Mikey Lock
The Mikey lock in no-gi — the opponent's foot beside your neck rather than under your armpit, attacking the foot and the knee at once. The grip that beats the heel slip.
Adapted from the original page. Grappling.Games did not write this. Sources.
FamilyLeg LocksLevelAdvancedPerspectiveTopIntentOffensiveSafetyElevatedHubLeg EntanglementsMapView on graph →This technique has elevated risk. Make sure you've covered the prerequisites before attempting.
Manage injuries →Position map Connects to 4 positions across 3 relationshipsOpen in the map →1234←Attacked from
The Mikey lock attacks the foot and the knee at the same time, and it does it by putting the opponent’s foot beside your neck rather than under your armpit. The neck becomes the fulcrum, the lower palm drives the heel bone, and the finish is a collapse of the elbow with the shoulder dropping toward the floor.
It exists to solve one specific problem. The standard defence to a heel hook is to point the toe and slip the heel out, and that defence works because the attacker’s grip needs the heel to travel a long way before anything loads. The Mikey lock moves the heel a much shorter distance — between the shoulder and the head — so the defensive moment a heel hook gives away never arrives.
The name is descriptive rather than honorific: it is the grip configuration that distinguishes it, not the position it comes from. Everything below is about that configuration and what it buys.
Elevated RiskMikey Lock is an elevated risk technique. Two structures load at once. The wedge on the foot loads the ankle and the Achilles directly, and a slight outward turn transmits rotation into the knee — so this is a foot lock and a knee attack in the same grip. The defender cannot hand-fight the grip out or kick free, which removes the escalating physical struggle that normally warns both players that a submission is close. Serious injury can occur Short, and shorter than the defender expects, because the usual warning signs are absent — there is no grip fight and no heel travel. The tap has to come from recognising the configuration rather than from feeling it build..
If you are new to this technique: read this section before anything else. Understanding the danger is part of understanding the technique.
The person applying the technique is responsible for releasing immediately.