Last week we looked at two variation of the rear naked choke. This week we're going to take a look at another type of choke, the guillotine choke. I want to break down this submission because this is the move Frank Mir used to render Cheick Kongo unconscious on Saturday night at UFC 107. The guillotine choke is one which is applied to the front of your opponent unlike a rear naked choke which is applied from the back position. When applying the guillotine choke your arms encircle your opponents neck in similar way to a guillotine. A guillotine can be applied as either an air choke, cutting off your opponents trachea, or a blood choke cutting off your opponent carotid artery and the blood flow to the brain, or some combination of the two.
This week we have two video examples. The first is a how-to from Submissions 101 and the second is video of Alistair Overeem submitting James Thompson via guillotine choke form DREAM 12.
In the Submissions 101 video they start by showing how to wrapping the left arm around the opponents neck so that the left thumb is facing up and your opponents head is under your left armpit (0:20). The next step is to make a grip by putting your right hand on top of your left hand (0:24). By putting your right hand on top of your left in this way you can use that as leverage to pull your left forearm into your opponents neck. From this position they give 2 options for finishing the move. The first is to stay in the upright position, either on you knees or feet, and lean back pulling your forearm into their neck. The other option is to fall back and wrap your opponent up in your guard (0:51). This is a good way to control your opponent and at the same time making the choke tighter by extending your legs. At UFC 107 Mir was only able to get Kongo in half guard, wrapping up one of his legs. He was able to control Kongo with half guard but wasn't able to gain the same leverage that he would have had if he had Kongo in full guard. But that doesn't really matter because he had no problem putting Kongo to sleep. The guillotine that Mir applied to Kongo was a combination of a wind and blood choke.
Now let's take a look at the Alistair Overeem and James Thompson fight. This video start with some build up for the fight and unless you speak Japanese you'll want to skip to about the 3 minute mark when the fight starts. The fight begins and Thompson is pressing the action. Thompson shoots in for a take down and Overeem responds with a flying knee (3:30). The knee misses and Thompson attempts a single legs take down and Overeem immediately wraps his right arm around Thompson's head and makes his hand over hand grip (3:36). Thompson continues to try for the take down lifting Overeem up (3:41). At that point that probably only made the choke tighter around his own neck. Thompson lets go of the single leg and and tries to spin out of the choke, Overeem leans back and squeezes the choke even tighter. From the looks of it it appears to be more of a tracheal choke than a blood choke which would be extremely uncomfortable for Thompson. Thompson realizes he has no way out and taps out (3:47).
Those are three different variations of the guillotine choke, from full guard, half guard, and standing. This is an excellent submissions commonly used in MMA today and as Overeem demonstrated this move is an excellent defense for single or double leg take down. Next week we'll continue to look at and break down some more popular MMA and BJJ submissions. Be sure to comment below if you have any questions or suggestions for next week.
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Henry Dziekan is a new MMATorch Specialist who will provide insight into how effective and popular MMA submission holds work with video clips accompanying his explanations.
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