How to do the Aikido Sankyo wrist lock

When thinking about Aikido, we often think about wrist locks. It’s no secret that the wrist lock dominates Aikido and is mostly what it’s all about. However, there is one wrist lock that is valued by many as the best and most powerful when it comes to restraining an opponent. This is called the Sankyo wrist lock which is one of the main attacks when thinking about Aikido.

There is a reason for its dominance and this involves the way the wrist is bent. In short, the Sankyo isn’t your average wrist lock and is actually pretty dangerous compared to some of the other techniques that are taught. This is because it bends and twists the wrist in a certain way which can easily break the ligaments compared to conventional wrist locks. Here’s how.

How the Sankyo wrist lock works

Before explaining how to do a Sankyo wrist lock, it’s probably best to explain the mechanics behind it. Traditionally, most wrist locks will either bend the wrist up or down. If bent too far, the wrist will break when it gets past the point of no return. Obviously, some people are more flexible than others but every wrist has a breaking point.

Where the Sankyo is unique though, is that it doesn’t twist up or down. Instead, it twists towards the side which is very important to not. Generally speaking, wrists have a lot more bend up and down – but not to the side. The main principle of the Sankyo is to get the opponent’s thumb facing away from their body. If you can do this, then it twists the ligaments which have very little room to move with. Thus, it can easily break a wrist. Remember, conventional wrist locks that go up or down will snap ligaments at some point.

However, this is harder to do as there’s more give. Secondly, the way that the snap happens is a cleaner break, compared to the Sankyo which is more of a complicated, three-dimensional twist compared to moving in a straight line. If you’re familiar with grappling, then a normal wrist lock is a bit like an Achilles lock. This is much less dangerous compared to a heel hook as it bends in a straight line, as opposed to a heel hook which twists the ankle and knee and is much easier to break bones as a result.

How to do a Sankyo wrist lock

Commonly, the Sankyo wrist lock is taught as a way to counter an attacker from behind. As a general rule for self-defense, if someone gets behind you then you’re in trouble. Whilst the Sankyo wrist lock can be applied from other positions, we will focus on this scenario as it’s where it’s taught the most.

Starting from the back, if someone wraps their arm around you as if they’re going to perform a chokehold, then you’ll want to grab their choking hand with both of your wrists. This should be a two on one grip which will give you more control over their wrist, as opposed to just singular grips.

From there, you’ll then want to duck your head from under their armpit and then move your body so you’re now facing them. In a realistic scenario, you would want to do this as quickly as possible to avoid getting punched in the face by the attacker’s free hand.

Now you’re facing them, you can begin to start to attack by twisting the wrist. Remember, the key is to get the thumb facing away from the body and then rotate the wrist as if you’re trying to twist open a jar. If you bend the wrist enough, it will result in the opponent conceding the position and dropping to the floor to avoid a broken wrist, or if they’re stubborn they will remain standing until their wrist is broken.

Mechanics of the wrist control

Although we’ve outlined how to perform a Sankyo wrist lock, we’ve not really touched upon the finer mechanics of what your hands should be doing when you attack the move. In other words, you’ll want to control the opponent’s wrist as well as possible to make the attack easier.

To do this, your first hand should grab the opponent’s fingers so that the underside of your fingers are wrapped around their knuckles and fingers. In other words, your palm should be facing the opponent whilst controlling the bottom part of their hand.

Secondly, your other hand should be grabbing the upper part of their wrist, with your fingers wrapping into the inner circle of their palm. In doing this, your hands should act as if you’re holding a baseball bat, with one palm facing the opponent, and the other facing away from them. Imagine grabbing a baseball bat with this motion and then twisting either grip away from the bat.

This would move the bat towards the side. Now, imagine doing this to a part of the human body that naturally isn’t meant to move in this way. This is how the mechanics of the Sankyo wrist lock work.

Applying the Sankyo wrist lock to other parts of Aikido

Often when a beginner starts Aikido, their wrist locks are understandably less efficient compared to black belts or veterans of the martial art. This is understandable and skills naturally take time to learn. So, imagine you’re trying a straight wrist lock where the fingers are bent upwards. As mentioned earlier, this is common but arguably less effective compared to the Sankyo.

Against someone who is quite strong and has good wrist flexibility, you may struggle to finish this submission. To make other wrist locks more effective, you can apply the same mechanics of the Sankyo wrist lock which certainly works. For instance, instead of bending the wrist up, you could also simultaneously twist it to the side like you would with a Sankyo – this would add more torque and make the submission much more dangerous.

In fact, you can apply this to many different types of wrist locks, and always remember, as long as you can bend the wrist to the side then it will always make the wrist lock more efficient. For certain moves, this may not be possible – whereas for others it’s definitely worth trying to incorporate.

Summary

The Sankyo wrist lock is very powerful and just remember, when you’re drilling this move to go lightly on the uke. This one can come on very quickly and can easily break the wrist if too much force is applied. Of course, this is only a positive when it comes to thinking about self-defense.

At the same time, it’s important to identify the weaknesses of this move. One is that it’s quite situational and isn’t always available. Therefore, you can’t force it or try to apply it to every situation. The second is that it’s not a silver bullet either. Against an experienced grappler, you may struggle to use this technique due to its need for full wrist control. This can be tough and isn’t always as easy as it looks.

Still, the Sankyo wrist lock is certainly worth learning. It is also used in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and other martial arts such as Hapkido. On the ground, it’s also one of few wrist locks that doesn’t require elbow control to finish and as stated earlier, it’s high in the hierarchy of wrist locks so is definitely something to consider in the dojo.

If you’d like to learn more about basic Aikido moves then check out this handy book.