Obligatory Anaconda Choke Thread

[Aesopian]

I have to get this out of the way before some shitnoob asks about it.

Here's the best anaconda instructional online today. Stephan Kesting put it on his site as promo for his new MMA series with Denis Kang (which I hear is pretty good):

http://www.grapplearts.com/My-Mixed-...s-Download.htm

That should answer pretty much every question about it ever.

On the other side of the move, here is the only anaconda-specific escape I've ever found. It comes to us from Strong Machine (may he live forever):

"Incidently this is an extremely easy choke to defend. There is nothing keeping you from reaching your arm trapped inside (we'll say the right arm) down toward your legs as your left knee comes up near your face. Now you are grabbing your own hamstring and you can mulekick your leg straight. The powerful ass muscle contraction overpowers even a much stronger guy's upperbody, stretching your own deltoid inches from your neck. I've never had this escape work anything less than perfectly even on completely locked in anacondas."

I also wrote this for a friend's blog where he was talking about the anaconda and brabo chokes:

After the last UFC and Randy's win with an anaconda, I've heard from quite a few people that they are learning this choke in class. This also happened when Minotauro won two Pride matches with it.

For some reason the anaconda and the brabo are prone to these cycles of popularity. Someone will win a high level event with one, then it will sweep general grappling population, then fade away.

I think this is how the brabo got so many names. It was called the "brabo" when Leozinho was winning with it. Then Shaolin got a string of wins with it, earning it his name. Now D'Arce, a Renzo Gracie black belt, has become the latest namesake for this choke.

I hope you enjoyed this History Minute.

[Stick]

I've liked this choke from the first day I saw it.

Though on some people (people of the large shoulders) the choke itself doesn't work out for me. But from the roll out, and walking the choke around, if you keep at it you can- or at least I do- often just sort of walk into mount.

[supercrap]

I had a lot of success with this choke. (In class anyway.)

thanks for highlighting the escape, I'll have to try it.

My shooto instructor showed me a variation which I have, basically, forgotten, but I remember that instead of hooking your arm all the way around so that your bicep is pressed against the artery, he only put the blade of the forearm against the neck and then clasped his hands together underneath the opponent's shoulder. It became more of a neck crank than a choke. Hmm, damn I hate explaining grappling on the interweb.

Carry on.