Oli Geddes' Shin-to-Shin Sweep & Footlock: A BJJ Classic
When we first put up Oli Geddes' shin-to-shin sweep/footlock clip in May 2015, the polite framing was the only one we needed: awesome details from a man who already owned one of the nastiest…
Words: Jiu Jitsu Style
When we first put up Oli Geddes' shin-to-shin sweep/footlock clip in May 2015, the polite framing was the only one we needed: awesome details from a man who already owned one of the nastiest footlocks in the British BJJ scene. Trust us, we said, and let the video do the rest. Eleven years on, that little Roger Gracie black belt has spent the back half of his career proving the point in every possible setting — Polaris, EBI, ADCC trials, every UK competition card worth showing up to — and the position he was teaching that afternoon has quietly become one of the most universally drilled entries in modern Jiu Jitsu.
The shape of it is the same as it ever was. You meet your training partner in open guard, hook your shin under theirs in a shallow ashi-garami posture, post your free hand wide, and from there the body of the technique is a simple either/or. They drive forward to clear the leg and you elevate them into a sit-up sweep on top. They sit back and try to hand-fight you off the shin and you slide the ashi up the leg, fall to your hip and finish the straight ankle lock. One entry, two answers, both clean. Oli's particular gift in the clip was making the two options feel like the same option. The sweep and the footlock weren't a fork in the road — they were the same road, taken with whichever foot the other guy gave you first.
Why a 2015 shin-to-shin clip plays straight in 2026
Re-watch it now and the curious thing is how little has aged. The leg-lock revolution that John Danaher, Gordon Ryan, Craig Jones, the Ruotolo brothers and Lachlan Giles have spent the last decade building has reorganised half the no-gi syllabus around exactly the position Oli was teaching. Shin-to-shin is the front door to inside ashi, outside ashi, the cross-ashi entries that hand you a heel hook, the sit-up sweep that hands you the pass. ADCC podiums are now routinely won and lost on the difference between a clean shin-to-shin entry and a sloppy one. Mikey Musumeci threads it into his ONE Championship matches between calf slicers. Ffion Davies has used it as a sweep-or-finish coin flip at IBJJF no-gi worlds. The skeleton of what Oli was showing has not moved.
What has moved is the audience. In 2015 this was a black-belt highlight reel on a magazine site that was generous with its YouTube embeds, aimed at the British scene that already knew Oli's name. In 2026, an upper-blue-belt at a serious gym who hasn't drilled a shin-to-shin sequence is the unusual one in the room. BJJ Fanatics has Craig Jones and Lachlan Giles running multi-hour modules on the same entry from the bottom of the menu. The Danaher leg-attack series treats it as a rite of passage. Even the IBJJF gi competitors who can't touch a heel hook below brown belt are drilling the sweep half of the position every Tuesday night, because the same shin-fight wins the points if you can't have the submission.
What the Roger Gracie black belt's details still teach the rest of us
Strip the names out and Oli's basic message in the clip survives intact. The shin-to-shin position only works if you treat it as a connection, not a hold. Heavy shin, relaxed grips, head and hips lined up so your body weight is what's pinning your partner's leg — not your hand. The decision between the sweep and the footlock is made by the other guy; your job is to read which one he's giving you and commit before he can change his mind. The competitors who get stuck halfway are the ones who try to force a finish their partner has already taken away.
Drill the entry until you can hit it from butterfly, from a failed sweep, from the recovery side of a passing sequence. Drill the sweep half until it lands without thinking. Drill the footlock half with the same partner-care every serious BJJ school now gives to heel hooks — tap before you finish, finish before you crank, walk both of you off the mat in one piece. Then go back to the clip, eleven years late, and notice that the man on screen knew all of that the first time. Whether you live in a gi or a rash guard, whether your competition season ends at the local UK open or in an ADCC trials bracket, the shin-to-shin game is no longer somebody else's department. Oli Geddes was telling us that in 2015. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu just needed a while to agree with him.
See you on the mats.
Originally published on Jiu Jitsu Style, 8 May 2015. Refreshed for 2026.