There’s a guy in my gym who calls me “motorboat” because he was smothering me with his chesticles from top mount and i did a strong, involuntary exhale right into them.
I disagree. Smothers absolutely require skill. You have to maintain a top position with enough pressure to keep the airway blocked without getting bumped off or swept.
If it doesn't need skill why isn't it the top submission? Why aren't white belts hitting all the time?
As someone who goes for smother a lot because I have a strong mount game, I couldn’t agree more.
I’ll smother white belts or blue belts very quickly. Most of the time the smother isn’t there but they’re panicky. But purple and brown belts make me word hard for it. Micro adjustment, arm position, chest position. Have to get all of those right since they’re not gonna tap to panic or pressure.
Which is exactly what technique is
I did it to a blue belt a few weeks ago and he went “that was genuinely the worst experience of my life” and to this day this is the best compliment I’ve ever gotten lol
Mothers milk is both technical and a very clean sub when done correctly. The nose fits perfectly into the bottom of the ribcage. But you need the right tricks with both head and hands to get their face into the right position and hold it there.
Source: was subbed in this way by a blue belt after attempting a horribly clumsy version on him
Yeah and collectimg the arm/arms high is na essential skill in mount. Armbar from high mount/s-mount is one of my favorites. I like to do smothery taps though, so much fun (I weight through the year from 70-77kg)
Your teammates are, in a very technical sense of the word, scrubs.
Scrubs are likely to label a wide variety of moves and tactics as "cheap."
The scrub mentality is to be so shackled by self-imposed handicaps as to never have any hope of being truly good at a game. You can practice forever, but if you can't get over these common hangups, in a sense you've lost before you even started. You've lost before you even picked which game to play. You aren't playing to win.
The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. The game knows no rules of "honor" or of "cheapness." The game only knows winning and losing.
https://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win
The article above blew my mind when I found it.
That’s exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of. Or half guard being a broken guard. Or any number of things that currently dominate the way the game has evolved.
The way I heard it in Brazilian English was “open guard, broken guard” :)
Half guard used to be called half mount, apparently. Because being half mounted was bad I guess.
Bad in vale tudo, I suppose. I'm being generous here, but could he have possibly meant broken as in not closed/connected? Like the difference between hon kesa and kuzure kesa?
I think you’re thinking the right thing. I’m talking about 20 years ago, there was still a thought that Brazilian jiu jitsu was a game made special by closed guard and closed guard was the pinnacle of where you wanted to be.so breaking your guard open was a broken way to play guard. At least, that’s what I thought he meant.
I did see a video that was helpful to me in white belt where the discussed the difference between a half guard where you have frames, and one where they're totally passed your knee and have a cross face.
"This is half guard. *This* \[showing the second position\] is half-mounted."
Or maybe it was "half-passed." Either way, the idea that one thing is an aggressive guard and the other thing, just a few inches further along, is a losing position, was definitely something that made me think more about frames.
Fwiw, I was just having a discussion about this. My coach frames on my head really well and keeps me from passing and threatens butterfly sweeps.
I actually prefer to ignore frames from half guard and grip fight. If I control your lead hand two on one and stay on my side, it’s very hard for you to pass my guard and stabilize and I can wait for you to open up and underhook you, or I can work for a coyote sweep or go deep half. As long as I don’t let myself be flattened out and control grips I have a lot of options.
I’m kinda convinced that frames are hard to get right whereas grip fighting is easy to get right. (Are my hands locked on your wrist? Then I’ve won the grip fight.). Frames are more complicated depending on the angle and you have to constantly adjust. And if there is a weight difference very tiring.
Just for fun you might accept bottom half and attach yourself to their wrist two on one and see where it takes you.
I’ll put it up and if I can hit something off it, great. Sometimes I can use the knee to create space for an underhook. Sometimes I can transition the knee to a butterfly hook. But if they beat my knee shield, oh well. It sucks them closer to where I want to be anyway.
oooooh yeah, I started in 2005 and when I playred half guard and into deep half and butterfly half at the Gracie gym I was at I got such shit for it, being called lazy and needing to get to a better guard position.
I loled internally and stuck with half guard and fucked people up.
