Category: Half Guard Top Submission

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How To Do a High Elbow Guillotine in BJJ

The guillotine choke is an incredibly powerful choke that is both easy to do and hard to escape, making it one of the most popular choke submissions in BJJ, MMA, and real world street fighting. The high elbow guillotine is one of the many different guillotine variations for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu that is available when you have access to your opponent’s head and neck but have not secured control of their arm. For variations with the arm secured, see the arm in guillotine or D’Arce choke.

This great video by John Danaher has a lot of details for getting the guillotine from half guard, but the high elbow guillotine can be reached from several positions.

Start: headlock position with opponent’s neck exposed

Step 1: Grip opponent’s chin with strangle hand (non-high elbow side hand) over their head and neck

Step 2: Slide support hand in between opponent’s shoulder and head alongside their neck and grip your strangle hand with your support hand palm on the back of your strangle hand

Step 3: Push your strangle side shoulder forward into your opponent’s creating space for the guillotine submission

Step 4: Bring your support side elbow back to your body to prevent opponent from securing control over it while shifting your head over toward strangle side

Step 5: Drag both hand up and to support side inside opponent’s clavicle, then turn support side elbow forward and onto opponent’s back

Step 6: Secure opponent’s body and rotate towards strangle side, raising support side elbow towards sky

End: Submission via guillotine

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How To Do a D’Arce Choke in BJJ

The D’Arce choke or inverted arm triangle choke is named after American grappler Joe Darce, who made the choke famous in the early 2000’s thanks to its brutal and efficient effectiveness. 

The D’Arce choke, which like the arm triangle involves a figure four of your arms around your opponent’s neck and one of their arms, is a great submission from a common position in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. The D’Arce choke is a great addition to any BJJ practitioner’s arsenal since it is simple and effective and is a great answer to a takedown attempt. Even if you are unable to finish the D’Arce choke, the position allows you to stop your opponent’s takedown, allows you to pour your weight onto them and force them to turtle, and threatens them enough that they may hesitate or even decide not to attempt a takedown. 

Not just limited to a single position, the D’Arce choke is effective from half-guard top, side control, mount, turtle, or even knee-on-belly. It is a truly utilitarian submission.

Here is great teacher Stephan Kesting’s guide to landing the D’Arce choke submission from half guard top.

Start: Half guard top

Step 1: Get whizzer overhook on far-side arm

Step 2: Reach arm with whizzer overhook through until hand reaches past opponent’s neck

Step 3: Hold behind opponent’s head with both hands and clinch their head forward and in towards you

Step 4: Keeping opponent’s head clinched, figure four arms and reach near-side hand towards far-side shoulder

Step 5: Drive weight forward towards opponent

Finish: Submission by D’Arce Choke