An Improved Guillotine Choke

by Mike

It's been awhile since we promised to show this technique, but here we go: a modification to the guillotine that should increase the effectiveness of that technique.

A couple things to keep in mind before we start:

1. This choke can easily turn from a blood choke to an air choke. As such it may be disallowed from use in competition or your school - check with your instructor before trying to use it.
2. This choke comes on very quickly - do not crank this choke. If you do get in position to use this choke, be very aware of your partner's position - it's entirely likely that they will be in a position that makes tapping difficult and you should be aware of this. If you put the choke on and they do not tap, switch to something else.

The Setup:

To properly perform a guillotine choke, you need to make sure that you have your hand up by your sternum:

Nice!

If your hand is too low, you'll never get the choke and trying to muscle your arm up is going to waste too much energy.

Crap! Hand too low!

Instead of holding on like an idiot, there must be a way to transition to another submission without giving up your dominant position.

There is, and it's simple. We're still going to put our hand up by our sternum, but we're going to move it, not muscle it. How to do that?

0. Make sure you are at a standstill. Transitioning into this technique will require you to be off balance for a split-second. If your opponent is still moving forward, or capable of moving forward, he'll knock you over and likely break the hold.

1. Shoot your hips out to the side. Obviously, we're going to go the opposite direction of where the opponent is. This will put you in an awkward position, so make the movement small. This will give your shoulder room to move.

2. Drop your shoulder and shoot your hand to your sternum. When you're done, you should have your opponent cradled in the "v" if your arm. Regain your posture.

3. Grab your tricep with your other hand. That "v" is a fairly weak position and you're not going to be able to hold it long against someone who doesn't want to be there. Your ulna should be on the back of your opponent's neck.

4. Complete the choke by stretching your back and scissoring down with your forearm. This is how a typical guillotine would work with the addition of the scissoring making the space in the crook of your arm that much smaller.

As we stated before, this submission comes on fast. Be very careful with it and like all submissions, it's best to have it applied to you as well so you know how it feels (and can therefore have an idea of how your opponent will react as well as a little sympathy).

It is also possible to complete this technique from the guard as well - the motions are going to be similar to the standing version.

How do you defend against this?

I'll leave that for you to discover - but as with any hold, "when done right, no can defend." Keep your chin tucked and don't let them wrap their arms around your neck.

As always, have fun experimenting with this submission and let us know how it works for you.