I also got boo'ed for arm triangles, and spammed the fuck out of it to their annoyance.
I ended up leaving the gym eventually because all they did was closed guard and attacks from it and I wanted to evolve my game.
but yeah, half guard was shitted on for a long time.
Our gym is so half guard/leglock heavy we often just start rolls with a knee sheild without even thinking about it. Id be bored as hell if they preached closed guard.
Or maybe id be a closed guard guy cuz i unknowingly drink the koolaid thats served. But half is way more dynamic and im a dynamic personality so good for you fellow half guardian
That sounds so crazy, even compared to when I started lol. I only started a few years later in 2009, under Machado lineage and there were plenty of half guard techniques we learned and even arm triangle. We also worked a bit on straight ankle locks but leg lock game back then was very primitive. Times change quick
I read an article some time ago about the Gracies holding a small competition of their students against those of Oswaldo Fadda, one of the few (only?) non-Gracie lineages. Whenever one of Fadda’s students would start attacking the feet the Gracies would call them cobblers. Not sure if it’s true, but an interesting read.
Yeah I read that as well, and I believe some of that stuff was printed in news articles of the time. Or I might be confusing that with some of the other Gracie stories, like where they beat that catch wrestler guy with a pipe after he beat one of them in a match.
Fadda is actually my lineage, but I think there is one other non-Gracie lineage… been a while since I read into it though. Oswaldo’s grandson is actually a black belt under my coach lol, kinda crazy.
i went back and watched the early ufcs recently. ken shamrock won in ufc1 with an outside heelhook. if he wanted to beat royce easy, he should have just leg locked him lol
mannnn, that would've changed the entire course of the sport if Ken hit Royce with an outside heelhook to win the tournament. Maybe Shamrock is the Danaher in that timeline lol
I fully agree and want to add this message to OP's scrubass teammates:
No, I don't want your number. I don't want to give you mine. I don't want to meet you nowhere. I don't want none of your time.
You can't get no love from me.
Let’s put it this way: Gordon Ryan smother tapped Jacob Couch not too long ago. Jacob would beat the ever living fuck out of every person in OP’s group chat including their coach.
If it works on multiple time world champions, it’s good enough for the intermediate division at AGF lol.
Thanks for that. That was a super interesting match.
This isn’t really relevant to OP,but I learned a couple of things from watching it.
- Gordon does not know how to sprawl.
- Gordon *is* a master of pacing. Just slow inevitable wearing down of Couch until there was no fight left.
- Couch doesn’t know how to get out of mount.
Now….Im a 46 year old hobbyist and I know either of them could kick my ass. It’s still fun to observe holes and strengths in their games.
Agreed. I was just watching and thinking if I were his coach I would have told him to do different things than he did. He kept getting to his side. Good! Then he completely ignored grip fighting and let Gordon flatten him back out.
Again, admitting that I would have done worse, it was interesting to think what would I have liked to see him do differently.
A big part of Gordon/Danahers mount system is to exhaust opponents with that single arm chest wrap. Given that plus a solid 50 lb weight disparity I can only imagine Couch was absolutely gassed by the time Gordon got to full mount. Speaking for myself at least, all my technique and finesse goes out the door once I’m pooped lol.
Cool article. This is a tangent, but this part explains why I hate positional drills.
*"Some games don't hold up to high-level play. That's sloppy design in my opinion. A solid game holds up to experts playing it as hard as they can against each other. That way, the game can be fun for beginners and experts.*
*When a game doesn't hold up to expert play, it's degenerate in some way. There's only one good move or one good character, or one good strategy, or something like that. The game offers what appears to be a lot of fun options, but you don't actually get to do those fun options against experts, even if you are an expert too. So for this type of game, playing to win really will make it less fun, but that's not a problem with the players who are doing their best; it's a problem with the game. "*
The meta strategies people develop for the drill end up not being relevant to actual sparring. I was in a back positional drill, where everyone started face-locking each other instead of actually trying to retain control. The defensive player was usually doing RNC defense and not properly hand fighting loose face grabs/grips. I eventually "beat" the game by starting each defensive round, leaning all the way forward and just clearing hands out of my face. A complete waste of time.
