One of my favorite expressions is that "jiu-jitsu is a game of inches". Sometimes a whole match can be decided by the battle to move your hand one inch forward. The single best example I can think of to illustrate this concept is the Ten Finger Guillotine as taught by Chris Brennan. Take a look at this picture, paying special attention to the position of the thumbs. Notice how the first … [Read more...]
Chokes
Submission Grappling Choke
The arm drag from butterfly guard to the back is a tried-and-true technique that has ended many matches in submission grappling and BJJ. Here's how to do it... Stephan controls his opponent with the butterfly guard. He grips his opponent’s triceps with his right hand… … and pulls him forward while simultaneously moving his own body to the left. His opponent is now off … [Read more...]
Preventing & Escaping the RNC
A reader asked: Q:"How do I escape the Rear Naked Choke - I've tried all sorts of things and they don't seem to work..."\ A: The Rear Naked Choke (or RNC) is one of the top finishers in submission grappling and MMA. Once applied, the odds of an equally skilled grappler getting out of it successfully are very small, probably 5 to 10%. You have two general options: 1) Prevent it from being … [Read more...]
Submissions as Sweeps
Submissions end fights, and sweeps take you from the bottom to the top. At first glance they seem like very different types of techniques, but this week I'm going to discuss how they sometimes merge into one another. There are times when you lock on a submission but sense that you won't be able to finish it - maybe your opponent is too strong, perhaps you don't have it on quite right, or maybe … [Read more...]
A Roadmap for the Rear Naked Choke
The Rear Naked Choke, or RNC, is one of those fundamental techniques. Choking someone from rearmount is an incredibly effective and efficient tool in the jiu-jitsu arsenal, but I only acquired it relatively late in my grappling career. Instructions on how to do the RNC are in the first martial arts books I bought when I was 12 years old. I also learned how to do it in Judo class at about the … [Read more...]
The Anaconda Choke
The Anaconda Choke used to be a relatively unknown choke that has now been making waves in MMA for a couple of years. It's a rolling head and arm guillotine used by fighters like Antonio "Minotauro" Nogueira in Japanese Pride, Randy Couture in the UFC and Denis Kang in Russian M1. … [Read more...]
One more thing about Choking
Before we leave this topic I want to point out that not all chokes occur at the neck.Of course squeezing the windpipe is the most common form of choking, but you can also impair breathing by applying pressure to the torso. … [Read more...]
Air Chokes
For the last two weeks we have primarily been discussing strangles that cut off the supply of blood to the brain – this week I’d like to move on to ‘chokes’. A choke is a submission which primarily cuts off the flow of air through the windpipe, as opposed to a strangle which primarily cuts off the flow of blood to the brain. … [Read more...]
Recovery From Chokes & Strangles
If you practice chokes and strangles long enough you will eventually choke someone partially or fully unconscious – because some strangles are not very painful people can even go unconscious without realizing it. This is not an inherently dangerous situation … [Read more...]
Anatomy of a Strangle
This week we will discuss strangles and strangulations; this will be the start of series of articles on the topic of chokes, strangles and other submissions attacking the neck. I define a “strangle” as a grappling technique that restricts the flow of blood through the carotid arteries, … [Read more...]
The Tangled Web of Gi-Grappling
Jiu-jitsu and grappling are like an arms race: new techniques and variations are constantly being developed.One year is the year of the half guard; another is the year of the ankle lock.Competition on the training mat and in tournaments is driving the evolution of the game. … [Read more...]
One Simple Tip for Surviving the Smother
There's nothing worse than tapping out to a smother. It is one thing to get caught in a nice technical choke and having to tap out, but it really sucks to get slowly smothered as someone covers your nose and mouth with some part of their body. … [Read more...]
How to Squeeze With The Rear Naked Choke
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 … [Read more...]