The so-called rear naked choke (also known as “hadaka-jime” in Japanese) is one of the most powerful submissions in grappling. Properly applied, this choke should give your opponent no way out except to tap or go to sleep.

When using this choke I often think about the angles at which I am applying pressure. Keeping these angles in mind has made my rear naked choke much more powerful:

First squeeze DOWN (ie bring your arms down towards your belly button a bit)

Then squeeze IN (i.e. bring your arms towards his spine)

Then squeeze UP (towards the top of his head).

This 3 part sequence helps gets your forearm and wrist under his chin and helps you dig deep into his neck. My visual picture is popping the head off of a daisy…

If you want a visual for this choke check out the Grapplearts picture of the week from March 28th, 2004. Incidentally, the two combatants in this picture (Castro and MacDonald) are now teammates on Epic Fight Team!