Do you dig the reap?

I recently posted on a well-known MMA and grappling forum concerning the “reaping the knee” rule that we see in many high-profile grappling tournaments.  In some new professional tournaments, we note that reaping is often, in fact, legal.  Reaping the knee is when pressure is caused on the knee due to torque from a specific outer-leg entanglement, often resulting from leg-lock attempts or the use of one-leg X guard.  When the outer leg crosses over the hip of the person being ankle-locked, it is generally seen as “reaping”.  One of the major problems with this rule is that it is highly subjective, often leading to disqualifications in tournaments when there is, in fact, no torque at all on the knee.  The results from the thread were somewhat shocking to me, being that most people wanted to see the rule abolished or reformed; regardless, we see the rule getting progressively stricter and being the cause of many, many DQs over the course of many large tournaments.

            Most people seemed to reason that the rule should stay in place for lower belt levels – we, as a community, would be subjecting white, blue and possibly purple belts to a lot of danger if we were to legalize reaping at these levels; however, when we get to brown and black belts, we begin to see kneebars and toeholds.  Should brown and black belts really be subjected to rules that limit their attacks by so much?  Are brown and black belts not knowledgeable enough to defend themselves from injury from a position that is likely no more dangerous than a toe-hold in the first place?  Any sport that encourages bending joints in the opposite direction from where they should go is inherently going to risk injury to its practitioners – it’s par for the course.

            Another argument I feel is even better, should you not like the idea of reaping still, is that banning the position promotes nothing more than its ignorance.  Judo currently bans leglocks of all kinds, and as such a judoka is more likely to get caught in a straight ankle lock assuming they have not practiced its defense.  We can say the same for BJJ practitioners that haven’t learned how to defend against reaping.  Resisting against a reap could certainly damage one’s knee, but giving up the position will not.  It is a reasonable concession that one has to make, especially at the brown and black belt levels, seeing as they are roughly the equivalent of “professional”.

            A way I like to view reaping is to lump it in with other positional moves rather than with submissions.  Reaping is not entrapping – if one is trapped by their opponent when getting their knee reaped, then it is no longer what I would consider reaping, but a submission instead.  The legitimacy of these submissions would be another issue.  Turning with a reap should allow the pressure to come off of the knee and allow the practitioner to get out of the position unscathed.  I believe that people are getting caught in reaps from ignorance of the position.  People are trying to find ways to stay away from 50/50 guard for different reasons, but the idea of defending against the position is essentially the same.  Keeping reaping illegal is discouraging “risky” positions (based on the rules) such as one-leg X guard from being prominent in competition, thus essentially halting the growth of jiu-jitsu as an all-encompassing grappling martial art.  This is incredibly unfortunate for our community.

To play devil’s advocate, is it worth it to risk knee injury in young competitors for the sake of having a position made legal?  I believe that it is, considering that knee reaping still happens quite often in competition and training itself.  The risk will not be much different than it already is in this martial art.  The risk of injury in a martial art designed to incapacitate an opponent will always be present, and I believe rules should only be made to prevent the most dangerous of injuries – neck cranks and spinal locks can be considered too risky to mess with.  It is one thing to see a person with a knee injury and a completely different issue to see one with a broken neck, paralyzed or dead.

What are your thoughts?  This is a very controversial issue that could use the input of practitioners all across the board.  If enough people feel strongly one way or the other, we could see the status of this rule change in the future.  Leave your comments below.