How I learned to stop worrying and defend the guillotine

by Mike

I'm always surprised at how many trained fighters get caught in guillotine chokes. At UFC 81, both Jeremy Horn and Tim Sylvia tapped to guillotines. One one hand, these guys should have known how to defend against them. I'm going to show you how to successfully defend against the guillotine, at least until you run up against Nate Marquardt or Antonio Rodrigo "Minotauro" Nogueria and their next-level jiu-jitsu.

When the rest of us are facing good, or even excellent opponents, defense against the guillotine choke is simple and effective. It was very sad that I went so far in my career getting caught in guillotine after guillotine until I finally learned this defense. Since then, I've never tapped or even been in danger from a guillotine.

Aesopian taped a Bryan Harper seminar where guillotine defense was shown, I've added some commentary to the mix.

Defending the Standing Guillotine



How does this defense work?

• Like the demonstrator says, the most important thing is to turn your head into your opponent, keeping your opponent from attacking both carotid arteries. This will not necessarily be sufficient to spare you the choke, but it will keep you in the game long enough to go to step 2:
  
  
• Reaching up to pull his choking hand down. If you're lucky, you'll break his grip and you'll be able to escape. If not, he's still putting pressure on your neck and it is possible to be submitted/go out if you spend too much time in the choke.
  
  
• Putting your arm around the opponent's shoulder and pulling tight. The pulling tight thing is vital, but not mentioned. The guy applying the submission wants to stretch the defender out as much as possible. Either from standing or in the guard (see next video), he wants to stretch himself out and, by virtue of his tight grip, stretch you out as well. From standing, this involves pulling his shoulders back (from the guard, he pushes your hips down as well, giving him more leverage). If you can keep yourself tight to him you and/or prevent him from pulling his shoulder back, you can take away a lot of the pressure of his choke.
  
  
• One thing that I'd like to add to this presentation is that it's not only important to reach as far up as you can, but to try to put your hand/arm as deep into your opponent's back as you can. This will hold you closer/immobilize their shoulder more effectively.
  
  
• The bump/trip should be obvious, but note if the guy on the bottom doesn't let go, you set yourself up for a very nice Von Flue choke.

Just as an aside, it's really embarrassing to tap to a Von Flue choke. Defense against the Von Flue - let go of the guillotine.

Guillotine defense from the guard



Why does this work?

• As noted earlier, the attacker wants to stretch you out, the defender wants to keep that from happening. The easiest way to do that is to clamp down on his shoulder and start trying to stack him.
  
  
• It's important to keep a good base so you don't get swept or have your legs kicked out and you're back to square one.
  
  
• Putting pressure from your shoulder onto the opponent's neck/chin, causes him to instinctively curl up, keeping him from stretching you out. If he's stubborn and stupid, you might even get him to tap.
  
  
• In an MMA situation, a dick move (but very effective) is to throw some shoulder strikes once you've gotten up on your toes and secured a good base.
  

In a future installment, we'll demonstrate a variation of the guillotine that Renzo Gracie likes that turns the guillotine from a Hail Mary into a high-percentage move.

Until then, don't get caught in guillotines.