This one's for all you gi choke experts out there. OK, it's for anyone
out there who's better at collar chokes than I am. Which is pretty much
everyone.
OK, so I understand the mechanics of the most basic chokes (eg palm-
up palm-up and palm-up palm-down gripping at the shoulder).
My problem is doesn't turtling your neck hide your arteries so that it's
nearly impossible to choke you? I keep getting my hands in good
position to do the chokes and then the guy simply turtles his neck and
suddenly my wrists/forearm bones dont have access to the sides of his
neck at all...
...obviously this cannot be a complete defense to gi chokes since if it
was they would never be caught at higher levels...what am i missing?
Always attack in sequence. If you are just looking for one more, it will be apparent and easier for your opponent to defend. If he is using his hands to defend his neck, he is making it easier for you to attack the arm - when he switches to defending the arm, go back for the neck.
Additionally, make sure your wrist is "deep" enough in his collar where your thumb is behind his neck on the first grip. You never want to be choking with the gi fabric, you always want the pressure to be with the blade of your wrist.
Another detail is on the second grip (I am using the cross collar chike from the mount in the example BTW)-when you bring your arm across to attack the opposite side of the neck, start by bringing your elbow into the space first. You drag the elbow and forearm across the side of the neck opening up a little more space by the time you get to the wrist. Grab deep behind the neck and keeping in mind that your wrists are doing the choking, try to have your hand in contact with his neck.
The final detail that may help is when you pull in for the choke, do not pull your elbows out, you want to pull them in and down to your sides. A friend gave me a great analogy that has helped my collar chokes - when you wring out a towel, you dont have your arms extended out in front of you, you pull the towel in to your body to get the necessary torque. THe same goes for opening a jar that is hard to open. Pull your opponent in with your elbows to get maximum torque and leverage on the choke. Hope these details help, I am interested to hear more things that will help me, too.
I have always been a proponent of using a frame to lift his chin up. But last year I had a Bjj Black belt tell me" If he drops his chin man, just make a the pressure!"LOL
your hands should almost be touching deep in the collar,then rotate your hands so you can see your palms,if you need to get the hands deeper ,pull up ,and then shoot the hands deeper