If you can surprise your opponents with a move they don’t really expect, then your chances of tapping them out increase by tenfold! One of those setups is a Triangle Choke from top Side Control.
Travis Stevens, an Olympic Silver Medalist in Judo and a Black Belt in BJJ under John Danaher, demonstrates the setup.
USE THEIR COLLAR AND TRAP THEIR ARM
Travis begins by saying that you want to create a situation where your opponent will need to frame, so that you can trap their wrist with your chin. From there, the first thing he does is that he threatens the training partner with a Wrist Lock; he lowers his head down and elevates the partner’s elbow.
In order to defend this, the partner pushes his arm back, tight to his body. From there, Travis takes the training partner’s collar on the same side as his arm is and then crosses it over the arm he had attacked beforehand; more precisely, over its wrist. Then, he feeds it to his other hand underneath the partner’s neck – trapping him as a result.
An alternative and a safer option within this setup would be to pull your opponent’s collar and feed it to your other hand before you apply the Lock. Then, grab its end and pull it back; and only then go for your sneaky Wrist Lock. This way, you are ready to use the collar way before your opponent’s able to figure out what’s going on.
This is a position that could, perhaps, be easily defended – but only if your opponent knows what you’re doing before you trap their arm. Chances are however, as Travis explains, that they won’t be paying attention to what you’re doing with the collar. So, you’ll probably get to this position fairly easily.
THE 90-90 POSITION
From there, Travis gathers and isolates the training partner’s other arm in-between his hip and elbow. Once he’s done it, instead of being on the knees, he lays his shin directly across the partner’s lat; with both of his legs forming a modified 90-90 position and his upper body still in the Side Control one.
Why isn’t he on his knees, though? Because, in Travis’s words, he thinks that being in the position he describes gives him more mobility – which is necessary for the upcoming steps of this setup.
GET INTO THE HIGH GUARD – AND START SETTING UP YOUR TRIANGLE
And now it’s showtime! Travis leans with his head to the „north“ (where his training partner’s head is). This enables him to clear the partner’s legs with his own one, getting it into a kneeling position all the way up to his ear. Then, he rolls over it to the side, using his leg to block the partner’s hip. Once on his back, Travis lets go of the collar and crosses his legs to end up in a high guard position.
He elaborates that this high guard position is a great one even if you don’t want to go for a Triangle Choke, as there is a number of other attacks that you can set up from here.
Travis demonstrates this setup in much more detail on the video below:
Lachlan Giles is an ADCC bronze medalist, Pan Pacific Champion, and coach to one of the fastest rising starts, Craig Jones.
At the last ADCC, he used his half guard and leg lock game to submit the much bigger Kaynan Duarte, Patrick Gaudio and Mahamed Aly.
Lachlan Giles is here to change your entire half guard game with his instructional Half Guard Anthology.
This is your opportunity to learn how to manipulate anyone from the half guard and use their weight against them.
