A chokehold, choke, or stranglehold is a general term for a grappling hold that critically reduces or prevents either air (choking) or blood (strangling) from passing through the neck of an opponent. The restriction may be of one or both and depends on the hold used and the reaction of the victim. While the time it takes for the choke to render an opponent unconscious varies depending on the type of choke, the average across all has been recorded as 9 seconds.

The lack of blood or air often leads to unconsciousness or even death if the hold is maintained. Chokeholds are used in martial arts, combat sports, self-defense, law enforcement, and in military hand-to-hand combat applications. They are considered superior to brute-force manual strangling, which generally requires a large disparity in physical strength to be effective.  Rather than using the fingers or arms to attempt to crush the neck, chokeholds effectively use leverage such as figure-four holds or collar holds that use the clothes to assist in the constriction.

The terminology used varies; in most martial arts, the term "chokehold" or "choke" is used for all types of grappling holds that strangle. This can be misleading as most holds aim to strangle not choke with the exception of "air chokes" (choking means "to have severe difficulty in breathing because of a constricted or obstructed throat or a lack of air").

There are quite a variety of chokeholds, however, in this course, we will cover the most popular ones, such as:

Single and Double Hand choke

Facial Chokes

Guillotine Chokes

Rear Naked Chokes

Side Head Locks

Sleeper Chokes

There will be two sides to the training for this course.  The first consists of escaping from these chokeholds using pressure points on the arms, head, neck, body, and legs.  While the second will be applying chokeholds and securing the hold with the assistance of pressure points.

The missing element for most people has been pressure points and this course will fill in that void.

In our Whiteboard lecture, I will also discuss the legality of using chokeholds on the street as this is an important issue to cover. 

Join me in this course, as I teach you the pressure points of the body and how to effectively use them with chokeholds to escape from your attacker. 

The objective of this course is to make you aware of the pressure point (Kyusho Jutsu) targets to move the odds of the fight in your favor.

TWO DOZEN drills and training exercises to help your understanding of using Pressure Points. 

PDF Course Notes for additional reading and research.

A great course, over 2 hours of instructional video.

Thanks for reading and looking forward to seeing you on the inside.

Grand Master Ali