The guillotine choke is a powerful submission in BJJ, no gi grappling, and mixed martial arts. At first glance it seems like a simple submission - you just wrap your opponent's neck with your arms, pull up and squeeze, right? Not so fast... There are a LOT of subtleties that you need to master before this submission starts being reliable for you, especially if you don't spend 4 hours a … [Read more...]
Podcast Episode 113 – A Close Call, and Avoiding Injuries!
The other day I almost tore a partner’s ACL off the bone, which would have required him to have surgery and many months of rehabilitation. What happened exactly? I was more experienced and a bit bigger than my training partner that day and we were doing some no gi sparring. Because of the experience discrepancy I was hyper-focusing on a couple of very specific positions, namely Ashi … [Read more...]
Podcast Episode 47 – Prison for 15+ Years for a Knock-Out?
In every story about every streetfight the centrepiece is the big haymaker that landed and knocked somebody out cold. It's a compelling story, but the reality is that whenever you do this you automatically run a very serious risk of killing the other guy. Your punch to the head may be powerful, but usually it's not nearly as dangerous as the second impact when his falling head lands on the … [Read more...]
Can You Use a Collar Choke in a Streetfight?
BJJ has a ton of gi-based techniques, and while not all of them are very street relevant, some people tend to throw out the baby with the bath water. The bottom line is that many people wear either coats or jackets, especially in the winter or at night. And if your attacker is wearing a potential noose around his neck you'd be a fool not to take advantage of it. You want to take advantage … [Read more...]
My Favourite Head and Arm Choke Finish
The head and arm choke (aka the 'arm triangle' and/or 'kata gatame') is one of the staple submissions of BJJ. It works with the gi, in MMA and in submission grappling. A lot of people can get to this position, but then have problems actually finishing the choke, especially if their opponent has a strong neck and upper body. Here is my favourite way to finish the head and arm choke. You … [Read more...]
Five Triangle Chokes You Should Know
This video and article was inspired after a run of triangle chokes in MMA in 2010, including those used by Fabricio Werdum against Fedor Emelianenko, Chris Lytle against Matt Brown, and Brock Lesnar against Shane Carwin. But the term 'triangle choke' can be used for several different submissions, and this can be confusing to the novice or intermediate-level grappler. So to make sense of the five … [Read more...]
A Surprise Triangle Choke from Butterfly Guard
This transition from butterfly guard to triangle choke is one of my new favourite techniques. I learned it from BJJ black belt Rob Biernacki and it starts sitting up in the butterfly guard, and fighting for the powerful two-on-one grip. In the two-on-one I use both of my own hands to control one of my opponents arms which then isolates that side of his body. The next step is to kick out one … [Read more...]
The 10 Second Rule for Effective Choking
How many times have you been trying to choke out a training partner, straining and straining, then give up in disgust only to have him say, "Man, I was SO close to tapping out!!" Or what about those times when you've been caught in a choke, see no way out, and your only defense is to hunker down and hope that your opponent will give up before you run out of air or blood to the brain? The … [Read more...]
BJJ Breathing Tricks When You’re On the Bottom, Getting Crushed by Your Opponent
One of the very worst things is to be trapped on the bottom with all your opponent's weight on top of you and be unable to breathe. This is usually followed by exhaustion, panic and surrender. But it doesn't need to be like this - there are several approaches to breathing in BJJ that can make sure air gets into your lungs, oxygen into your blood, and keep you in the game, even when you're … [Read more...]
Cartwheels in BJJ and Submission Wrestling
So I saw something spectacular the other day... It was a clip from a wrestling match in which 125 lb Ronnie Bresser from Oregon State cartwheels himself over his opponent in a move called 'the Flying Squirrel' to get to a 15 point advantage and win the match by technical fall (thanks to "i like to wrassle" on reddit for giving me the proper name for it)! Here's the move: Of course … [Read more...]
