The Estima Lock From the Berimbolo: BJJ's Sneakiest Footlock
When this clip first ran on the magazine in February 2016, BJJ was deep in its berimbolo years. The Miyao brothers were inverting on everyone, every purple belt in the world was spinning under De…
Words: Jiu Jitsu Style
When this clip first ran on the magazine in February 2016, BJJ was deep in its berimbolo years. The Miyao brothers were inverting on everyone, every purple belt in the world was spinning under De La Riva hooks, and the top players were desperately searching for an honest answer. The clip we posted offered one of the sneakiest: the estima lock, waiting patiently at the end of the spin.
Watch it: Victor Estima's estima lock from the berimbolo.
The footlock the berimbolo hands you
The genius of the entry is that you don't really have to hunt for it. When a guard player commits to the berimbolo, one leg buries itself underneath as they invert — and the other foot floats up, searching for its next hook. For a half-second, that floating foot is pointed straight at your midsection, unguarded and unweighted. Trap it against your belly, lock your hands over it, drive your hips forward, and the position your opponent thought was their attack becomes a tap so fast it's almost rude. The berimbolo doesn't just expose the foot; it practically gift-wraps it.
A lock named after the family that proved it
The submission takes its name from the Estima brothers, Braulio and Victor — Gracie Barra royalty who did as much as anyone to convince gi players that footlocks weren't a betrayal of "real" Jiu Jitsu. Victor famously ran through world-class opponents with it in 2011, tapping people who knew it was coming and still couldn't stop it. What made it so shocking then still makes it valuable now: there's no dramatic rolling entry, no long entanglement battle. The foot is simply pinned, the hips move an inch, and it's over. Ask anyone who has felt it — this is a submission measured in millimetres, so drill it slowly and honour early taps every single time.
Why it still matters in 2026
A decade on, the leg-lock landscape has transformed. Heel hooks headline every no-gi card, Gordon Ryan and Craig Jones built empires on the entanglement game, and Mikey Musumeci turned the straight footlock into an art form on the sport's biggest stages. But the estima lock has kept its niche precisely because it lives where the heel hook can't: in the gi, inside the rulesets most of us actually compete under. And the berimbolo never went away either — the Ruotolo generation grew up on it, and it remains a staple of every modern BJJ guard player's game. Wherever people are still spinning underneath, that floating foot is still being offered. The exchange this clip captured in 2016 plays out on competition mats every weekend.
Make the spin cost something
The deeper lesson is the same one every good counter teaches: aggressive positions carry a price for whoever studies the answer. If the berimbolo frustrates you, don't just sprint away from the spin — learn to read the moment the foot floats free and make your opponent pay for the ride. Pull up the modern instructionals, find a partner who values their ankles, and put in the slow reps. The berimbolo players at your gym will start thinking twice before they invert, and that hesitation is worth as much as the tap.
See you on the mats.
Originally published on Jiu Jitsu Style, 26 February 2016. Refreshed for 2026.