Front Headlock – guillotine, Darce, Anaconda, Kata Game
The seminar was held at a training centre belonging to the awesome Felipe Grez, in St Peters.
Winning the tie up
He goes for a R collar tie. We do not want to let him get it, and only then lock up our own R collar tie. We do not want him to get an equal position with us. We want a superior position. In some ways the chest pummeling drill is a poor one, as it drills getting the double over under equal position. We always want a position where we have the advantage.
So, counter his collar tie attempt – Circle anticlockwise away from it, get inside bicep tie with your L on his R arm, and get your own R collar tie. Your forehead goes to his collarbone.
He should grab your R elbow with his L arm and place his forehead on your R collarbone.
You have a superior position now. You are in a position to snap him down; he cannot do the same to you.
Snapdown – Give and Take
We may move him around a bit once we have attained out collar tie on him.
For a same side snap down – where we snap him down from a collar tie with our R hand on his neck, to a front headlock with his neck under our R armpit, we want to achieve a position with our R foot forward.
Then we suddenly “take the foot away” behind us, stepping back hard, or even lifting our foot away like for a “Superman” punch. Drive his head down, drop out R armpit on the back of his neck and grab his chin with our R hand for a chin strap. Keep the L bicep tie, you may want to change it to a grip behind his R elbow. Feet are well back away from him, our weight is on the back of his neck.
So we “give” the R leg, then “take” it away.
Giving the leg gives him a false sense of security. He feels somewhat supported by the position of our R leg, When we suddenly take it away, he will lurch forward, aiding our snapdown. The “take away” will also put our weight onto his neck, also aiding our snapdown.
If we do not take the R leg away and just move back with our R foot still forward, we leave him open to grabbing our R leg during the snapdown. Not a total disaster, but a complication we can well do without.
We can also snap him down from the same starting position using a cross snapdown, using our R collar tie to transfer his head across to under out L elbow. In this case, we will “give” and “take away” our L leg, rather than our R.
Drag him down to the floor and assume the front headlock position
Move/slide your feet back, put your weight on his neck and drag him down so his knees are on the floor. You still have the R chin strap and L elbow control.
If your R arm has the chin strap, the R foot should have its shoelaces to the mat. That way, if he tries to push in to attack your legs, he just slides you backwards along the mat. If you were on your toes, he might be able to push in, use your R toes as a fulcrum to lift your hips, and then attack your legs. You should be posted on your L foot, which allows you lateral movement.
Make sure you weight is on the back of his neck, not on his back proper.
The chin strap and neck pressure should prevent him puliing away or driving in. You post on your L foot, so that you can move with him if he tries to circle either way.
For what it’s worth, John Danaher’s Front Headlock video series espouses a pretty much identical control position. The only difference I noticed after a single viewing was JD’s emphasis on keeping the R elbow, of the chin strap pulled in tight, but this is probably standard good Jiu Jitsu anyway. Though an occasional reminder of basic principles never hurts.
The only movement this positioning should be unable to prevent, is him coming up on his toes and lifting his hips to tripod up.
If he does tripod up, keep the chin strap, circle around to your L, his R, and catch his R leg at the knee in the crook of your L elbow. Pull his R knee and head toward each other and join your hands, probably in an S grip. Drive forward and knock him onto his L side, to a tight wrestler’s cradle.
Primary and Secondary Positions
Primary positions are those most well known and recognised as fundamental positions in Jiu Jitsu. Mount, Side Control, Closed Guard, etc. will be regard by the vast majority of practitioners as fundamental and efficacious positions.
Secondary positions are those less well known and not unversally regarded at fundamental positions. Some guards, ashi garami, and the Front Headlock could be considered as such.
It will be hard for any of us to become world class at the primary positions because they are universally recognised as such and everyone works on them all the time.
It may well be possible for us to become world class at a secondary position in a much shorter because those practising it regularly are fewer in number, and the resulting pool of real talent and knowledge much smaller.
Guillotine Choke/Strangle
“High Elbow” Guillotine
Unlike the elementary guillotine where we sit up in closed guard and wrap our arm around his neck and press our forearm bones into his windpipe, this style of guillotine is a blood choke (John Danaher: STRANGLE!) attacking the carotid sinuses.
The first version is a type of “high elbow” guillotine, where our R forearm (the sttangle hand in Danaherese) is at a near vertical angle, thus denying him the “chin up bar” horizontal forearm he can grip and hang off to counter. The elbow of the other L arm (John Danaher’s “support hand”) is lifted high to prevent the other common counter of him throwing his R arm over our L shoulder or elbow, thus neutralising the choke/strangle pressure.
We have snapped him down, dragged him to the mat and attained the desired front headlock control position.