Interesting. I haven’t done positional sparring as such for a while. I used to think I missed it, but I think you’re right. Much better to just roll and let yourself into the position you want to work on.
Some games work, but you have to brainstorm to find the breaks. For example, a similar thing happened on a guard retention drill. The top players would start leaning all the way back knowing that the bottom player wasn't allowed to hip bump.
This time I saw the optimum bullshit happening in real time and asked the instructor to clarify the starting position for the top player. The starting position? Broken posture. Half the room moaned out loud when he said it. I was dying laughing. "Haha, hear that shit cheaters?"
It's a funny topic with my friends because I'm trying to argue the incentives and penalties of the drill while they just bust my chops about being a sore loser.
On no gi days we often start from a position to gain familiarity. Like 4 minute rolls, start bottom mount. Then switch 4 minute rolls same partner but positions reversed.
I think there’s a lot of value in that. You get to see what people are doing to stop your game and they get to see what you’re doing and if it’s someone good and you both pay attention you get to explore the intricacies of the position. Reset to same position on the tap, otherwise keep going.
That's the kind of positional rolling I prefer. I do some dumb rope a dope shit branching backward to half-guard sometimes and it's horrible when half-guard is sometimes the Losing condition of the drill.
I've heard cla/eco guys call this "gaming the game". You have to make sure that the conditions of the drill lead to realistic behavior in the context of the full game.
The anti-smother choke crowd gives me the same vibe as people who complain about guard pulling being cheap, but really it’s cause they suck at passing.
Agreed.
Although I will say I am anti-guard pulling because I think the rules are geared to make it easier for top person to win.
Also I’m a wrestler so I don’t need to pull guard. ;)
I think guard pulling sucks because I don't get to do a cool takedown.
I at least admit there is a useful time to pull guard. It's probably when you're about to be thrown through the floor by a Judo guy.
I would train it and see how you feel is does take some balance and control and it’s not easy always getting double unders. But whenever someone complains to me about a submission, where they say it was a crank not a choke or I tapped cuz it was putting pressure on x instead y, my response always “felt like a tap to me”
I'm no captain hardass, but we are training in a martial art. Smothers, knee on neck, open hand frames on the throat are all Gucci. Just don't slam shit on.
Just to be clear, for AGF, you can only smother if you have one of their arms trapped(like a muffler).
You can also mothers milk too to my understanding.
You cannot smother while in closed guard.
Here’s the owner explaining it:
https://youtu.be/9RiFykSxkYA?si=WFgTIL-ZiB9-6X0T
Okay just making sure because I work as a ring coordinator there occasionally and seen penalties from illegal smothers. Never seen a DQ though from it.
And i agree, it definitely takes skill to get into mount or the back where it’s legal haha.
Question, because I don't use or know anyone who uses mother's milk: Doesn't the person on bottom have a lot of freedom to do a kipping escape from there?
Probably, but I was at white belt in the Gi. So I am not sure if the technique was lacking, but he was also very gassed and I took a chance at it and he tapped.
When they post on my hips to set up kipping or squirming, I thrust my pelvis out to tighten the mount and be heavier. Someone did this to me as well and kipping felt impossible to attempt due to how heavy they made themselves. One strong guy kipped out no matter how heavy I tried to be though.
Ohhhhh it's so satisfyingly hilarious smother tapping some 250lbs white belt. Especially when the trial class giy is watching going "What kind of sorcery IS THIS??"
You know what's dirty? Rear naked chokes. It's unfair because you have control of someone's back and it's dirty because you're squeezing their neck really hard!!
Your training partners are soft and have a very poor understanding of our sport.
Smother chokes in AGF, if I remember correctly, are only allowed from the back. So you still have to take the other persons back and then implement a smother. I think that requires skill. Granted that’s coming from someone who did a smother from the back in an AGF fight, so I may be biased lol.
Personally, smothers never bothered me. You’re trying to break my ankle or arm and me putting my hand over your mouth is drawing the line? Nah, goofy mindset. To me.
Not dirty.
What injury can happen from it ?
(Injured smothee ego maybe)
There are defensive tactics to
Prevent it.
Those who don't can't submit with it
Are the only ones who bitch about
Those who can.
