I remember somebody asking Rodrigo about submissions, I don't remember the specific question, but Rodrigo's answer was something along the lines of "the choke is the most efficient submission" ...
And I remember somewhere somebody writing of Rickson Gracie that his favorite finishing technique was the choke ...
Among the many memes to come out of the 2007 Mundials is the surprising (to many) idea that top jiu jitsu fighters finish fights with chokes.
I'm a huge fan of chokes. I think that the mata leao is the quintessential finishing technique in all of combat sports, all of martial arts. And I'm thrilled to have gotten my first few clean guillotine submission in training over the past few weeks.
But the thing they say about collar chokes is that they are "easy to learn, but difficult to master." If you are going to train in the gi, then you've got to become proficient--hell, expert--at collar chokes. There's simply no reason not to. It is the biggest difference between gi and no gi grappling, and the guy who is good at controling the collar has a tremendous advantage over the guy who is an excellent "grappler", but not sufficiently talented in the gi.
The first book in my fantasy trilogy of Gracie Barra Big Books (TM) is the Gracie Barra Big Book of Chokes. Nothing but chokes: the philosophy of chokes as a finishing hold, the biology of blood chokes versus air chokes, what the attacker needs to do, what the defender needs to do, and then choke after choke after choke ... Guillotines, triangles, brabos, katagatames, baseball chokes, cross collar chokes, clock chokes, mata leao, Frankenstein chokes ... just a sick compendium of effective gi and no gi chokes and strangles with set-up moves and lockflows.
Until then, here's a cross collar choke refresher ... "Easy to learn, but difficult to master" ...
