Get One Hand By Their Neck To Choke Them

I’m a black belt in Brazilian jiu jitsu. But even though I was a successful wrestler in high school, it took me 18 years to get my black belt. Looking back, I believe part of this is because I have ADHD. Typical BJJ multi-step move of the day type instruction does not work for me. Now that I’m a black belt I spend a lot of time thinking about simple, general principles that I actually do remember.

I recently wrote an article about how dangerous it is to let your opponent get an arm or hand by your neck. Basically, if you have one hand by your neck, you’re half way to being choked. This article is the corollary to that one. Instead of talking about how to defend being choked, this is about how to go on the attack:

Get one hand by your opponent’s neck to choke them.

Just to keep it simple, I’m going to focus on setting up chokes from side control. Once I am in side control, they no longer have me in guard. This means legs are no longer in play to keep me away from their neck. There is now a continuum of ways to get my arm by their neck, depending on their reaction. Which means there is a continuum of chokes.

The following are all things that I actively use in my own game daily. I’m not suggesting you memorize them all. Instead, I hope they open your eyes to a wide variety of options you have and enable you to discover your own attacks.

Lying Flat: Paper Cutter

This one is from Lane Andrews down in Tampa.

You can see the whole move here on his instagram:

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I saw this on his instagram the day he posted it and promptly went on a reign of terror in my gym. I like this because it really demonstrates how dangerous one hand by the neck can be.

Remember, to finish a choke you need to apply pressure to both sides of the neck. If your opponent is lying flat on their back, the floor is already applying pressure to the one side, you just need one arm to apply pressure to the other side!

With better opponents, it will be hard to finish this move, but it will often force them to move and set up other chokes since your hand is by their neck.

Lying Flat: Far Arm Down = North South Choke

Often times, especially with bigger guys, they will take their far arm and swim it down. Here it is from the legendary Marcelo Garcia.

You can watch it in action here. I’ve queued it about 4 minutes into the actual choke, but he goes into a lot more detail in this 20 minute video.

Again, if your opponent is flat, the mat is immobilizing one side of their neck, so strictly speaking you only need one arm to finish the choke.

Turn Away From You: Gift Wrap Ezeqiuel

This is one of those simple concepts that once you see, you can’t unsee.

Let’s start with getting the gift wrap.

Here’s a good video from TeachMeGrappling Coach Bryan. I queued it up to the start of the action:

The basic idea is you grab their wrist like this:

Then drive your other arm through their their trapped arm and punch their neck:

Here is the actual giftwrap ezequiel, demonstrated from a modified mount, but the mechanics for turned away side control are the same:

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Again, one hand by the neck means you have 50% of the choke in place with a gift wrap. Why not try putting the other 50% in place and finish?

This is one of those low risk high reward situations. If they defeat your choke, you still have a gift wrap.

Turn Into You: Reverse Arm Triangle

This is probably my most common finish lately. No one taught it to me, I just started doing it because getting an arm by the neck seemed logical, and once I had an arm by the neck, I just needed to figure out how to connect the choke to put pressure on the other side. I actually had to google a bit to find a demonstration of someone else doing it.

Here’s a video from the prolific Stephan Kesting queued up to the interesting parts:

I normally do the reverse arm triangle when they have turned more to their side, and I have more room to secure my grip on my bicep, rear naked choke style. But this video gives you the gist of the move.

Again, this is something I discovered independently just by getting an arm by the neck and then thinking how do I add the other 50% of this choke?

Turn Into You: Darce (Alternate)

If they turn into me from side control and I can’t catch them in a reverse arm triangle, I often fall back on a darce choke:

Here’s the full sequence from Troy Manning on BJJ Fanatics (starting at the 10 second mark):

It’s a Continuum

But notice that when they swim the far side arm down, it’s exactly the position we saw in what finish?

Like I said, it’s a continuum where if you get an arm by the neck, you’ll start to notice patterns of openings for finishing the choke. It should be easy to lay down a constant barrage of attacks no matter where they turn or respond.

Turn Into You: Chinstrap Guillotine (Alternative)

I’ll finish with one more suggestion that I got from Tyler Spangler. Tyler runs a very entertaining YouTube channel where he dojo storms various BJJ gyms and spams guillotines. It’s well worth watching his stuff. It opened my eyes to just how dominating guillotines can be. (Side note: guillotines are the second most effective submission in the UFC, accounting for ~17% of submissions).

If your opponent turns into you, rather than try to flatten them out, you can get the far side underhook and throw your arm around the back of their neck (similar to the North/South set up), grabbing their chin.

You wouldn’t think this would be a choke, but if you pull on their chin, it puts the blade of your hand right on their carotid artery: a very effective one handed choke where you brace both sides of the choke with the same arm.

Here it is in video form, starting at the 3:00 mark:

Conclusion

Here are some more options to jumpstart your thinking.

• lying flat: ezequiel
• lying flat: baseball bat choke (gi only)
• lying flat: papercutter using lapel (gi only).
• turn away from you: reverse ezequiel
• turn away from you: arm triangle
• turn away from you: rear naked choke.
• turn into you: rear naked choke (using a wrestlers crossface across the bridge of their nose to force them belly down).
• turn into you all the way to turtle: guillotine or darce.

And there are probably hundreds more. I won’t go into details on them because, hey, if you have ADHD like me you probably didn’t even read this far. But more importantly, it’s the general principle that’s important.

After all, what is a buggy choke except a creative variation on realizing that you have one arm by the neck?

(You can even do other crazy stuff like submit opponents from bottom mount, bottom kesagatame, etc. if you can get one hand by their neck).

Remember:

Get one hand by your opponent’s neck to choke them.

So whenever you get the arm there, even if just for a split second, think about how to brace the opposite side, whether that’s with a leg, an arm, or the mat. If you let this guide you, I think you’ll find a lot more success getting submissions from any position.

Next Up

Related: When One Hand is By Your Neck, You’re Halfway to Being Choked

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• Submissions
• General Principles