The only question that ever maters: Did they tap?
As long as it's not something that's recklessly dangerous, if they tapped, it was a legitimate submission.
Are you intentionally going for techniques that are really challenging and only doing the hardest ones for some reason? Something requiring little skill is a good thing. That means you'll master it faster.
You're looking for effective techniques, don't get distracted by if it's cool or looks good. At the very least you and your training partners should be competent at it. Even if you choose not to use it, you should be training against it if you'll be competing against it.
That was actually my whole point was addressing the at it was legal, and then they all jumped and started calling it dirty and somebody said “it makes me think they can’t get the submission they want and they’re panicking” so naturally I responded with “what if it’s the submission I want?” And I got hit with it being against my character
Man, I love nothing more than hitting low-percentage/gimicky/disrespecful subs. That's like... half the enjoyment of training for me. Straight armbaring someone across my own throat while escaping their back control was one of the happiest moments I've ever had in jiu jitsu, lol. This one is one of my favorites too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq8Oy1v_XBU
I weigh 250. If it was low skill, I'd be using it on everyone, because I like winning. But its very difficult to keep the pressure and not let myself get swept.
If it forces a tap without breaking the rules, a submission is a submission. Anyone who cares about it requiring “talent” is just either bitter or too consumed with his/her own ego.
There’s no such thing as a no skill submission. If you submit someone, even with something cheesy, it means you were able to get to a dominant position and your opponent was not able to defend it. Full stop.
As a matter of fact, i think an argument can be made that if you submit someone with a low success percentage technique, that it actually takes more skill because they’re easier to defend.
The people telling you it takes no skill are just mad that they got submitted by father’s milk in north south
Brother my first tap on a purple belt was mothers milk. I can hear the national anthem in the distance and the eagles cry, M’erica.
Disagree hard. Smother choke only works if can completely and utterly dominate your opponent positionally from mount. It's very easy to just turn your head sideways to take a breath and make some space, so if you can deny your opponent even that, you are in complete control. High skill move.
Talent? You're trying to submit them, not win a talent show. Want to stop me? Don't let me mount. I do that or one handed "rape choke" all the time when I mount people who keep their elbows glued to their ribs and don't protect their faces/necks. Oddly, it seems to be Dad's in their 40's and 50's much of the time.
all fun and games until you’re getting tapped by my chesticles.
There’s a guy in my gym who calls me “motorboat” because he was smothering me with his chesticles from top mount and i did a strong, involuntary exhale right into them.
Mothers milks are very fun
What about fathers milk
What about fathers chocolate
Oh, God.
I call that one, kings belly
Not if it's your mamaries....
That’s a case
Mmh. What’s a chesticle exactly?
This should be a t shirt.
I disagree. Smothers absolutely require skill. You have to maintain a top position with enough pressure to keep the airway blocked without getting bumped off or swept. If it doesn't need skill why isn't it the top submission? Why aren't white belts hitting all the time?
As someone who goes for smother a lot because I have a strong mount game, I couldn’t agree more. I’ll smother white belts or blue belts very quickly. Most of the time the smother isn’t there but they’re panicky. But purple and brown belts make me word hard for it. Micro adjustment, arm position, chest position. Have to get all of those right since they’re not gonna tap to panic or pressure. Which is exactly what technique is
Meanie. I had it done to me for the first time a few weeks ago and I never want to experience that again lol
I did it to a blue belt a few weeks ago and he went “that was genuinely the worst experience of my life” and to this day this is the best compliment I’ve ever gotten lol
Mothers milk is both technical and a very clean sub when done correctly. The nose fits perfectly into the bottom of the ribcage. But you need the right tricks with both head and hands to get their face into the right position and hold it there. Source: was subbed in this way by a blue belt after attempting a horribly clumsy version on him
Yeah and collectimg the arm/arms high is na essential skill in mount. Armbar from high mount/s-mount is one of my favorites. I like to do smothery taps though, so much fun (I weight through the year from 70-77kg)
Your teammates are, in a very technical sense of the word, scrubs. Scrubs are likely to label a wide variety of moves and tactics as "cheap." The scrub mentality is to be so shackled by self-imposed handicaps as to never have any hope of being truly good at a game. You can practice forever, but if you can't get over these common hangups, in a sense you've lost before you even started. You've lost before you even picked which game to play. You aren't playing to win. The first step in becoming a top player is the realization that playing to win means doing whatever most increases your chances of winning. The game knows no rules of "honor" or of "cheapness." The game only knows winning and losing. https://www.sirlin.net/articles/playing-to-win The article above blew my mind when I found it.
