|
Sleeper Grip vs. Reverse Lever Grip
Mark Hatmaker
OK, first, allow me to come clean, we are actually going to examine three submission grips:
- The Sleeper Grip
- The Rear Naked Grip (and, yes, there is a difference).
- The Reverse Lever Grip
(Warning: Several mucho obvious statements to follow).
Grips are vital to wrestling/grappling. Without laying your hands on your opponent there can be no grip but, if you lay your hands on your opponent and do not apply a grip there will be no retention of your opponent.
Here, we are using the word "grip" in the idiomatic grappling sense of the word. To the non-combat sports enthusiast, a grip is what you do when you shake hands or grab a ballbat and is isolated to what you can do with the closed hand.
To the grappler, a grip is any retention of your opponent's body using any portion (or portions) of your own body. As important as gripping is in straight/non-submission wrestling/grappling it is exponentially more important in all forms of submission wrestling. In submission wrestling the right grip is often the submission itself. (More on this in a bit).
Grappling grips can include (but are not limited to): Palm-to-Palm grips, Finger-Hook grips, 3-Finger grips, Butterfly grips, and Bar grips. And these are only a few of the grips involving the hands. If you expand on your grips using the entire arm we move into Tombstone grips, Underarm or Pit grips, Sleeper grips, Rear naked grips, and the Reverse lever. If we add leg grips to this growing list we have Figure-4 or triangle grips, Scissors, Grapes, Ham or groin rides, and Cockle-burrs.
As we can see, to the layman, a grip is a firm handshake and to the submission wrestler the grip is a weapon. Now let's take a look at just three of these weapons and examine them for construction to see if we can make our "handshake" just a bit firmer by choosing the right grip.
By choosing the "right grip" I am adhering to the principle of leverage that all proponents of grappling pledge fealty to. The greater the leverage you can exert on your opponent the greater the pain. With an eye on painful leverage I offer an experiment that should make all of us Archimedeses (tough one to pluralize) of hurt.
First up, the Rear Naked Grip. I think we're all on the same page as to how this is performed but, for argument's sake.
- Place your right palm on your left biceps with the bottom edge of your hand touching the crook of your left arm.
- Flex your left hand towards your left shoulder as if you were going to place that left hand behind an opponent's head.
- Perform the flex a couple of times and pay close attention to your right forearm. The right forearm is the barring (attacking) portion of this grip. Mentally measure the travel of the forearm from pre-flex to flex position.
- Got it?
OK, on to the Sleeper Grip, as I said there is a difference. The sleeper looks very much like the rear naked grip with the following exception: When placing the right palm on the left upper arm you strive to place higher on the biceps if not riding all the way up to the front delt. Once your right hand is in position, perform the flex test again and note the barring forearm's travel.
Now, the Reverse Lever Grip.
Place the right palm not on the left biceps or, anywhere along the left upperarm but, rather, on the left forearm so that the right thumb is tight to the crook of the left arm with the entire right palm surface squarely on the forearm. Now perform the flex test and note the travel of the barring forearm.
Did you see that? If you followed hand placement as described in this 3-step experiment you will have seen perhaps 1 inch of travel in the rear naked grip, 1 inch to zero of travel in the sleeper grip, and 3-4 inches of travel in the reverse lever. That my friends, is maximum leverage. In a game of inches, an additional 2, 3, or 4 inches is manna.
It seems if we want to adhere to maximum leverage in our game and not pay mere lip service to it then we would examine all grips and select those with maximum leverage and retention qualities and apply them where they will do us the most good (i.e., hurting our fellow human beings).
Caveat. As superior a grip as I consider the reverse lever it does have its limitation and that is in the exposure of the long tail of this grip , that is the protruding left forearm in this case (more on long tails vs. short tails in gripping another day). This long tail makes the reverse lever vulnerable to countering when used in a back riding position but, like all counters, re-counters can solve this deficiency (switch gripping should do the trick).
Where the reverse lever does excel is in practically all other realms, particularly head-and-arm included chokes (the shoulder choke/arm triangle and Darce class of attacks). The superior leverage provided by this subtle change of grip pays generous dividends with far less work, and doing more work with less actual effort is what leverage is all about. | 
