Submissions Intermediate · No-gi first

Head-and-arm: one strangle, three angles

The arm triangle, the d'arce and the anaconda are the same strangle, closing on the head and one arm from three different angles, and each fails where the trapped shoulder goes loose.

Position and problem

Your arm is around their neck and one of their arms is inside it. Perhaps you are on top after mount, with their arm pushed across their face and your head on the mat beside it. Perhaps they turtled or shot in and you threaded an arm under their armpit and across the throat, or across the throat and out under the armpit, and locked it onto your own bicep. They keep breathing. You squeeze harder, the hold gets tighter and nothing changes, because one side of the neck is being pressed and the other is not. Three names cover this situation, the arm triangle, the d'arce choke and the anaconda choke, and they are the same closure entered from different sides.

Objective

Trap the head and one arm, drive their own shoulder into one side of the neck with your chest, and close your arm on the other side so the strangle lands on both sides at once.

Core concept

A head-and-arm strangle uses the defender's shoulder as half of the closure. Your arm wraps one side of the neck and the trapped arm's shoulder is pressed into the other, so the finish comes from your chest and head driving that shoulder inward rather than from the arm squeezing on its own. The three named versions differ only in where your arm enters and where your body ends up. The arm triangle, kata gatame in judo usage, is taken from on top, usually from mount or side control. Their arm is driven across their face, your arm wraps the far side of the neck and your head drops beside the trapped arm. Your hips then walk away from the trapped side so your chest turns down onto the shoulder. The d'arce, which many no-gi rooms also call a brabo, is taken from the front: your arm threads under their near armpit, crosses the throat, and lands on the bicep of your other arm, whose hand rests behind their head. The anaconda threads the opposite way, across the throat first and out under the far armpit to the bicep, and is usually finished by rolling them toward the trapped arm and walking toward their hips. Arm triangle versus d'arce is a question about where you are standing; d'arce versus guillotine is a question about mechanism. Both of the last two start from the front headlock. The guillotine surrounds the neck alone, from above, and finishes when your hips drive away from their head; the d'arce surrounds head and arm from the side and finishes when your chest drives the two together. Before any of the three, their head has to be below your chest with one arm committed inside the loop, which from the front is a front headlock and from the top is a broken frame.

Key mechanics

Put the trapped arm across the neck before you lock anything. An arm pushed across the face from the top, or threaded from the front, is the wall; without it the loop is around a head alone and the closure has one side.
Use your head and chest to close, and your arm only to hold. The wrapping arm sets one side; the trapped shoulder is driven into the other by your chest turning down onto it, which is why the finishing position has your head low and beside the trapped arm.
Walk the hips away from the trapped side in the arm triangle. Sitting up on their chest keeps the shoulder loose; sprawling out with your hips low and your chest across theirs is what presses it into the neck.
Thread the d'arce from under the armpit and lock onto your own bicep, then drive your chest down and forward over their trapped shoulder. Pulling back with the arm opens the loop at the shoulder it needs closed.
From turtle, wait for the elbow to leave the knee. The space between their elbow and their body is where the d'arce from turtle and the anaconda enter; an elbow glued to the knee gives nothing to thread through.
Finish the anaconda by moving their body rather than your arm. Roll them toward the trapped arm, over your own shoulder on that side, and walk your hips toward theirs, so their shoulder is pushed into their neck by the roll and the walk.
Tell the two front-headlock strangles apart by where the arm is. A neck you can wrap over with their arms outside offers the guillotine; an arm you can thread under on the near side offers the d'arce, and the two finish in opposite directions.
Defenders commonly answer all three by shrugging the trapped shoulder up and turning the chin toward the gap. Both need space you have to have left them, so keep your chest on the shoulder and there is none to use.

Common errors

Locking the grip while the trapped arm is still beside their body, so the loop closes around a head alone and one side of the neck is untouched.
Squeezing with the arm while sitting upright in the arm triangle, which leaves the trapped shoulder loose and turns the hold into an endurance test for your bicep.
Pulling the d'arce back toward yourself instead of driving forward over the shoulder, which opens the enclosure at the side it needs closed.
Chasing a d'arce when their elbow is tight to their knee, so the arm threads nowhere and the front headlock is given up for nothing.
Rolling the anaconda over your head rather than your shoulder, which loads your own neck and lands you with the grip loose.
Confusing the d'arce and the guillotine from the front headlock and pulling the head up on a hold that finishes by pressing down.

Safety

Head-and-arm strangles often build slowly and then close quickly, which makes tap timing the issue on both sides. The person inside one taps when the shoulder is driven into the neck and the second side closes, rather than waiting for it to hurt, since the moment it takes effect can arrive in the same breath as the discomfort. The person applying it raises the pressure step by step, holds each step long enough for a tap to arrive, and releases fully on any tap without a final squeeze. A partner who goes quiet inside one is released immediately, and a coach is called. The trapped shoulder is loaded too, since an arm driven across the face and pressed by a chest is held near the end of its range. The attacker keeps the pressure on the neck rather than cranking the arm, and the defender does not wrench the arm out against a hold that is already set. For the attacker, the danger is the roll. An anaconda or a d'arce rolled over the head instead of the shoulder puts the attacker's neck under the weight of both bodies. Roll over the shoulder with the chin tucked, and abandon the roll rather than force it when the position moves.

Training progression

Static: partner lies on their back with one arm offered across their face. Build the arm triangle position, arm wrapped, head beside the trapped arm, hips walked off to the far side, and hold it with no pressure until the shape is automatic.
Static, from the front: partner in turtle with one elbow lifted. Thread the d'arce, then unthread and thread the anaconda, until the difference between entering under the armpit and entering across the throat is obvious in the hands.
Cooperative: from each of the three finishing positions, raise the pressure one step at a time until the partner taps to the first closure, then release and swap. Notice that the arm barely moves.
Constrained: partner in turtle may only hide the elbow or lift it. You may only thread and lock, never finish. Score a point for each clean lock and reset.
Positional: start from mount with the arm across, and from the front headlock, alternating each round with full resistance and all three strangles allowed. Restart on tap, escape or a lost head position.
Live rounds: when one of the three stalls, note whether the trapped shoulder was against the neck or beside it.