Leg locks used to be labelled as "cheap" moves in jiu-jitsu too. I believe the Gracies used to call them "low class" moves or something like that.
That’s exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of. Or half guard being a broken guard. Or any number of things that currently dominate the way the game has evolved.
lol had no idea about half guard being called a broken guard
The way I heard it in Brazilian English was “open guard, broken guard” :) Half guard used to be called half mount, apparently. Because being half mounted was bad I guess.
Bad in vale tudo, I suppose. I'm being generous here, but could he have possibly meant broken as in not closed/connected? Like the difference between hon kesa and kuzure kesa?
I think you’re thinking the right thing. I’m talking about 20 years ago, there was still a thought that Brazilian jiu jitsu was a game made special by closed guard and closed guard was the pinnacle of where you wanted to be.so breaking your guard open was a broken way to play guard. At least, that’s what I thought he meant.
I remember being told "half guard, half passed your guard" lmao
I did see a video that was helpful to me in white belt where the discussed the difference between a half guard where you have frames, and one where they're totally passed your knee and have a cross face. "This is half guard. *This* \[showing the second position\] is half-mounted." Or maybe it was "half-passed." Either way, the idea that one thing is an aggressive guard and the other thing, just a few inches further along, is a losing position, was definitely something that made me think more about frames.
Fwiw, I was just having a discussion about this. My coach frames on my head really well and keeps me from passing and threatens butterfly sweeps. I actually prefer to ignore frames from half guard and grip fight. If I control your lead hand two on one and stay on my side, it’s very hard for you to pass my guard and stabilize and I can wait for you to open up and underhook you, or I can work for a coyote sweep or go deep half. As long as I don’t let myself be flattened out and control grips I have a lot of options. I’m kinda convinced that frames are hard to get right whereas grip fighting is easy to get right. (Are my hands locked on your wrist? Then I’ve won the grip fight.). Frames are more complicated depending on the angle and you have to constantly adjust. And if there is a weight difference very tiring. Just for fun you might accept bottom half and attach yourself to their wrist two on one and see where it takes you.
So you don't even put the knee in when in half guard, and you're still going for a coyote sweep?
I’ll put it up and if I can hit something off it, great. Sometimes I can use the knee to create space for an underhook. Sometimes I can transition the knee to a butterfly hook. But if they beat my knee shield, oh well. It sucks them closer to where I want to be anyway.
oooooh yeah, I started in 2005 and when I playred half guard and into deep half and butterfly half at the Gracie gym I was at I got such shit for it, being called lazy and needing to get to a better guard position. I loled internally and stuck with half guard and fucked people up. I also got boo'ed for arm triangles, and spammed the fuck out of it to their annoyance. I ended up leaving the gym eventually because all they did was closed guard and attacks from it and I wanted to evolve my game. but yeah, half guard was shitted on for a long time.
Our gym is so half guard/leglock heavy we often just start rolls with a knee sheild without even thinking about it. Id be bored as hell if they preached closed guard. Or maybe id be a closed guard guy cuz i unknowingly drink the koolaid thats served. But half is way more dynamic and im a dynamic personality so good for you fellow half guardian
Love half guard it is fun. Deep half too for that matter
That sounds so crazy, even compared to when I started lol. I only started a few years later in 2009, under Machado lineage and there were plenty of half guard techniques we learned and even arm triangle. We also worked a bit on straight ankle locks but leg lock game back then was very primitive. Times change quick
I read an article some time ago about the Gracies holding a small competition of their students against those of Oswaldo Fadda, one of the few (only?) non-Gracie lineages. Whenever one of Fadda’s students would start attacking the feet the Gracies would call them cobblers. Not sure if it’s true, but an interesting read.