The R hand, which has the chinstrap, turns his head to our R, his L. We drive our R hand and forearm under his chin, shifting our head to the R, from his R to his L shoulder, so that our R hand comes out on his R side, our L, of his neck. You should be able to put the back of your R hand on the back of his trapezius.
Grab the blade and wrist of your R hand with your L and pull it up , lifting your L elbow high, tightening the noose as much as possible. Step your L foot forward, past his R hip. Slide your R shin under him and across his waist , your R instep against his R hip and you R knee on his L hip, allowing for body size differential. His head should go to the floor. Your L foot goes over his back, preventing him circling out to your L.
DON’T pull him towards you. Slide towards and underneath him. His arms may be in the way of your R shin, but this should be pretty much irrelevant. If anything, it could tie up one or both of his arms which works to your advantage.
This should be a very tight choke, and could put him to sleep very quickly. I found you have to make it tight to avoid his head slipping out. You can’t practice it loose to make things easy for your partner, unfortunately for them.
Be ready to let go quickly and release the pressure by planing your hips away to your L. It can be difficult to let go because his bodyweight effectively locks your strangle hand in place.
There are other grips you can use for this guillotine, but the rest of it remains the same. This is a choke made popular by Marcelo Garcia, among others.
“Waist Grab” Guillotine
Set up the front headlock control position, and set up the R arm around his neck, as before.
Instead of grabbing your R hand with your L, this time reach over his back with your L and get a friction grip on his L waist.
Step forward with your L foot, and slide under him with the R shin as before. Hug his waist tight. Despite the single hand grip around the neck, this choke can be just as tight as the high elbow variation.
It has the advantage of avoiding the awkwardness of the wrist and L elbow positioning which may be a factor in some situations. John says he likes nowadays to look for ways to do do Jiu Jitsu which allow you to keep a strong structure and do not require significant flexibility or place you in awkward positions.
Darce Choke
From the front headlock control position with a R chinstrap, join your hands behind his R elbow. The R hand grabbing the blade of the L hand and wrist is probably as good a grip as any.
Pull his R elbow towards his head and into the centre towards you. You effectively form a noose around his head with your arms.
Stick your head under his R armpit and roll under him to your R, bringing him over the top of you, putting his back on the mat. Then hip heist and run around his head until you end up on top. on his L side at 90 degrees to him. Do not separate your hands at any time. You want him up on his L side, which the hip heist and pulling with the arms should facilitate. Your chest should be controlling his top R arm. Use your R hand to pull your L hand through as far as you can to tighten the noose. You should now be able to grip your R armpit with your L hand and place your R hand on his back in preparation for the Darce. Though these final hand positions are NOT the essential elements of the choke.
The Two Essential Elements of a Choke/Strangle
- We control whatever might give him the option to resist the choke or escape
- We apply the choke/strangle with the part of our anatomy which is on his neck in the same direction we would use to decapitate him (and stop him moving his head and neck away from that)
In the case of the Darce choke, it is our chest pinning his top R arm that prevents resistance or escape. He would like to use his R arm to widen the noose of our arms around his neck – our chest lying on his arm with body weight behind it will prevent that.
In the case of the Darce we should not just squeeze our arms and sprawl on his shoulder – while that might work, it is not the most effective method.
Instead, we should instead lift our L elbow, thus driving the radius bone of our L forearm upward into his carotid sinus and neck, as if trying to cut off his head with our L forearm.
Inverted Darce
If he is trying to get to his knees to counter the darce, we can fall onto our L side, our grips staying in place, and apply the Inverted Darce. In this case the ground blocks his R arm. You may want a small bridge to put his R hip on the ground as well as his R shoulder and remove his base, WE use the same choking mechanism to “cut his head off” – though this time we pull our L elbow down, not up. Same mechanics, just inverted.
Anaconda Choke/Strangle
Set up the front headlock, get the noose around his neck and arm, pull the elbow in as before. This time roll under, pull him over you, but while you are both on your backs, lift your hips and use both legs to snag his R arm between them. Continue rolling to your R until you are on your R side and he on his L facing away from you. Pull his R arm down toward the floor using your legs.
Pull your R arm through with your L to tighten up the noose. Your R hand should be poking out above his R armpit, use it to grab your L elbow and put your L hand on his rib cage.
This time you apply the choke/decapitation by pulling your R bottom elbow toward you, this “cutting off his head” with your R forearm.
You also should increase the choking pressure by walking your feet toward his legs, getting our bottom hip behind and under his head, ideally snagging one of his legs with both of yours in a half guard, if he hasn’t already tapped or passed out.
So, this time we are stopping his resistance by controlling his top R arm with our legs, specifically with the top L leg. The direction of the choking/strangling pressure is essentially the same, though because of our different position the actual application is different.
