The north-south choke closes with weight

Position and problem

You have walked from side control around to north-south, your chest on their chest and your head toward their hips, and your arm has slid under their neck. You squeeze. Your forearm starts to burn, your face goes red, and they keep breathing and working a hand toward your hip. Treated as an arm squeeze, the north-south choke tends not to finish. The arm only makes a loop. What closes that loop is your chest, the pit of your shoulder and the weight of your hips dropping toward the mat behind them.

Objective

Wrap the neck with one arm, set your chest against the other side of it, and close the gap between the two with body weight rather than arm strength.

Core concept

Your arm closes one side of the neck and your chest closes the other. The arm wraps their neck, with the inside of your forearm and upper arm lying along one side of it. The other side of their neck is pressed by your own chest, close to the pit of your shoulder, as your weight comes down onto it. Neither does much alone. The arm pulling by itself drags the head toward you, which is a crank on the neck rather than a strangle, and the chest pressing by itself is a pin. The strangle arrives when arm and chest meet beside the neck with the throat left in the gap between them, so it is a blood choke rather than an air choke. That also explains the finish. Your legs sprawl back, your hips drop toward the mat and your chest sinks, and the weight of your whole body narrows the loop while your arms mostly hold its shape. It is usually reached from side control, by keeping the arm under the neck and walking the hips around the head until the chests line up, and the position helps it: north-south sits between the two sides of side control, and a defender who turns in toward you to escape tends to bring the neck into the loop. The usual failure is placement. With your shoulder on their face or your chest across their collarbones, your chest is pressing on bone, and arm strength cannot close the side of the neck from there.

Key mechanics

1. 01Thread the choking arm under their neck deep enough that your forearm and upper arm lie along the side of it, not across the jaw. An arm stopped at the chin has only bone to press against.
2. 02Bring your chest over the other side of their neck, with the pit of your shoulder just above it. The chest has to land beside the throat for the loop to close on the right structure.
3. 03Lock the choking hand so the loop cannot open, often with a palm-to-palm grip. A hand left hanging lets the loop widen as they move their head.
4. 04Sprawl the legs back and drop the hips toward the mat. The weight travels down through your chest into the side of their neck, and the loop narrows without the arm working hard.
5. 05Adjust the angle with your legs, walking the hips around their head, rather than with your arm. Walking changes where the chest lands; pulling the arm only drags the head.
6. 06Keep their hands out of the loop. A hand or an elbow that slides between your chest and their neck props the loop open, so the chest stays tight to them from the moment the arm is under.
7. 07Keep the pin when the loop will not close. The arm under the neck and the chest on theirs still hold north-south, and you can return to side control or attack an arm without giving anything back.

Common errors

• ×Squeezing with the arm while the chest stays high, which tires the forearm and turns the attack into a pull on the head.
• ×Setting the shoulder on their face or across their chest, so your chest presses bone and the side of the neck stays open.
• ×Raising the hips to add force, which lifts the weight off the chest and widens the loop the hips were meant to close.
• ×Walking to north-south with the arm shallow, so it sits across the chin and cannot slide deeper without releasing the pin.
• ×Leaving space at the chest, which lets their hand in and turns a closing loop into a frame.

Safety

Training progression

1. 01Static: partner lies flat while you set the arm and the chest from north-south with no weight at all. Partner tells you whether the pressure is on the side of the neck, the jaw or the collarbone.
2. 02Cooperative: begin in side control with the arm already under the neck, walk around to north-south, and add the sprawl in stages. Partner taps early on each repetition.
3. 03Constrained: partner defends only by working a hand into the loop. Keep it out with your chest, and go back to side control if you cannot.
4. 04Constrained: partner turns in toward you each time you arrive in north-south. Finish only when the neck has come into the loop, and hold the pin otherwise.
5. 05Positional: begin in north-south with the partner escaping however they choose. You may attack the choke or either arm.
6. 06Live rounds: count the north-south chokes that stalled with your hips still high.

Related entries

• Blood choke versus air choke
• The americana reverses the kimura grip
• Frames versus blocks