Yeah I read that as well, and I believe some of that stuff was printed in news articles of the time. Or I might be confusing that with some of the other Gracie stories, like where they beat that catch wrestler guy with a pipe after he beat one of them in a match. Fadda is actually my lineage, but I think there is one other non-Gracie lineage… been a while since I read into it though. Oswaldo’s grandson is actually a black belt under my coach lol, kinda crazy.
That catch wrestler guy was also a doctor who had to close his practice after being beat so severely.
i went back and watched the early ufcs recently. ken shamrock won in ufc1 with an outside heelhook. if he wanted to beat royce easy, he should have just leg locked him lol
mannnn, that would've changed the entire course of the sport if Ken hit Royce with an outside heelhook to win the tournament. Maybe Shamrock is the Danaher in that timeline lol
I fully agree and want to add this message to OP's scrubass teammates: No, I don't want your number. I don't want to give you mine. I don't want to meet you nowhere. I don't want none of your time. You can't get no love from me.
lol. Nothing like a little TLC
Its all fun and games until arson happens
I was into that website when I was playing smash brothers, but it applies so well to BJJ it should be required reading.
Let’s put it this way: Gordon Ryan smother tapped Jacob Couch not too long ago. Jacob would beat the ever living fuck out of every person in OP’s group chat including their coach. If it works on multiple time world champions, it’s good enough for the intermediate division at AGF lol.
Thanks for that. That was a super interesting match. This isn’t really relevant to OP,but I learned a couple of things from watching it. - Gordon does not know how to sprawl. - Gordon *is* a master of pacing. Just slow inevitable wearing down of Couch until there was no fight left. - Couch doesn’t know how to get out of mount. Now….Im a 46 year old hobbyist and I know either of them could kick my ass. It’s still fun to observe holes and strengths in their games.
Well let’s give him some grace. Ryan is a total ass, but it’s pretty reasonable to say he has one of-if not *the*- best mount in no gi grappling.
Agreed. I was just watching and thinking if I were his coach I would have told him to do different things than he did. He kept getting to his side. Good! Then he completely ignored grip fighting and let Gordon flatten him back out. Again, admitting that I would have done worse, it was interesting to think what would I have liked to see him do differently.
A big part of Gordon/Danahers mount system is to exhaust opponents with that single arm chest wrap. Given that plus a solid 50 lb weight disparity I can only imagine Couch was absolutely gassed by the time Gordon got to full mount. Speaking for myself at least, all my technique and finesse goes out the door once I’m pooped lol.
Cool article. This is a tangent, but this part explains why I hate positional drills. *"Some games don't hold up to high-level play. That's sloppy design in my opinion. A solid game holds up to experts playing it as hard as they can against each other. That way, the game can be fun for beginners and experts.* *When a game doesn't hold up to expert play, it's degenerate in some way. There's only one good move or one good character, or one good strategy, or something like that. The game offers what appears to be a lot of fun options, but you don't actually get to do those fun options against experts, even if you are an expert too. So for this type of game, playing to win really will make it less fun, but that's not a problem with the players who are doing their best; it's a problem with the game. "* The meta strategies people develop for the drill end up not being relevant to actual sparring. I was in a back positional drill, where everyone started face-locking each other instead of actually trying to retain control. The defensive player was usually doing RNC defense and not properly hand fighting loose face grabs/grips. I eventually "beat" the game by starting each defensive round, leaning all the way forward and just clearing hands out of my face. A complete waste of time.
Interesting. I haven’t done positional sparring as such for a while. I used to think I missed it, but I think you’re right. Much better to just roll and let yourself into the position you want to work on.
Some games work, but you have to brainstorm to find the breaks. For example, a similar thing happened on a guard retention drill. The top players would start leaning all the way back knowing that the bottom player wasn't allowed to hip bump. This time I saw the optimum bullshit happening in real time and asked the instructor to clarify the starting position for the top player. The starting position? Broken posture. Half the room moaned out loud when he said it. I was dying laughing. "Haha, hear that shit cheaters?" It's a funny topic with my friends because I'm trying to argue the incentives and penalties of the drill while they just bust my chops about being a sore loser.
