The Electric Chair is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu move that was created by 10th Planet creator Eddie Bravo. This move can act as a sweep and submission, depending on your preference and is primarily entered from the Lockdown position.
The Lockdown is itself a BJJ move that also stems from Eddie Bravo, which involves flattening your back in bottom half guard, torquing the opponent’s trapped leg with your feet, and gaining double underhooks. Of course, our Lockdown guide will provide more details on how to use it correctly, but in short it’s a variation of half guard that is popular amongst 10th Planet practitioners.
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What is an Electric Chair in BJJ?
As mentioned, it’s a position that originates from the Lockdown. To achieve the Electric Chair, you need to first get a Lockdown. This means bringing your outside foot in bottom half guard, threading it over the opponents leg, and locking it with your inside foot. From there, you’ll want to get double underhooks on your opponent. Double underhooks in Lockdown are vital, as you will need free arms to establish attacks.
Once there, you’ll need to do two things. Firstly, drag the opponent’s trapped leg away from their body. This will create torque on their leg and enough space to dive under their far leg. At the same time, you should also use your underhooks to push at the armpits to bump them forward. This will take weight off their leg and make it easy to go underneath, otherwise you can get stuck. Getting stuck in Lockdown is ugly, and can result in some horrible crossfaces too.
After your arm is under the far leg, you’ll want to connect your hands with a gable grip and then you will control both legs; one with your feet wrap, and the other with your hands wrap. At this point, you’ve now arrived in the Electric Chair.
How do you do an Electric Chair in BJJ?
To finish the position, you’ll need to sweep the opponent. The good news is that from there, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Firstly, you want to roll under the opponent’s body and then start coming up to the side. Due to the distribution of your hips and immobilizing both the legs, this should be doable. At this point, your opponent will have to accept the sweep.
There are two options from here. The first is the submission, which is done by not finishing the sweep, but instead extending your arms and legs in different directions. The point of this is to extend the groin, which can eventually get pulled and damaged. Please note, this may not submit very flexible people whose groin may be incredibly stretchy. However, you can instead sweep these people. For everyone else, it’s worth tapping. Whilst a pulled groin isn’t a broken arm, it can still take months to heal.
In terms of the sweep, you would then get up and end in a top position. There are a few avenues to consider here, first you can simply step off into side control. However, there are some fancy attacks such as ninja rolling to try and take the back, or rolling into a vaporizer submission. Both of these are probably less fundamentally sound compared to choosing side control. Nonetheless, you may opt for these if you’re exploring in the gym.
Is the Electric Chair legal in IBJJF?
Technically, The Electric Chair is legal in IBJJF, but doing it can be risky in terms of the rules. Basically, it is a crotch ripper submission, that is completely legal for all belts. That’s right, according to IBJJF rules, this submission is completely fine. A similar rule for this is seen with the Banana Split submission, which is mechanically very similar to the Electric Chair. Basically, it’s deemed legal.
Here’s where it becomes a grey area. Sometimes, people on the top of the Lockdown position will injure their knees due to the torque that the Lockdown creates. Some referees may deem the Electric Chair as illegal due to interpreting it as a knee submission, which is illegal in IBJJF until brown belt. Of course, this shouldn’t be the case – but these things happen in life. Alternatively, some refs may not fully know the rules altogether.
Basically, you should be fine by pulling off an Electric Chair in a competition. However, with obscure submissions, you just never know. Because of this, the answer to the original question is that the Electric Chair is legal, yet is probably the most common legal submission that leads to a DQ in competition BJJ.
Who invented the Electric Chair in BJJ?
For the most part, the move is credited to Eddie Bravo. In short, before his arrival, this move was obscure at best. However, after Bravo was done with it, it became much more popular. Not only in BJJ, but it’s also used in MMA to stop people from passing the guard.
Having said this, the move may have roots in catch wrestling, which specialized in old holds and nasty body submissions. According to Neil Melanson, Bravo took inspiration for Gene LeBell for some of his unusual submissions. For the most part though, most people give Eddie Bravo the plaudits for shining light on the move. In grappling though, there are often people who argue the origins of moves.
How do you defend the Electric Chair?
Once put in the Electric Chair, it can be incredibly difficult to defend. Due to the mechanics and body positions, it means you are effectively trapped and will struggle to escape. Because of this, the best defense is prevention rather than cure. Ideally, you’ll want to kill it in its tracks by avoiding anything evolving from the Lockdown. This means denying double underhooks, having heavy pressure and a good crossface.
From there, you should then switch your hips to the sides and free your foot, from there you can start passing.
However, if you are caught in the Electric Chair, then the worst thing you can do is try to explode out of it and get your foot free. By doing this, you could possibly blow out your knee and cause some serious damage. The idea is to free the leg that is being held with the arms, as this is the highest percentage escape.
Ideally, you would do this in its infancy and deny arms going underneath your body. Having said this, if you are stretched and aren’t feeling pressure on your groin, then you can slowly free your foot by pushing off the opponents hands. At this point, you may end up in a scramble for the top position, but remember to take care of your entangled leg.
Is the Electric Chair a good move?
This really depends on your own personal take on parts of the 10th Planet game. In all reality, the move is very rarely seen in the highest echelons of BJJ. Perhaps the last man to showcase this was Eddie Bravo himself, who hasn’t competed for years, so this says a lot. These days, many 10th Planet elite competitors don’t really do the Electric Chair either.
This isn’t to say it’s a ‘bad’ move, however, it may be too predictable at the top levels. So, for most mere mortals it may be worth learning, and definitely works in a gym setting. It may also work as a bit of a surprise move against unsuspecting opponents, or as an avenue to escape a flattened half guard.
However, the reality is that the Electric Chair does have problems, such as setting it up in the first place. Not only this but it can be difficult to start whilst in a gi due to the lapel grips that your opponent can use. One example of this is the threat of the cross-collar choke. In no gi, there are no real submission threats whilst using the Electric Chair. However, in the gi it is possible for opponents to choke you. Of course, this is meant for no gi anyway so that’s not surprising, but that explains its absence from the gi.
Conclusion
The Electric Chair is a fun move to get into, and once there it can cause a number of problems. Simply put, it shows another option from the bottom half guard position and can save an otherwise dead position. By learning this and how to defend against it, you will undoubtedly improve yourself as a grappler.
Not to mention, the look on your training partner’s faces, if you tap them with a crotch ripper is priceless…however don’t expect to get much love back from them either. If you’re a fan of Eddie Bravo and his creations, feel free to check out his book ‘Jiu Jitsu Unleashed‘
