In my recent sparring sessions with the gi I’ve been having great success with a technique I learned on the internet. Actually to be a little more precise, I learned a critical detail about a technique I already knew on the internet, and this has made all the difference to successfully applying this technique.

The technique in question is the so-called ‘Ninja’ choke that Andreh Anderson agreed to have posted on Grapplearts. Now several different people had shown me this choke before, but it still wasn’t working for me. In the course of a few years I’d MAYBE caught 2 people with it, and they weren’t very good.

In Andreh’s version he emphasizes using his opponent’s pushing energy against him: as soon as he pushes away he gives you the room you need to insert your lapel in the correct place to choke him. Once I became aware of this detail, and started baiting this reaction by driving my shoulder into my opponent’s face, this choke started working for me. I started catching a LOT of people with it on the mat, and it became my number one gi choke for a while.

This choke is now a victim of its own success: having been caught in it (and having me show them how they were caught in it) my sparring partners have mostly stopped giving me the energy I needed to successfully apply it. Oh well, I’ll move on to other submissions for a while, let them forget about the Ninja choke, and then bring it back into my arsenal in a month or two.

There is now an amazing amount of information on websites, on forums, in videos and in magazines. This is why garage clubs can produce some pretty good grapplers, and dedicated students at regular clubs can probably make faster progress now than ever before. Whether you are looking for a sneaky gi choke, or some pointers on how do a basic guard pass, the truth is out there, you just have to find it.