Lachlan Giles "Velachiraptor"

Lachlan Giles occupies a peculiar spot in Brazilian jiu-jitsu history: a lifelong hobbyist-turned-scientist whose single tournament run reshaped how the entire sport thinks about leg locks. Born June 17, 1986, in Victoria, Australia, Giles came to grappling by an unusual route. As a teenager he studied kung fu after watching Jet Li films, then discovered the UFC and became fascinated by Royce Gracie's technical dominance over much larger opponents — a theme that would later define his own competitive identity. He began training BJJ under Tyrone Crosse before continuing his development at Absolute MMA in Melbourne, the gym that became the base of his competitive and coaching career. He was awarded his black belt by John Simon in 2012, after also training extensively alongside Thiago Stefanutti.

Unlike most elite competitors, Giles built his career in parallel with academia, earning a Bachelor of Physiotherapy and later a PhD in Physiotherapy, both from La Trobe University, finishing his doctorate in 2016. That scientific mindset carried directly into his grappling: rather than relying on athleticism, Giles built a systematic, almost engineering-like approach to guard passing and leg entanglements, becoming one of the most articulate proponents of the K-guard and its associated leg-lock entries — concepts he has since taught to thousands of students through instructionals released via BJJ Fanatics.

Giles' competitive résumé includes a bronze medal at the 2017 IBJJF No-Gi World Championship and a silver at the 2018 UAEJJF Abu Dhabi Grand Slam, but his defining moment came at the 2019 ADCC World Championship. Entering the Absolute (openweight) division as a compact 82kg middleweight against a bracket stacked with the sport's biggest heavyweights, Giles submitted Kaynan Duarte, Patrick Gaudio, and Mahamed Aly in succession — all by variations of the heel hook — before running into eventual champion Gordon Ryan and settling for bronze. It marked the first Absolute-division medal for an Australian male at ADCC since Chris Haseman in 1999, and the performance was widely described in grappling media as one of the great upsets in the event's history, earning Giles the nickname "the giant killer."

Giles' impact on the sport may ultimately be felt more through his coaching than his own medals. In December 2016 he promoted a young Craig Jones to black belt at Absolute MMA — Jones's first black-belt promotion — and the leg-lock system Giles had developed became the technical backbone of Jones's own rise to a multiple-time ADCC medalist and one of no-gi grappling's most influential competitors. Giles has continued in a head-coaching capacity, most recently leading Team Australasia at the Craig Jones Invitational 2 in 2025.

Technically, Giles is remembered for popularizing heel hooks and inverted leg entanglements at a time when much of the gi-focused IBJJF world still treated leg locks with suspicion, and for proving through his own ADCC run that a smaller, technically precise grappler could dismantle much larger, more athletic opponents. Combined with his physiotherapy background, he has also become an influential voice on injury prevention in a discipline notorious for knee injuries, having suffered and recovered from a significant knee injury of his own during his competitive years. Between his ADCC bronze, his role in developing Craig Jones, and his ongoing instructional output, Giles remains one of the most respected teacher-competitors in modern grappling.

Methodical, science-driven leg-lock and guard-passing specialist known for the K-guard and heel-hook-based no-gi system