When One Hand is By Your Neck, You're Halfway to Being Choked

I’m a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) and I have ADHD. It took me 18 years to get my black belt even with a strong wrestling background. When I look back on my BJJ journey, I think a lot of it comes down to the standard “move of the day” style of teaching not resonating with me. For one thing, my ADHD brain only remembers a maximum of 3 steps. So showing me a 10 step move will never be part of my game.

Also with my ADHD, I’m constantly looking for general principles that apply from any situation.

The principle I want to talk about today is:

When one hand is by your neck, you’re halfway to being choked.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. When I was a blue belt my favorite party trick was to submit black belts when they had me in their closed guard by throwing an Ezequiel choke from inside their closed guard.. I could often submit someone the first time I rolled with them, regardless of belt rank, because I could get a hand near their throat from a position where they thought they were safe. And so I started saying “an arm by your neck means you’re half choked.”

I recently saw a similar clip making the rounds with Caio Terra putting Mason Fowler out. That put me in mind of this again. Notice how, even though Terra is contained in half guard, he still has one hand by Fowler’s neck:

Terra sneaks his leg to the other side of the neck to come behind and now he’s fully choked. You can barely see his thumb still in the same position by the neck:

Mason Fowler is a world champion. If he can get submitted by ignoring a hand by his neck, then we mere mortals really need to watch out for it.

Side note: my own comment on reddit is how Google is summarizing this. I’m really famous now! ;)

How to Remove a Hand by Your Neck

Again, because I like to keep things simple, my one rule for addressing a hand by the neck is what my coach calls “combing the hair.” The point is to take your hand inside the attack hand and run it up to the top of your head so you break the grip. Here’s an example from Gracie Charlottesville for top closed guard. Here’s another one from the same gym for defense from back take.

The basic mechanics are that you slide your hand inside the grip, up to the top of your head, and you build a triangle with your arm: shoulder -> elbow -> top of head:

Their attack hand should slide right up your arm off the top of your head, eliminating the grip.

Resist the urge to take your hand off the top of your head and push on their grip. This may work on smaller people but will not scale up in size.

Here’s another view of Kade Ruotolo removing a choke by combing his hair against Andrew Tackett in the Craig Jones Invitational:

Notice how Kade does not leave his hand by his throat, he inserts it under Tackett’s arm and moves it all the way up to the top of his head to break the grip. This is an active move to create space, not a passive “get choked with my own hand because I leave my fingers on my neck.”

I find you can do this from every position. Hand by your neck in bottom half guard, maybe gripping your collar? Comb your hair. Side control? Comb your hair. Mount? Comb your hair. Etc. etc.

Once you remove the hand from your neck, you can transition to controlling that hand you just removed. Or as I like to think of it, I’d rather fight a one armed man.

What Doesn’t Work

Pulling on the arm. How many times have you seen this in a match. Someone starts a choke and the one being choked starts pulling furiously on the arm to create space:

How many times do you see this work? Almost never. Practive fighting to get your hand inside the attacking arm before it becomes a choke and use that to comb your hair.

Final Example

I can’t resist adding a final example. I’ve learned a lot from Tyler Spengler’s excellent YouTube Channel. His schtick is he films himself going into random gyms and spamming guillotines on everyone. And it works surprisingly often.

The most eye opening part of this for me was to realize that sometimes, one hand by the neck means you’re choked:

Conclusion

I see this over and over in fights, in everything from Poirier vs Makhachev in the UFC, to TikTok clips like Terra vs Fowler: one hand by the neck means you’re halfway to being choked. Ignore it at your own peril. If you don’t want to be choked, remove things from your neck as soon as they get there, no matter how safe you think you are.

There are many ways to remove things from your neck, but with my ADHD I prefer having a simple go-to move so I don’t have to think about it. I’ve come to believe that almost always, the best way to remove a hand or arm from your neck is to comb your hair. So now the moment I feel something by my neck, I have an immediate instinct to scoop inside it and remove the grip by “combing my hair.”

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Also, I love to travel, so you can also invite me for a seminar, follow me on reddit, or come train with me in Atlanta (DM me on Instagram).

Related: I’d Rather Fight a One Armed Man