Next on my roster for brabo choke analysis is Baret Yoshida.

Let’s get straight to the footage. What he shows is similar to the multitude of videos I’ve already posted, but he does a few things differently that I like.

Brabo Choke from Principles of the Art of Submission by Baret Yoshida

(If you have the book that goes with this DVD, check out how he does technique 34 in it. It should be the same as the video above, but he does a different one, more like Christian’s from reverse scarf hold or Bjoern’s setup from where you wrap the near arm and head then circle to the other side.)

Shinya Aoki teaches a similar cross knee pass to brabo choke in his instructional.

Combining this pass and the brabo choke makes perfect sense, since one of the most common counters is for the person on bottom to get the underhook and try to come to their knees, which puts you in position to get the choke.

A detail I particularly like is how Baret teaches that, when you take the first step towards them, to block their elbow with your knee. This crosses their arm even more and traps it. As with all triangles, the more you can cross their arm the better.

You can see Baret getting this exact setup in sparring:

Footage of Baret Yoshida rolling from his DVD set

I’ll gloss over the beginning since it’s not what I’m interested in: Baret starts in the clinch, shoots for a single and gets the takedown and spends some time in the guard.

What I’m paying attention to is when he stands in their open guard. He shoots his knee over their legs to pass and slide into side control.

As he lands, Baret wraps their head with his right arm when they turn on their side and shoots his left arm into place for the brabo.

He quickly switches between a series of grips, adjusting with each one to get tighter and tighter. He goes from palm to palm, to grabbing his wrist, grabbing higher on his forearm and then grabbing his biceps. It only takes a second, but I think each of these grips are important.

With his arms snug, he sits out and throws his left leg over their hips to finish.

Yet more brabo homework to come. Next I’ll be going over how to adjust to get a tight choke (and not a neck crank) and cross their arm.