double leg takedown | MMA Active

Executing the High Crotch Double Leg Takedown as a way to get your opponent on the ground, is an excellent choice.

One of the things to remember is to have good head positioning, if not, you’ll get caught in a guillotine and put to sleep quick. For those of you who are using this move in MMA or a street fight, your best bet would be to set it up in order to disguise the attack.

You won’t be setting it up with a collar tie like Olympic wrestlers do, because your situation doesn’t call for it. Meaning, you’re not in the sport of wrestling, and you and your opponent are not in the wrestling stance.

In this article you’ll be shown how to secure the high crotch double leg takedown for any situation. So let’s get into it.

Double Leg Takedown Drills

High Crotch Double Let Takedown for Wrestlers

In your wrestling stance, the first thing you want to do is attack the hand and secure wrist control. Then you want to take your free hand and reach for the back of your opponent’s neck securing a collar tie.

Nine times out of ten your opponents first instinct will be to secure a collar tie of his own. The only difference is you have the advantage because you’ve secured wrist control, and have your collar tie on the inside.

The next step is to lift up your elbow that’s securing the collar tie, while simultaneously releasing the grip you have on your opponents wrist.

You then take the hand that had the wrist control and shoot it through the your opponent’s leg; executing what is called your penetration step.

When doing an effective penetration step; you step in, drop your lead knee over your toe, your trail leg will swing up, and you complete the attack on your opponent. In this case it’s the high crotch double leg takedown.

How To Do A Single Leg Takedown

How To Properly Do A Penetration Step

Complete The Double Leg Takedown

Now that you have your arm through your opponent’s leg you want to pull and the leg close to you, step up, turn inward, grab both of your opponent’s leg then drive through for the finish.

Some trainers ask me if they need to lift up their opponent while driving through. The answer is no, because it’s simply not needed. Keep the move simple and don’t try to be Hercules.

You can leave the lifting your opponent off his feet for MMA or a street fight. Yes, there are wrestling moves where you can lift and opponent and slam him, but not for this move. It’s not needed.

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How To Sprawl In Wrestling & MMA

What To Remember When Doing This Takedown

The most important thing to remember when doing this type of takedown is positioning. It’s imperative that when you penetrate the leg and have your back hand deep, you need to keep your head up and back straight.

The reason for this is that if you have your back bent and your head low, you can get caught in a guillotine, and a guillotine is a wrestlers worst nightmare.

Are there ways to escape the guillotine? Of course there are, read this The Best Way To Escape A Guillotine scroll to the bottom and read.

The best advice I can give is not to get caught in one in the first place, because although you can escape a guillotine, fighters rarely do, especially if it’s in deep.

A small tip to MASSIVELY improve your Double Leg Takedown

How To Pass The Half Guard

High Crotch Takedown For MMA

As I said earlier, if you want to do this takedown for MMA or the streets you’re going to have to adjust the penetration a bit.

The reason for this is that the mma cage canvas, and the concrete on the street are very solid. Of course, the concrete on the street being harder. You can easily shatter your knee if you drop it down to the ground.

You don’t want to penetrate inward dropping your knee like Olympic wrestlers do. They train and have competition on cushioned matts. On top of that they’re allowed to wear knee pads to cushion dropping their knees for takedown like this.

What you’re going to do is follow the same steps as the high crotch takedown for wrestlers, the only adjustment would be to lunge in on the penetration instead of dropping your knee. That’s it!

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How To Defend Against The High Crotch Double Leg Takedown

Now that you’ve learned how to do the high crotch double leg takedown, I’m going to go through the steps on how you can defend against the move.

If your opponent has penetrated and has secured your leg (deep on a high crotch), the first thing you want to do is take your near had and destroy his head.

Meaning you was to take you hand, create a “v” and place it on the back of his lower head. Then you want to push down and away from you. You then want to curl you leg upward and turn your body away to create a different angle.

You should end up at the side of your opponent. Next you want to use your free hand to secure a belly whizzer, and then knee sprawl down. When you sprawl down you want to start walking your hip until it’s over your opponents head.

Once there you can transition into your next move.

Crucifix Choke From Turtle Position

How To Do The Belly Whizzer To Defend Crotch Takedown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFGAbRJcMAQ

In conclusion the high crotch double leg takedown is a very effective way to get your opponent on the ground, and follow up with a ground attack of your own.

When doing the high crotch double leg takedown remember to keep your back straight and head up. This is to prevent yourself from getting caught in a guillotine.

When doing the high crotch takedown in MMA or in the streets remember to adjust the move so you’re not slamming your knee onto the concrete.

And lastly, you need to learn how to defend yourself if someone tries the move on you. In wrestling always learn to execute a move on both sides of your opponent. And always learn how to defend yourself against the same move.

Takedown Grappling – Wrestling

About The Author

Jerome Brown is an SEO specialist, researcher, and content marketing writer. He’s also a digital content consultant, and runs his own mentoring program for young up and coming writers. When he’s not writing or mentoring his students, he’s enjoying his hobbies; which include martial arts training, attending music festivals, watching sports or reading a good book.

I’m going to cover a few Double Leg Takedown Drills in this article. The double leg takedown is one of the most basic takedowns you will learn in wrestling along with the Single Leg Takedown. Wrestling is an important aspect of mma because it allows you to take your opponent to the ground if your stand up game is not working in a fight.