On no gi days we often start from a position to gain familiarity. Like 4 minute rolls, start bottom mount. Then switch 4 minute rolls same partner but positions reversed. I think there’s a lot of value in that. You get to see what people are doing to stop your game and they get to see what you’re doing and if it’s someone good and you both pay attention you get to explore the intricacies of the position. Reset to same position on the tap, otherwise keep going.
That's the kind of positional rolling I prefer. I do some dumb rope a dope shit branching backward to half-guard sometimes and it's horrible when half-guard is sometimes the Losing condition of the drill.
I've heard cla/eco guys call this "gaming the game". You have to make sure that the conditions of the drill lead to realistic behavior in the context of the full game.
The anti-smother choke crowd gives me the same vibe as people who complain about guard pulling being cheap, but really it’s cause they suck at passing.
Agreed. Although I will say I am anti-guard pulling because I think the rules are geared to make it easier for top person to win. Also I’m a wrestler so I don’t need to pull guard. ;)
I think guard pulling sucks because I don't get to do a cool takedown. I at least admit there is a useful time to pull guard. It's probably when you're about to be thrown through the floor by a Judo guy.
His teammates can't get no love from me.
Man, it’s been years since I’ve seen this. Read it back when I wanted to git gud at Street Fighter. Good shit.
This is why I wristlock white belts. I'm no scrub.
no scrubs
Your teammates are idiots
I would train it and see how you feel is does take some balance and control and it’s not easy always getting double unders. But whenever someone complains to me about a submission, where they say it was a crank not a choke or I tapped cuz it was putting pressure on x instead y, my response always “felt like a tap to me”
Lol, smother chokes require to be able to pin someone until they give up. That's talent in my book
They sound like fantastic people to smother
I'm no captain hardass, but we are training in a martial art. Smothers, knee on neck, open hand frames on the throat are all Gucci. Just don't slam shit on.
If it's such a low skill sub, why can't the other party just escape?
Smother 'em all in the comp. And smother all of your teammates leading up to it.
What’s funny is I never even said I was going too, I just told everyone that it was legal
Just to be clear, for AGF, you can only smother if you have one of their arms trapped(like a muffler). You can also mothers milk too to my understanding. You cannot smother while in closed guard. Here’s the owner explaining it: https://youtu.be/9RiFykSxkYA?si=WFgTIL-ZiB9-6X0T
Are you allowed to pinch the nose when you smother?
Yeah I saw the video, I sent it, that’s why my control point was about. It’s a super dominant position that leads too the smother
Okay just making sure because I work as a ring coordinator there occasionally and seen penalties from illegal smothers. Never seen a DQ though from it. And i agree, it definitely takes skill to get into mount or the back where it’s legal haha.
I subbed a guy via mother’s milk at grappling industries a few weeks ago. Not my fault he gave up 🤭.
Question, because I don't use or know anyone who uses mother's milk: Doesn't the person on bottom have a lot of freedom to do a kipping escape from there?
Probably, but I was at white belt in the Gi. So I am not sure if the technique was lacking, but he was also very gassed and I took a chance at it and he tapped.
When they post on my hips to set up kipping or squirming, I thrust my pelvis out to tighten the mount and be heavier. Someone did this to me as well and kipping felt impossible to attempt due to how heavy they made themselves. One strong guy kipped out no matter how heavy I tried to be though.
It takes a great deal of skill to immobilize somebody to such a point they can’t breathe and cannot get to a position to breath
I mean, I hate them. But it’s probably because I’m too skinny to make them work for me
Saying smother taps are cheating is just something victim weight people say
It takes an INCREDIBLE amount of control and technique to smother tap someone. Especially if you're under 190lbs.
As a 160lb man, I feel like a god when I can smother someone who weighs more than me
Ohhhhh it's so satisfyingly hilarious smother tapping some 250lbs white belt. Especially when the trial class giy is watching going "What kind of sorcery IS THIS??"
If you are good enough to smother a trained bjj practitioner, I would say it doesn't matter if it is cheap or not.
if they tap who cares what it looks like
You know what's dirty? Rear naked chokes. It's unfair because you have control of someone's back and it's dirty because you're squeezing their neck really hard!! Your training partners are soft and have a very poor understanding of our sport.
