In the late 1990’s I had the pleasure of training with UFC fighter and Sambo champion Oleg Tartarov a number of times. And it turned out that not only was he a tough, skilled and relentless competitor, but he was also a very skilled teacher.

Here’s a detail about the triangle choke that he showed me that I share just about every time I ever teach this move.

It’s all about how hiding the shoulder makes the triangle choke so much tighter!

This is only a 2 minute video and it could transform your triangle choke, so check it out!

Basically the key takeaway is that if you can see his shoulder peeping out at you then the choke is NOT going to be as tight as it could be.

Plus if you have short legs, or if he’s got a big neck and shoulders, you could be in trouble because your legs will always be in danger of popping open.

So the important thing is to bring your head slightly closer to his knee, cut your top leg right across the back of his neck, and hide his shoulder with the back of your hamstring.

If you watch the video above you can see my demonstration partner’s head instantly become much redder the second his shoulder disappears.

Here’s a summary graphic I made of the key detail that I posted on my Instagram feed (where you can find me as @stephan_kesting)…

If you can see your opponent’s shoulder peeping out at you when you’re applying the triangle choke then it’s NOT as tight as it could be. Adjust your angle and bring your hamstring over his shoulder to make the choke 3 times as tight. Check out the full video on YouTube (YouTube.com/stephankesting) and/or on Facebook (Facebook.com/grapplearts) to see how much more purple my demo partner’s head becomes as soon as the shoulder is hidden. #trianglechoke #bjj #jiujitsu #brazilianjiujitsu #submissionwrestling #submissiongrappling #submissions #choke #grapplearts

A post shared by Stephan Kesting (@stephan_kesting) on Nov 4, 2017 at 8:00am PDT

And before you go I should leave you with a few additional details to really help you make your triangle choke airtight.

In fact, I’ll leave you with a couple of triangle choke videos by two different guys I’ve worked with, both of whom have killer triangle attacks.

(To the layman it may seem a bit excessive to have two different people break down the same move for you, but once you’ve been around the sport for a while you’ll know that it’s 100% worthwhile to have the same critical move explained to you different ways because you never know who’s teaching style you’ll learn from best.)

First, here’s Brandon Mullins breaking it down for you (this is from the How to Defeat the Bigger, Stronger Opponent Series 2 set)…

And here’s Elliott Bayev showing some of his best details for finishing his opponents with the triangle once it’s locked on (from the Spider Guard Masterclass instructional)

Hopefully this gives you some serious help with one of the most important signature submissions in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Go choke your training partners out for me!

Stephan Kesting

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