MMA and me; day 267

Gi chokes are so much fun!!! We worked on several different ones, and I gotta say, I really dig jiu jitsu in the gi. First, we drilled the whizzer choke. A whizzer is a defensive move in wrestling when someone attempts a take down on you. You over hook their outside arm, and sprawl out. Well that is the very basic, simplified version at least. For the choke, from side control, our opponent will try to under hook your arm with their far side arm. As they do, over hook their arm, and reach for the opposite side lapel, but don't try to grab it too deep, like you usually do with lapel chokes. From here, with your other hand, reach across their neck, and grab as far behind their far side shoulder as you can, while keeping tight pressure on the far side of their neck, and flatten them to their back. From here it's a simple matter of pulling the lapel, and leaning with your forearm for the tap.

Next was the belt grab, which is one we have worked with before. With your opponent in your guard, make an attempt to over hook one of the arms, and while doing so, grab a semi deep grip on the far side lapel. Next, work a little hip bump, like you might think about going for a kimura, and hopefully they will post an arm to keep from falling over. If not, it's not the end of the world. So you get on the hip opposite from the side of the lapel you grabbed, open your guard just enough to reach over their back, and grab their belt. Close your guard back up, nice and tight, keeping the arm across their back bent, and keeping the back of their neck in tight to your arm pit as much as possible. From here you want to pull the lapel towards the arm holding it, pull their belt towards the arm holding it, and twist with your hips away from the belt grabbing arm, while compressing with your legs. It is a very similar motion to a guillotine choke.

Lastly we worked on the Watts choke. This is just a super sneaky, incredibly basic, but effective submission. From having your opponent in your guard, grab a baseball grip on either side of the neck. The baseball grip is thumb in on the left, back of the hand facing the ceiling, four fingers in on the right, back of the hand facing the mat. If you could touch your hands together, it would look like the grip you use to hold a baseball bat. From here, and though it sounds counter intuitive, you let them pass your guard (over your left leg for the grip described), and start walking around to your left, until you can flatten to your belly. You want to stay on the bottom, and keep that grip tight, and you will get the tap. As you walk around  and then belly down, you keep tightening, and tightening the choke. It's simple, and very effective.

There was one more that we worked on, but I had some trouble with it, and I am hoping to go back over it tonight. I can't wait to do more work with the gi, it is a ton of fun!!