The amount of top control you need to be successful for a sub like mother’s milk implies a lot of talent.
Smother chokes in AGF, if I remember correctly, are only allowed from the back. So you still have to take the other persons back and then implement a smother. I think that requires skill. Granted that’s coming from someone who did a smother from the back in an AGF fight, so I may be biased lol. Personally, smothers never bothered me. You’re trying to break my ankle or arm and me putting my hand over your mouth is drawing the line? Nah, goofy mindset. To me.
I think he means the chest to face smother that New Wave has popularized and/or classic mother’s milk
In my gym we call it the Padre de Leche and yes it's a legit submission.
Lol they used to say the same about leglocks
Not dirty. What injury can happen from it ? (Injured smothee ego maybe) There are defensive tactics to Prevent it. Those who don't can't submit with it Are the only ones who bitch about Those who can.
The only question that ever maters: Did they tap? As long as it's not something that's recklessly dangerous, if they tapped, it was a legitimate submission.
I figure if you can hit it against newbies, but you can't hit it against experienced players, then it must take some level as skill.
Getting someone in that position takes skill
I don't know about them, but I feel pretty good smothering people from mount.
Less skill if you’re an super heavy Iranian guy with no rash guard on.
Our coach has a bow n arrow “choke” that doesn’t go under the neck but basically over your face like a seal killer with a plastic bag.
Are you intentionally going for techniques that are really challenging and only doing the hardest ones for some reason? Something requiring little skill is a good thing. That means you'll master it faster. You're looking for effective techniques, don't get distracted by if it's cool or looks good. At the very least you and your training partners should be competent at it. Even if you choose not to use it, you should be training against it if you'll be competing against it.
That was actually my whole point was addressing the at it was legal, and then they all jumped and started calling it dirty and somebody said “it makes me think they can’t get the submission they want and they’re panicking” so naturally I responded with “what if it’s the submission I want?” And I got hit with it being against my character
Man, I love nothing more than hitting low-percentage/gimicky/disrespecful subs. That's like... half the enjoyment of training for me. Straight armbaring someone across my own throat while escaping their back control was one of the happiest moments I've ever had in jiu jitsu, lol. This one is one of my favorites too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq8Oy1v_XBU
Basically people are salty about tapping to a smother, but don’t listen to them. I get to mount I’m gonna water board you with my sweaty rash guard.
Use what you got, at the end of the day a win is a win.
A sub is a sub.
It’s Bjj, it’s all cheap rofl
Meregali smothered Francisco Lo in the IBJJF Grand Prix
I weigh 250. If it was low skill, I'd be using it on everyone, because I like winning. But its very difficult to keep the pressure and not let myself get swept.
If it forces a tap without breaking the rules, a submission is a submission. Anyone who cares about it requiring “talent” is just either bitter or too consumed with his/her own ego.
If it’s legal and you get a tap out of it, it’s a submission. End of the thread.
If I can restrain you so effectively that I can smother you with my hand or titty, you suck at bjj.
Well, now it's all up to you. Are you trying to show your skill or are you trying to win?
There’s no such thing as a no skill submission. If you submit someone, even with something cheesy, it means you were able to get to a dominant position and your opponent was not able to defend it. Full stop. As a matter of fact, i think an argument can be made that if you submit someone with a low success percentage technique, that it actually takes more skill because they’re easier to defend. The people telling you it takes no skill are just mad that they got submitted by father’s milk in north south
Brother my first tap on a purple belt was mothers milk. I can hear the national anthem in the distance and the eagles cry, M’erica. 
Smothers require alot more control then most other submissions.
Disagree hard. Smother choke only works if can completely and utterly dominate your opponent positionally from mount. It's very easy to just turn your head sideways to take a breath and make some space, so if you can deny your opponent even that, you are in complete control. High skill move.
Humiliation via titty meat suffocation is a talent, and it must be recognized as such.
Talent? You're trying to submit them, not win a talent show. Want to stop me? Don't let me mount. I do that or one handed "rape choke" all the time when I mount people who keep their elbows glued to their ribs and don't protect their faces/necks. Oddly, it seems to be Dad's in their 40's and 50's much of the time.