Choked out.

**Grey184** · Posted On: 10/26/2011 10:01pm

Well, the title doesn't really describe what I wanted to ask about, but...

Was drilling today, working on a choke sub, my partner got a bit happy with it instead of slowly putting on the pressure, and really laid into it. Before I could even think to tap, I heard or rather felt a pop. Maybe more of a crunch in and around my throat area. Was uncomfortable, but not really painful, and of course I tapped. I finished class, and went home to get some sleep, as I'm on night shift this week.

I wake up, and I've got a pain that I can only describe as being very similar to strep throat, or the beginnings of.

This happened once before when I was into Shori-ryu years and years ago. We did hard sparring after class hours, and I caught a kick to the throat. The delayed pain (several hours later) felt identical to this. I'm not particularly worried about it, as when it happened once before it went away.

Just curious what it might be. Bruised something or other, strained what not? I figured amongst you grapplers out there, this isn't uncommon, and some of you prob went to the Doc about it, and know what it might be.

Other than that. Prob broke my little toe today, guess I'll be taping that up. It's not misshapen or anything, just a bit swollen and pretty bruised.

Pain in my side feels like running/jogging cramps from not breathing correctly, and Gi burn on my cheek bone.

However

Today is the first day that I was able to roll without gassing after a minute and a half, and with only the breaks in between, roll all 4 rounds. Oh I tapped a bunch (lots of blues and purps today), but I hung in there, and wasn't completely demolished after class.

Anyway, the main thing was the choke issue (above). The rest was just whining,

**Lu Tze** · Posted On: 10/26/2011 11:02pm

The crunching sound is a bit worrying, but there's a lot of cartilage in that area... and you don't appear to be dead yet, so yeah it's probably just bruising. It's not entirely uncommon to get a sore throat after working a lot of chokes, especially if someone is "overzealous".

If you're worried, a medical professional is much better qualified than some dickwad on the internet (i.e. me) though.

As an aside, chokes really shouldn't be used to directly attack the throat (strangle/choke nomenclature aside), as it's both dangerous and inefficient. Rather they should attack the sides of the neck.

Has your instructor explained the differences between an air choke and a blood choke (strangle) yet?

**Grey184** · Posted On: 10/26/2011 11:30pm

Not sure which was intended, as it certainly felt like both blood and breath were affected. Elbow and Gi. Partner is turtled, you reach across his throat with left hand/arm (if on left side), grab opposite (right side) collar, start to pull across and apply pressure, then slide your bent elbow down along the left side of his neck completing the sub.

Not sure if I was turned wrong, or my partner's positioning was askew, or he simply went too hard and too fast during drills. I'm not completely unfamiliar with them, only in the BJJ and competition arena. The basic technique/terminology stuff is generally gone over during the BJJ 101 class held before the regular class.

My teacher/coach/sensei or whatever the Brazilians (we are somewhat informal) call it doesn't really name the different techniques other than to call the different techniques a pass, defense, escape, sub, etc, etc. Not that I've noticed anyway. I've only been to 6 classes over the past couple of weeks though.

I'm not particularly worried really. Never had any trouble breathing. Just the step throat type soreness. Which was kinda delayed by a few hours actually.

**gregaquaman** · Posted On: 10/27/2011 8:27am

I have had the throat thing. Feels like you get a cold after.Informaly I was told it was the lining in the throat having an issue.

As an aside. I was taught the throat crush rear naked from a BTT guy once. i was suprised myself and talked to him about it. Wasn't a mistake in comunication he just prefered that one.

Admitedly I still do the vascular choke.

***WhiteShark*** · Posted On: 10/27/2011 8:41am

Unless the outside of your throat is all purple and bruised you are fine. The only thing you can break in that area is your hyoid. You can tear cartilage but you'd be in much worse shape and have the bruising.

**money** · Posted On: 10/27/2011 10:57am

If it hasn't cleared up after a week or two, might be a good idea to have a professional look at it.

I got hit in the throat back in August and I had a sore throat/hoarse voice for a week afterwards. I had my doctor check it out and she said as long as I wasn't having breathing issues just to give it some time to heal. Of course the next day it started getting better.

**Grey184** · Posted On: 10/27/2011 11:11am

Ok cool. Yeah it's starting to subside a bit already. I just got out of bed, and it's not quite as sharp as it was all night last night. No bruising, never had difficulty breathing. Except of course when I was being choked. lol!

**tinwhistler** · Posted On: 10/28/2011 7:51pm

Originally Posted by gregaquaman

I have had the throat thing. Feels like you get a cold after.Informaly I was told it was the lining in the throat having an issue.

As an aside. I was taught the throat crush rear naked from a BTT guy once. i was suprised myself and talked to him about it. Wasn't a mistake in comunication he just prefered that one.

Admitedly I still do the vascular choke.

The rear naked choke I learned in kung fu class (many years ago) was of the forearm bone against the throat crush type.

I had a guy really lay one on me one time, and I had a similar experience. My throat was raw for days, like strep throat or something similar.

***jnp*** · Posted On: 10/28/2011 10:30pm

Bruising like this happens occasionally when you train submission grappling. As long as it doesn't happen on a regular basis, and provided you can breath and swallow afterward, it's typically just tracheal bruising.

As previously stated, damage to the Hyoid bone is different.

Here's link to an article I found that briefly discusses damage to the Hyoid bone during strangulation: http://www.markwynn.com/dv/Death%20b...n%20Hawley.pdf

Note the part in bold.

Ultimately, a medical opinion of strangulation as the mechanism of neck injury will be based on a complete examination of the patient’s neck, either at autopsy or by radiography, to detect superficial and deep injuries fitting a pattern that supports the diagnosis. A common cited injury is fracture of the hyoid bone, actually only found in a minority (no more than one third) of all fatal strangulations.[ 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27] One must keep in mind that the seriousness of the internal injury may take a few
hours to be appreciated, and delayed death has been reported.[28, 29

**elipson** · Posted On: 11/01/2011 2:11am

I was choked last year by a Severn style forearm choke.

I was on the bottom of half guard, i passed his arms and went for a knee compression (I think most ppl on this thread know what i mean). My opponent managed to get one arm around my neck and start applying to choke. While not being anywhere near a blood choke, it was directly across my throat. I HATE tapping to pain only submissions, and I felt close to getting the compression, so I refused to tap for what must have been at least a minute. Eventually it hurt so much i had to tap. My throat hurt for weeks afterwards.

My voice can no longer reach the same notes it could before. It has destroyed my ability to sing in the shower or the car (This is so very depressing!). I also can't shout a good WOOOO! at sporting events either, as my voice cracks and there is no noise at all.

It's bloody wierd and annoying, but a Judo friend of mine just told me he has the same thing.

Just adding some food for discussion.