Totally Awesome Choke Sweep

**Aesopian** · Posted On: 10/02/2006 10:02pm

You have Trog, one of my training partner, to thank for this next one. He's much better at this move than I am so I had him demonstrate it. This setup for the bow-and-arrow choke gives you an idea of its versatility and how it can be taken from all over the place. Later on I may show it from mount and side control, but by now I hope you've got the basics of it down and can figure those out for yourself.

You should be good with the basic pendulum sweep before working on this move. It is basically that sweep with the addition of a choking grip, but the most important aspects of this move are how you move your hips and legs, which will come from being proficient with the standard pendulum.

From closed guard, cross grip the sleeve.

Reach under their arm and grab your wrist, creating a figure-four grip.

You can see the grip more clearly from this angle.

Bench press your arm, stripping their grip.

Cross the arm and shove it to the floor as you sit up and grab the belt. Get your chest tight to their shoulder so they can't uncross their arm.

Reach around the head and grab the opposite collar.

Reach inside the far knee and pull your head to it.

Open your guard and swing your legs out. Your hips need to be loose and come out from under them; staying tight will just make the sweep harder. Rotate on your upper back.

Your right leg swings out to take them off balance, then you lift them with your left leg, then lift their knee, and all of this while pulling on the choke.

From this angle, you can see how he is using his legs and his grip on the knee to sweep me. Also notice how he has trapped my arm across his chest so I can't free it.

Come on top to finish the sweep. You can't see from this angle, but he has folded his right leg before I could land on it, as in the basic pendulum sweep.

Bring your left foot up and fold it towards their head. Slide your right knee up by their head.

Throw your right leg over their shoulder and trap their arm with your legs. Finish by grabbing the near knee and falling back, arching your back and pulling with your arm.

Enjoy.

**Shuma-Gorath** · Posted On: 10/02/2006 10:08pm

Holy **** I am doing this for the entire class tomorrow.

**chaosexmachina** · Posted On: 10/02/2006 11:43pm

This looks cool. BTW, post more no-gi or I'll explode your colon.

**Shuma-Gorath** · Posted On: 10/02/2006 11:51pm

Originally Posted by chaosexmachina

This looks cool. BTW, post more no-gi or I'll explode your colon.

I am currently drafting a gi to no-gi conversion chart. Until then use this handy formula: PV = nRT

**chaosexmachina** · Posted On: 10/03/2006 12:37am

Originally Posted by Shuma-Gorath

I am currently drafting a gi to no-gi conversion chart. Until then use this handy formula: PV = nRT

Are you trying to confuse me? Because I'm already confused as to how you and Aeso can BOTH be the best poster ever... I bet you're the same person!!

**Samfoo** · Posted On: 10/03/2006 12:43am

I love that choke position from guard. I use it quite often. One of the other fun things you can do is this:

Once you have a grip on his collar from guard like that, try to finish the choke from there. He probably won't let you and the most common way to defend is to push your elbow over his head. As he reaches up to do the he leave his other (trapped) arm undefended. Just transition to an armbar. Because he's so off balance, he'll likely go on his back and you even get a sweep to boot ;-)

(I'd take pictures, but I'm a cheap ass and won't buy a digital camera.)

**OldDog53** · Posted On: 10/03/2006 10:59am

What else do you have hidden away in your archives - from the beard its evident you've been taking shots like this for a while - your other series are clean-shaven.:badgrin:

I searched this forum for Stephan Kesting and came up with a lot of interesting old posts (from the Aeso, natch) - and decided to order Kesting's butterfly guard dvd.

I'd rather be able to pull regular guard on the guy at class who's been rushing me and bowling me over than trying the more "advanced" buttefly, but defending from butterfly guard might be a good first step - although I'll have to avoid ending up on my back, since butterfly guard only seems to work well sitting up, but even then I'd rather have my knees and elbows in between us than giving up side mount as easily as I am. But at least moving into butterfly SHOULD be easier than a. trying to bowl him over or b. trying to throw both legs around him. (Since I figure I'm going to spend the rest of the year in inferior positions, I also ordered Gutavo Machado's Escapes DVD, which apparently covers escapes from inferior positions as well as escapes from submissions; whoever came up with "position before submission" should have said "escape, position, submission" at least for us lighter guys).

At least Kesting's butterfly guard dvd will give me something to try out.

So far my only "success" (that warm fuzzy feeling inside) has been to frustrate a more advanced white belt by just maintaining good posture in guard and pushing down on his stomach with my hands on his belt or lapels. It's amazing how effective this was against chokes and sweeps (with him!). Of course this just stalemated us since I couldn't do anything besides maintain posture and spoil his game, I haven't drilled passing enough to have a shot at that. (BTW, how come most of the passing I see at school right now is based on standing up and shaking them off? I was taught to pass from the knees, but it's so hard, and no one seems to actually do it. Maybe standing up is easier?)

Of course if my classmate sees this thread I'm royally f**ked since these moves are a beautiful, simple response to my efforts to posture up and play defense.

**OldDog53** · Posted On: 10/03/2006 11:02am

Just an fyi. The school I am attending only opened about a year or year and a half ago, so apart from some relocated blues and above, most students are pretty new (although I believe a couple of home-growns white belts did recently get promoted). [Edited to correct spelling.]

**Zapruder** · Posted On: 10/03/2006 11:16am

I just wanted to add a quick change of ending on this move. I have found that when I finish this way there are more escapes left to my opponent. I preffer, starting from pic 11. to retract my leg across the belly(left in this case) and use my (right) knee as a fulcrum. So after I retract left leg I will move my right shin from shoulder blade to hip(so in this ex my right ankle would be close to his right hip and my right knee would be close to his left shoulder blade) I am still grabbing the close knee and I just bridge to finish. If I am unclear, as it is early for me, just ask and I will clarify.