Triangle Choke From Open Guard by Matheus Gabriel

As you are starting to develop your Jiu Jitsu game a natural progression is to progress from the traditional closed guard that we all learned when we started out to another form of guard.  I think there are two fairly natural and rather common routes people go from here. Typically, I think we see most everyone transition to a half guard game, or an open guard game from here.  To be clear, there is nothing wrong with continuing to play closed guard. There are a lot of very talent athletes that have a devastating closed guard game. The point is that in order to be well rounded we must learn other guards and at least have a few options from each when it comes to sweeping or attacking.  

The open guard is, well like any other guard, an open ocean of options for you to explore and see what you like the best from each position.  Personally, I am a huge fan of triangle choke submissions, so naturally I was drawn to the recent video clip “Triangle Choke from Open Guard by Matheus Gabriel”.  Matheus has won the Worlds this year, his first year as a black belt at only 21 years old.  He also secured the win as a brown belt at the Worlds last year. Bernardo refers to him as the next big star that will be dominating the stage for the next 10 or 20 years.  

Let’s take a look at what we can learn for this young up and coming star that led him to securing back to back wins at the Worlds.  

 

We are going to start in the De la Riva guard.  Matheus has his left leg hooked with his right leg in the opponent’s hip and has a cross body lapel grip on his opponent’s Gi jacket.  He also uses his left hand to control the opponent’s right sleeve.  

From this position his opponent is going to try to push the leg that is in his hip down to the mat in order to start passing.  We don’t want to allow this to happen so rather than let this happen we instead push against the opponent’s thigh forcing them to step back and typically base out with their left hand as well.  At this point the position should look something like the image shown below. 

From this position Matheus releases his hook and swings his left leg out and puts it in his opponent’s right hip.  If you notice from the image above, there is a ton of space for us to attack the neck. We then remove the leg from the opponent’s left thigh and swing it over the back of the opponent’s neck and secure our lock over the neck biting the neck with the back of our knee and positioning our leg for the other leg to now come over and complete the lock.

Now that we have the triangle locked up, we can look to finish the triangle.  In order to finish this triangle, we first want to lift our hips off the mat making our body a straight plane that is easy for us to grab the opponent’s arm and drag it across our body.  Once getting the arm across we can then collapse our hips back to the mat trapping the arm in place.  

Matheus uses a basic triangle finish from this position and simply squeezes his legs together while also pulling down on the crown of the opponent’s head with both of his hands. If the opponent tries to stand, we must under hook the opponent’s leg on the same side as the leg that is biting the neck.  This is important in any situation or at level but becomes much more important in a self defense or street fight situation because of the risk of getting slammed on concrete or any other element besides the mats.  

Additionally, if you are still struggling to finish the triangle you can hug around the opponent’s head and your leg that is biting the opponent’s neck with a gable grip and squeeze both your legs and arms together to get the submission.  As you can see there is nothing in this sequence that is crazy hard or requires any special athleticism or strength or flexibility even. As long as you are able to pay attention to the details and execute the moves as shown, you too can be effective with this move. 

If you are like me and really enjoy the triangle choke submissions, it may be time for you to commit to it and really spend some time studying the techniques and looking at how to find the triangle choke from each position you could find yourself in.  Triangles: Enter the System by John Danaher is an all inclusive step by step guide to how to become effective and proficient with the triangle submissions from any position you can imagine.  

If you can commit to studying these techniques with the level of detail that John Danaher provides it is sure to help you see triangles from every angle and position as well as a guarantee to make you more dangerous on the mats against your training partners, and more importantly your opponents in competition.  There is a reason why John Danaher is one of the most sought after instructors on the globe right now. He has a systematic approach to each position and each attack flows to the next with simplicity and ease.  

There is no question that if you truly want to be on the next level, this is a must have.  Your training partners and your opponent’s will be asking you where you went to training camp and when you had time because your skills will be advancing so quickly as a result of studying the techniques in this video instructional.  Don’t miss out on any more valuable time, get started right away and start triangle choking everyone in your path. 

The Enter The System series CHANGED Jiu-Jitsu. Whether you are catching triangles, strangling the neck, or rippin’ Heel Hooks there is a good chance you have John Danaher to thank for the major changes he has helped influence. Check out the complete Enter The System Series! Sharpen you Triangles up!

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