Chris Colquitt from the Atama BJJ Forum on mma.tv created a tutorial for a great technique. I helped him with the image hosting and he was generous enough to let me repost his tutorial. Here it is:

This is one of my favorite chokes. I picked it up from Jorge Jimenez, a Pedro Sauer blackbelt. Let me know what you think.

I’m being nice to my partner by not applying a lot of pressure since we had to hold poses for a second or three for the camera to get a good picture. I thought it a good idea not to make him pass out.

EZ1

To start, you need to grab the end of your lapel near the tip.

EZ2

Next, underhook his head with your left hand and drop your right elbow inside the lapel so it wraps over your arm. It takes a little getting used to to do this.

EZ3

Now feed that lapel to your left hand and your right will slip UNDER the lapel.

EZ4

Now the fun part. Your right hand comes up and around the lapel, across his throat and under your left arm. I prefer going under, I know some people will just grab the sleeve and apply pressure. Pull with the left hand, push with the right. His neck should be stuck in a triangle that is getting smaller and smaller.

EZ5

For a really mean finish, put a leg up and use it to brace yourself as you apply the pressure.

Let me know what you guys think.


I’ve seen people complain that moves that use the lapels like this are “too complicated”, but I disagree. I’ve gotten a lot of the “tricky” lapel stuff to work on guys my level and slightly better. I’ve seen Marcio Feitosa and Carlos Gracie both teach moves with wrapping lapel grips, ranging from setting up armbars from guard to maintaining spider guard. Last year, a visiting brown belt did a ton of moves where he’d wrap the lapels around, ranging from ways to keep them from escaping the turtle to playing open guard. These lapel grips were getting really popular for a while.

Here are a couple more “skirt moves” from the famous Bill Jones:


Two more by Andreh:

Jacare has used this lapel choke successfully in competition.

And the gi brabo choke by Marcio Feitosa, which is a grip you can also do from guard.

So again, lapel “tricks” like this aren’t too strange or hard to make work. You just need to practice them like any other move.