Sometimes you can’t get off the combination strikes you want. Or you can be trying to punch and kick your opponent but he’s anticipating your every move and moving out of the way making it hard to land anything. That’s when you can rely on your wrestling to set up a takedown and try to beat him on the grown.

How To Sprawl In MMA

To be honest the majority of fights do end up on the ground so it’s good to have some wrestling in your mma arsenal. Don’t only practice in the gym and at home but try to watch some Olympic wrestling and mma fights of strong wrestlers. This will help you improve your techniques. If you see a move you like but can’t seem to pull it off at the gym, you can always adjust it to fit your size and strength. Nothing wrong with taking a move and amending it to your satisfaction. it’s done in martial arts all the time.

Double Leg Takedown Steps

Double Leg Takedowns in mma and double leg takedowns in bjj are the same. These moves stem from Greco wrestling and teach the same steps in how to execute the move. There are advanced variation on how to apply the technique but for now I will just go over the straight forward basics. Below are the steps on how to do the move.

We will start off with how to do the takedown without a set up and in the second half of this post get into how to do a takedown with a set up. In a real situation if you are at a distance between you opponent the wise thing to do would be to set up your takedown. This is to disguise it so your opponent won’t anticipate the move and counter it. First you have to learn how to do the move and after you master that you will learn how to set it up.

Staggered Stance

In order to do a double leg takedown you have to get in the proper stance. This stance is called the Staggered Stance. It’s when you bend your knees and crouch down your body to lower your center of gravity.

You can do a double leg takedown from a squared stance but it will take you more time to get your feet into the correct position since your lead (front) leg is the leg used to penetrate.

Set Your Feet And Body Position

To execute the takedown you are going to need to take what is called a “shot” that is when you shoot into your opponent. The power of your shot is generated from your trail properly known as your back leg. Make sure your trail leg is firmly planted slightly behind before you take your penetration step.

Again, your body needs to in a low stance position. Just simply bend your knees and lower your body while keeping your head up and back straight. This will ensure that you’re in a good position in order to penetrate your opponent’s defense.

Take A Deep Step & Drop Your Knee

The plan here is to push off of your back foot and take a deep penetration step two-to-three feet in front of you. This takes some practice so it’s good that you are doing this at home or at your mma gym.

You shouldn’t step so far that you lose balance, but you do want a large enough step to gain enough momentum to penetrate your opponent’s defense and get to his or her legs.

The next step is to roll over your front toe, dropping the knee of your lead leg to the mat in front of you like the picture shown above.

One thing you have to remember while doing this move is not to make the mistake of dropping to the knee of your trail leg or let the knee of your trail leg rest on the mat at any time. It is alright if your trail leg grazes the mat as you shoot, but anytime you drop both of your knees in front of your opponent, he can easily do a double leg takedown defense move called a sprawl.

This step is the most basic but to pull it off with good timing and position takes constant practice. To become good at it I suggest you practice it often on your team mate in the gym or work out partner at home.

Snake The Legs

As you drop to your knee and hit your opponent’s hips with your shoulder, use both of your arms to control both of your opponent’s legs.

To do this you will have to do what many wrestlers called “snaking” that is when you place your arms around the back of your opponent’s knees and to the inside of their calves.

You’re then going to pull their legs toward you tightly. You should keep in mind that won’t have much success trying to out-muscle your opponent above the knees because typically their hips and thighs will be too strong.

Especially with bigger guys some of them have thighs the size of your head lol. And also, If you try to control the legs too low you will most likely take your upper body out of position. The back of the knee is what you want to control.

Your next objective is to step up with your outside leg, which should be your trail leg. What you want to do is step a good distance away from your body and to the side of you so you can push off of this leg to drive your opponent to the mat. The bend of your knee when you do this should be slightly greater than 90 degrees. It’s important to stay in good position with your head and chest up, (your back straight) and with your opponent’s legs pulled tightly to your body.

Execute The Takedown

The final step in this double leg takedown move is to execute the takedown. After your initial step across your opponent’s body, keep running through him. Keep your knees bent and your butt down so you have enough power to drive your opponent’s weight. Take big steps to the outside of your opponent’s body, at a slight angle.

One mistake that beginners make is trying to drive directly forward or to the side. You should never do this because it will put you in an awkward position that your opponent can capitalize off of. Instead, use your head and shoulder to drive your opponent to a slight angle. As you do this, pull your opponent’s legs in a sweeping motion towards the shoulder of your trail leg.

Double Leg Takedown Drills – Trail leg Drill

MMA Takedown Setups

In MMA the fighters set up leg takedowns with strike moves.

You will see a fighter throw punch combos and while his opponent is distracted trying to block those punches he shoots in for a double leg takedown.

Or a fighter will throw kicks and a punch and shoot in for a takedown. In wrestling the set ups are a bit different because you can’t punch or kick. Most set ups are from close range after a couple of faints or off of a grapple move.

The reason why it’s a smart idea to set up a takdown is because it distracts your opponent form anticipating your move. if your opponent anticipates the takedown he can easly defend it. So a set up masks your intentions.

Jordan Burroughs is the 4x American world champion in freestyle wrestling and an Olympian. Below he displays his setups for the takedown.

MMA Strike to setup Double Leg Take down

MMA Double Leg Takedown Setup using level-change and strikes

So that’s it for this lesson. Always be sure to practice all the moves you learn here on the site so you can become proficient at using them. Practice often but in a safe manner. And don’t forget to follow us on social media to tell us how your training is going!