I had occasional trouble snagging the guy’s arm between my legs when drilling the next day. Anthony Lange teaches this move by pushing his R arm down with your top L knee. I feel that for me it is better to use both legs to grab the arm if you can, but if not, pushing it down with the top knee is almost as good. You end up in a very similar position anyway.
On grips – you notice for the Darce, we need to pull the L arm through via the noose to tighten it, whereas for the Anaconda we need to pull the R arm through. So ,if we know which choke we are shooting for, we would want to grab the L hand with the R for the Darce, and grab the R hand with the L for the Anaconda. We want to avoid ungripping and regripping if possible to avoid giving possible windows for his escape.
The hyperlink below links to a nice video on Anacondas from Marcelo Garcia. For some reason MG in Action or Youtube will not permit me to embed the video here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4LQMLYJ9yo
Seated Kata Gatame to half guard and closed guard choke
Get the front headlock control and the noose around his R elbow same as before. This time, step your L foot forward past his hip and out to the side slightly, then slide your R knee outside his R elbow, deep enough so his R elbow is trapped by your R hip. Keep and tighten the noose, pulling your R hand through.
Come around to his R your L enough so you can slide your R knee and shin through the gap between his R knee and elbow, and get half guard on his R leg. His R elbow will be trapped by your R hip and ribs, thus preventing his resistance with it, per the first principle of choking.
We choke him by “decapitating” him with our R bicep. We also stay flat and “plane” our head and upper body out to the L, increasing the strangulation pressure.
We could also pull full closed guard from here in a similar fashion, and get the choke. Arguably this is slightly less useful than half guard, because half guard gives us a great follow up transition to the back if we are finding the choke difficult for some reason.
Seated Kata Gatame, to Back Control, to Prone Kata Gatame
We have achieved the Seated Kata Gatame and half guard on his R leg, and are attempting to choke him. For whatever reason, we cannot finish the choke and are concerned he may find a way out of the noose.
Our R arm is already over the back of his head. Reach under his L arm and “give yourself a high five”, underhooking his L arm. Join your hands around his R arm. Hip escape away, to leave a gap into which he can fall onto his R side, giving you access to his back. Don’t pull him onto you, hip escape away so he falls into the gap between you.
Grip his upper arm with your L hand, Slide your R hand under his neck and around it to join your hands in the classic seat belt control from the back. You should already have your R hook from the half guard. Get your L hook in. Check your head position and that you are using your head to control his.
You could get some better controls, like Dave Camarillo’s “belt line hook”, and move on to finish him from here.
However we will assume that he is starting to beat your seat belt and get his back to the ground, starting to escape.
As he starts to slide his shoulders and hips away to our R, transfer your top L hook under his L leg, which will make his ability to turn toward you and his escape more difficult, and slow him down. Start turning to your R, face down. Trap his L shoulder between your head and his, drive your hands around the R side of his neck and underneath. pull your seatbelt under his head,until your R elbow is on the mat and go face down on the mat, next to him on his L, to a prone Kata Gatame.
You want be as flat to the mat as possible. Your feet and hips are turned slightly away from him. your noose is tight and you are trying to get your shoulder to the ground. Our hands are joined in an S grip, the arm under the head with palm up being better perhaps, as there is less chance of your fingers getting caught as you slide it along the mat under his head.
Practicing the Front Headlock, to Seated Kata Gatame, to Back Control, to Prone Kata Gatame as a drill, is likely to pay significant dividends for us.
Getting the choke/strangle from Prone Kata Gatame
He may tap to choking pressure right here, if you have a good Kata Gatame locked in. If not, bring your R foot up under your L so both feet are pointing out to the R. Then step your L foot up further in the direction of your heads, so you are at an angle to him.
You should now be in a position to drive him up about 45 degrees on his side. “Stir the Pot” (below) to loosen and then tighten the noose. drop back down to kata gatame, try and “decapitate” him with your L bicep, Stay prone but walk your feet anticlockwise in a circle, driving your head into his, increasing the strangling/decapitation pressure. The last thing is to try and drive your L shoulder to the mat.
You can also apply the more conventional head and arm choke after driving him up on his side, as demonstrated in the following videos.
“Stirring the Pot”
You will find yourself in situations where you have tightened the noose as much as possible, but friction, and body position and gravity, amy make this impossible. To get the noose tighter, you have loosen it, adjust, and then tighten it again. Often it appears and feels like you are loosening the noose, moving yorr arms in a circular fashion to adjust, and then tightening it back up again, tighter still, this “stirring the pot”. John demonstrates this briefly in the “Collar pull back takes to Kata Gatame” video above.
The Ground is your Ally
In a couple of these positions and finishes, it is the mat itself that stops the resistance to the choke. We should explore the idea that we can use the mat to our advantage to restrict our opponent’s movements and aid our own success in wrestling.
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