How to Train BJJ with an Injured Neck
Necks are delicate things. Seven small stacked cervical vertebrae protecting all the nerves in your spinal cord and held together with a multitude of flimsy ligaments and muscles. Yet in BJJ we stress the neck continuously. We attack it with chokes, crucifixes, and cranks. We stack our opponents, turn their heads with crossfaces, and scissor his head with our legs. We also use our head … [Read more...]
The Step-by-Step North South Choke
The North-South Choke is undeniably effective. Properly applied it's incredibly difficult for your opponent to escape before you put him to sleep. And it's proven at the highest levels in both gi and no gi competition, which is why it's one of the 10 key tactics of many time world champion Marcelo Garcia. That being said, even after having been a black belt for many years I still have a … [Read more...]
The Step-by-Step Clock Choke
The Clock Choke Heard Round the World We're going to go through my favorite step-by-step method for how to do the clock choke, but first let's talk about a the first time I saw the clock choke and a match that changed jiujitsu... It was in 1998 when Royce Gracie squared off against the Carlson Gracie Wallid Ismael. At the time Royce was undefeated in 5 UFC events and, in my eyes at least, … [Read more...]
A Simple Tweak for a Killer Triangle Choke
In the late 1990's I had the pleasure of training with UFC fighter and Sambo champion Oleg Tartarov a number of times. And it turned out that not only was he a tough, skilled and relentless competitor, but he was also a very skilled teacher. Here's a detail about the triangle choke that he showed me that I share just about every time I ever teach this move. It's all about how hiding the … [Read more...]
Jiu-Jitsu for the Zombie Apocalypse
As we get closer and closer to Halloween it's important to shift your priorities from training jiu-jitsu to surviving the impending zombie apocalypse. (After all, it's tough to train jiu-jitsu when you're dead. Or undead, as the case may be.) That's why you've got to check out the most important video I've ever put onto Youtube: Jiu-Jitsu for the Zombie Apocalypse. A lot of people will … [Read more...]
A Bow and Arrow Choke Escape
The bow and arrow choke is one of the most powerful chokes from the back in the entire BJJ repertoire. Many matches in the black belt division of the Mundials have ended with this choke, so you know it works! This attack is called the 'Bow and Arrow' choke because when you apply it your opponent gets bent sideways into a bow shape, while you stay straight (i.e. an arrow). Bending your … [Read more...]
Finishing the Rear Naked Choke
The Rear Naked Choke (also called the RNC and Lion Killer) is one of the most dominant, powerful and important chokes in BJJ, MMA and No Gi Grappling. If you get on your opponent's back, especially in a no gi situation, the Rear Naked Choke should be your number one finisher. However your opponent knows it's coming, and so he's not going to make life easy for you. In fact he's going to do … [Read more...]
The 10 Second Choke Fix (or How to Tap Out More People)
How many times has a sparring partner told you "Man, I was SO close to tapping" after you'd been squeezing their neck like crazy in a desperate attempt to choke them, but then decided that it wasn't working and gave up on the submission? Frustrating, isn't it? Or have you ever held a choke for so long that you completely burn out your grips and have to fight the rest of the match with jello … [Read more...]
A Powerful Judo Pinning Trick You Can Use in BJJ
In Judo you win the match if you pin your opponent for 20 seconds, and so Judoka can have some pretty ferocious 'osaekomi' (Japanese for pinning someone's back to the mat). To help them get to a pin and then hold down frantically struggling opponents Judo players have quite a few tricks up their sleeve. Today I want to talk about one of these moves that creates a handle on one of … [Read more...]
Neck Harness Trials
A strong neck is essential for BJJ and grappling. Obviously a strong neck is simply harder to choke, but that’s not the end of the matter… A strong neck also helps you maintain good posture when standing and in the guard, and high level grapplers inevitably use the head as a fifth limb. (If you’ve ever had a skilled wrestler in your guard then you probably know what I’m talking about, … [Read more...]