More guillotines and more Gracies

I'm on backup on-call duty this week, so I can't train again because I still need to be able to respond to work issues within about 10-15 minutes (if the primary on-call guy's phone dies or something I get the call). That and my finger is still splinted and mending. Next week I'll be back in the gym for conditioning and technique, but sparring will probably have to wait another two weeks. I really don't feel like re-injuring this stupid finger 90% of the way to healed. Especially since I want to move to primarily kickboxing for a little while and I can't make a fist right now.

So the guillotine. Last week I talked about Cesar Gracie's guillotine tips that help you apply it correctly. This week I want to examine the defense for the standing guillotine as demonstrated by (I think) Rener and Ryron Gracie over at the Gracie Academy in Torrance, CA.

Getting caught in a standing guillotine is pretty dangerous if you don't know what you're doing. Most people don't, and they'll in fact almost put themselves into a standing guillotine if you punch them a couple of times. Typically this comes via a football tackle attempt, I've seen it at parties and it's amusing. At any rate the point is the guillotine is so simple that someone might accidentally catch you with it. So, rather than get choked by some noob, try the Gracie techniques below.

The first thing pretty much everyone always advises in guillotine defense is to hook your hand on the wrist that's choking you (you'll know which one as it's handily attached to your throat) and pull. Obviously this is geared toward giving you room to breathe, but alone it's just a stalling technique to buy you time to get out. Staying there holding the wrist is lame, and you might end up getting choked anyway.

Since you're standing up, assuming you opponent is using his right arm to choke you, after you grab his right wrist with your left hand and start pulling, reach over his left shoulder with your right hand. If there's a gi or shirt grab it. Now move around to his left. This last part is another standard guillotine defense - move your body to the side opposite the choke. If my head is stuck under some dude's right armpit I want my hips to be on his left. As the Gracie brothers point out in the video, trying to go the wrong direction results in a NASTY neck crank.

So you've got a hand on his wrist, a hand over his shoulder, and you've walked around to his left. Great, now bang on the back of his knee to buckle him and bring him down, making sure to fall to his side. If you can't buckle him down, use your heel to smack the back of his leg near the ankle to start a takedown.

But how do you avoid the closed guard on the way down? The short answer is any way possible. That's not snide, it's an indication that a properly-applied guillotine couple with a closed guard is something to be feared. If you can get your hips past his then the guillotine is pretty much over and you're safe. The long answer in this case is to put your left hand on his inner right thigh, and your right hand on his outer left thigh as you're going down. This means exposing your neck on the way down, but it's critical to not get caught in the closed guard (and being choked out in half a second probably isn't going to happen). Once your hands are in place shove the legs to the side and jump to the other.

In the video Rener (I think) actually does almost a flip with his head still in the guillotine, but he's just twisting his head a little. I've done this before and there's very little strain. Even if you don't get completely clear, ending up in half-guard is about 10x better than landing in full guard, where you are almost guaranteed to get stretched out, cranked and choked.