sort of thing are the ones people hate most, crab walks, bear walks, burpees. There are also bodyweight BJJ drills that just involve sweeping up and down the floor using that exact legwork. Ask. The best way to practice this is to get comfortable changing level and remember, do not pause or hesitate or think about your forward knee going down. All of you should be going forward.

Thank you! I have this conversation with my students all the time. It's not just the BJJ guys. I have students come in who wrestled in high school and should know better, but they still have the habit of dropping their knee down instead of gliding forward.

You don't have to fall to one knee for the following reasons:

- You will lose mobility.
- You may hurt your knee on the hard ground.

You just need to step in your leading leg between your opponent's legs.



To use your head to hit on your opponent's belly is a good idea. You step in your leading leg between your opponent's legs, you then step in your back leg next to your leading leg (forward momentum).

To drop your knee into your opponent's groin is a good follow up move.

As Glaeken noted above, a properly executed knee-down double leg shouldn't hurt the knee or slow the momentum of the shot.

That said, it's only necessary to go that low in certain contexts. In western folkstyle & freestyle wrestling, the competitors tend to work from a very low stance and the only way to get underneath their opponent for the double-leg is to go all the way down to a knee. You don't see that in Shuai Jiao because the rules dictate that touching the ground with your knee or hand is counted as a throw against you. Since that rule doesn't exist in folkstyle & freestyle wrestling, they work from much lower stances.

In an MMA or self-defense context it's usually not necessary because an opponent who is trying to strike will usually be standing more upright and you don't have to get as low for the takedown.

In BJJ competition, both versions have their place, depending on how your opponent stands. There is a risk with the version that you show in the video above. Bending that far forward for the takedown exposes your neck for a guillotine choke. Going lower with the knee down version allows you to keep your head more upright and protects you from the choke.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You don't see that in Shuai Jiao because the rules dictate that touching the ground with your knee or hand is counted as a throw against you.

One knee down is OK in SC. As long as you don't have "2 points besides your feet" on the ground, the match continue.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Another good one is the sumo shiko. It doesn't hurt my knees in the way that squats can, and it's more fun. Builds leg strength and flexibility.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

One knee down is OK in SC. As long as you don't have "2 points besides your feet" on the ground, the match continue.

Thanks for the clarification. I was under the impression that it was like Sumo and several other forms of wrestling where touching the ground with anything other than your feet was counted against you.

I do see this in the rules:

Article 1 One-point Throw. 1 point is awarded to the fighter when the fighter forces the opponent to create initial mat contact with the opponent’s arm, hand, or knee.

Is the difference that it's okay if you put your knee down voluntarily but not if your opponent forces you to do it?

 

[Buka]

Talisker, you have everything needed to build your legs within all the above posts.

Now you just need to find the time to do them. Go gettum’, brother.
And please keep us posted.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

Is the difference that it's okay if you put your knee down voluntarily but not if your opponent forces you to do it?

It's OK if you use double legs with 1 knee down. But if you also have 1 elbow down. you lose that round.

In one SC tournament championship fight, my opponent used double legs on me twice. I used "downward pulling" on him twice. Both rounds only last for 8 seconds. Those 2 rounds were the easiest tournament matches I ever had.



My teacher also used "downward pulling" to counter his opponent's "double legs" in his tournaments too.

Please notice the "1 knee down and 1 hand down".