Funny. I was just thinking about offense from rear mount (“Bad from the Back”) and today I surf over to the Jiu Jitsu Gear Forum and find an excellent tutorial/primer on the rear naked choke by Stephan Kesting of Grapple Arts.
Kesting's RNC Tutorial
In fact, it is so good that I might actually embed it.
A couple of highlights before typing in some specific directions: for one, Kesting makes it clear that you can be effective from the back even if you don’t have both hooks (or even any hooks in). Insofar as maintaining hooks has been very hard for me, that was good to hear. Eddie Bravo has emphasized that the most important aspect of back control isn’t the hooks, it’s the over/under grip. Kesting seems to support that take.
Kesting doesn’t mention it. But it is clear from the video that another key is that the over arm, the choking arm, should be as close to the neck as possible. You want to minimize the space—both in terms of getting into the choke position quickly as well as making the choke as efficient as possible.
Grips. Kesting gives two options. The first is to grab the wrist of the overhook/choke arm with the underhook/lock arm. By doing this, you make it harder for the guy to control your choking arm by grabbing your wrist—because you’re already grabbing it. The second option is to a Gable grip (palm to palm) with the overhook/choke arm on top. Both of these options are effective because you don’t have to turn the wrist on the choking arm to tighten the choke. You are already in good position.
Tiger Claw. Kesting calls this move the tiger claw, it’s a detail for bringing the choke arm across the neck. What you want to do is reach around the neck and behind the guy’s shoulder to grab that small ridge of bone “by the scapula.” You don’t want to rely on bicep strength. So reach for the ridge and hang on.
Clamp. Once you’ve reached the ridge, you want to reclamp your grip. You’re going back to the palm-to-palm Gable grip here, with the choking arm palm facing out and the lock arm palm facing in. Doing this will give you incredible leverage in terms of tightening the choke, by using the lock arm as a sort of crank to help walk the choking arm tighter and tighter in. You drop the elbow of the locking arm down against his spine, making it hard for the guy to pull your choking arm away from his neck.
Other details: The Side Punch is one good way to fight off an attempt to control your choking arm. Essentially, the side punch just means to swing the shoulder of your choking arm into his neck, re-centering your elbow in front of his face. The Creep is another technique whereby you use the cranking effect of your locking arm to “walk” the choke tighter by a few inches.
One series that Kesting says he always has to do is the: Tiger Claw, Palm Strike, Clamp series. This is another way to fight off an attack on your choking arm. You reach for the ridge again. Then palm strike his hands off of your choking arm (often he’ll be trying to defend with both hands). Then re-establish the Clamp. You might have to do this a few times before you’ve got the choke in deep enough to submit the guy.
Finishing it: Kesting warns against shooting your locking arm forward in front of the guy and then waving it around before reaching back behind the head. As he puts it: you can get armbarred that way and even if it isn’t easy, it’s a pretty embarrassing way to lose a fight. What you want to do instead is what he calls “spearhand” where you just flip your wrist over from the Clamp and reach behind the top part of the neck or the lower part of the head. You don’t want to reach too high up on the head because that makes it too easy for the guy to reach up and pull your hand off. So keep it low.
Another instance where you might make the mistake of extending the arm is when you are doing the Tiger Claw/Palm Strike/Clamp series and leave your arm hanging out there during the Palm Strike.
The choke: Once you’ve got the Clamp in place: squeeze down, in, and up.
There are a few other excellent tidbits. One really nice one is head positioning. Since a popular way to escape the RNC is to put your head on the mat, then your shoulders and then elbow escape out, one way you can block this escape is to put your head between his head and the mat.
Also, you want to drive the guy toward the side of your overhook/choking arm. You want your bicep to be like a pillow (as you put him to sleep!)
Good stuff. Like I said, the choke from rear mount is as much a staple of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu as the guard—arguably more so. It’s been the absolute weakest part of my game (along with the guard), so anything I can do to improve my technique is definitely something to review and practice.
