Chapter 42 – The Deadly Dungeonous Defense against the Prolific Primordial Rear Naked Choke !
Thank you for the kind words on our column on the rear naked choke. We are glad it was able to help. Yes of course we will respond to your several requests and allocate this Sunday, for a thorough defensive breakdown on the rear naked choke. At the end of the day, Jiu-Jitsu is a game of math, 0’s and 1’s, chess, and strategies. In most cases for someone to accomplish a successful rear naked choke they must do the following five things in a particular order.
1. First and foremost while you are both engaged in the normal ebb and flow of your jiu-jitsu match, your opponent must “bust a move on you” (literally leaving your proverbial jock strap on the matt) and angle to your back. This maneuver would be akin to two fighter pilots, jockeying for position and instantly one busts the same said maneuver and is able to tack in on an angle and shoot the pilot. In the world of jiu-jitsu just getting to the man’s back is akin to running to the 1 yard line.
2. Once your opponent has gotten your back, the next thing that must happen is he must insert his hooks. Trying to choke someone out from the rear, without inserting your hooks, will be like trying to ride a horse by hanging on to it’s neck, as opposed to getting in the saddle. In order to defend the hooks, we must feel the pressure of our elbows touching our hip bone. This feeling should be visceral. In a similar way to the boxer feeling the glove nestled on his cheek. Therefore to a blackbelt in Jiu-Jitsu, this sort of awareness and form is automatic.
3. If we screw up and the opponent gets our back, and then we screw up again and the opponent gets their hooks in, the third thing that he must accomplish is to start the neck choke with the first arm. This arm must literally wrap all of the way around your neck. In order for us to prevent this from happening, we simply cover our neck. If we cover our neck the way a boxer covers for punches, their will still be a “gap” for the opponent to snake in. Therefore to prevent this we cross our arms in an “X” position, tightly to our chest and our chin is now going to be snuggled into the “V” position. This can be accomplished while simultaneously touching our elbows to our hips.
4. If the opponent takes our back, if the opponent gets in a hook, and if the opponent gets in the first arm, 95 out of a 100 times the opponent is not big enough or strong enough to choke you out. Just for shits and grins, have your buddy take your back, set in the hooks, take your neck and start to choke you. However before you do this make sure you do one thing, twist your neck away towards his fingers, as if your opponent is literally pointing the correct direction to defend. Another way to look at it… never go into his elbow, never twist your head into the crotch of his elbow. So provided you do what I have always told you to do, and you don’t do what I told you to never do, you should find out that this fella is going to squeeze and squeeze but you still have oxygen !
5. Now we are up to the final stage just before the opponent chokes us out. This means he has our back, he has the hook in, he has one arm in/and you have defended this one arm properly by twisting your head towards his fingers, and finally the opponent is about to secure his second hand. All you do is raise your arm straight up in the air, when you do this the side of your face and your arm should be touching. This essentially is your block against his second hand. When this occurs, reach up with both of your hands and pull his second arm into your armpit, by wrapping his arm, now fall on that same side, you are essentially trapping his hand with all of your body weight. When this occurs your final move is to spin into his centerline. Think Wing-Chun. Match chest to chest ! Match centerline to centerline ! Provided that you spin the proper direction you should end up in his guard.
In closing, once again… If we look at Jiu-Jitsu like a methodical Chess game, full of basic positions, with basic counters, this tends to take the “emotion” out of the fight. In other words the fear can be taken out of the fight. Simply do what the next move requires. You will be successful at defending the attack, then throw in a little asymmetrical violence and call it a KinaMu-Day !
Please check the Table of Contents for links to other chapters of this Online Book.
