10 second rule by the Gracies

Sometimes you don't know how long to choke your best friend horsing around...and they die.

http://youtu.be/QrsBlDDA0Lg


I use it, I know many others here do too, perhaps without detailed instruction.

'Sleepers' have been around a long time, if you can use them standing in a fight, wait for the legs to go limp to know its on.

A Systema instructor I know, uses a common trouser belt on beginners standing up to show self-defense with a commonly carried article of clothing, the speed of the choke out, eye opener.


CPR awareness of simple actions.

Such sad news. :(

Excellent video! Thank you for sharing this!

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Originally Posted by k gledhill

Sometimes you don't know how long to choke your best friend horsing around...and they die.

http://youtu.be/QrsBlDDA0Lg


I use it, I know many others here do too, perhaps without detailed instruction.

'Sleepers' have been around a long time, if you can use them standing in a fight, wait for the legs to go limp to know its on.

A Systema instructor I know, uses a common trouser belt on beginners standing up to show self-defense with a commonly carried article of clothing, the speed of the choke out, eye opener.


CPR awareness of simple actions.

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I have never used a choke. A strong man in a panic can sometimes tear himself loose. The sleeper is something else. 5 seconds is usually all you need to have a man blank out. He will continue to go out until he hits the floor. The sleeper is done by completely closing off the flow of blood to the brain. Not only is this action extremely dangerous because it can cause death, but it is far more likely to cause severe brain damage, literally turning your friend into a slobbering turnip. It is done with the forarm against the left side of the neck. The blood goes up into the brain from there and cutting it off causes instant blood pressure loss to the brain, making it totally lose function in just about 5 seconds. Blocking the right side will cause the face to get red, maybe cause a massive headache, and could possibly cause a stroke, but it will take a lot longer then 5 seconds. If you have a really good sleeper technique, 10 seconds is going to do a fellow in.

In class or in competition, with qualified people around, you can sometimes push the choke, especially in comps.
There are people there to help you revive your opponent/partner.
There are reasons to PUSH the choke in training, the principle one to help your partner grasp HIS tolerance level to help him in competitions.
In the "real world" however, one must be far more cautious because one doesn't know the health or physcial state of ones opponent.
I have always advocated relasing the choke the moment one stops feeling resistance to the choke.
Of course the guy made be faking it, but no worries because eve if he is, he will be weakened enough to be easier to handle.

I like the fact Ryron and Rener took the time to take something from the news and disseminate good information on the techniques. There is a lot of misinformation out there regarding chokes and details surrounding them. A lot of misinformed ideas even on this thread.

The 8 to 10 seconds they are describing is just a generic guideline. Someone could go out in 3-4 sec. Or it could take any amount of time adjusting to get the angles right to have someone go unconscious. But the general rule is workable - with a blood choke, if it is not on for more than 10 seconds, you probably won't have any long-term medical consequences unless there was a severe contributing condition like an aneurism or something.

The scenario they are talking about is an edge case. If reports are correct and the choke was held only 30 - 40 seconds, then there probably was a contributing condition. Of course it also could have been that the kid had the choke improperly applied and it was an air choke. That usually would be very evident in choking sounds though - the blood chokes usually come on with someone glazing over and fixing a glance like they describe.

But there are plenty of problems that come up without being trained. For example, when do you start counting? That's hard to say. For example, a couple weeks ago my instructor caught me and I went out. The sequence was I was defending a choke successfully for about 45 seconds. Then the last angle fell in place. I was out from that point in about 5 seconds. My instructor said he couldn't tell and I kept defending the choke. However, I made some kind of sound like "woah" right as going out. He released the choke right there. I didn't know where I was for about 15 seconds. This was all while I was in a seated position or on all fours. I never went flat on my back or anything.

That's just one example. There are so many variables. A few pointers I would say are:

1) The fixed glazed stare - like the Gracies emphasize, look for that when applying chokes and release the choke once you see it.

2) Don't stay in one position cranking a choke for minutes. Move around a bit so that you can feel your opponent's movement. If you move like that and someone is unconscious, you can feel they aren't tracking your movements and defending.

3) Once you feel lack of resistance and especially if you feel lack of tracking release the choke. Don't count to 10. It's unnecessary.

4) There is not really any good reason to hold onto a choke for 3-5 minutes, which is the normal timeframe that the brain will start to have cells die due to oxygen depravation from the blood and they will go into a coma.

5) You can't account for contributing medical conditions like the one that probably caused the death in the news scenario. So just consider being wise. Horsing around at a party followed by manslaughter charges is one way to really ruin a weekend.

This is pretty sobering. I appreciated the info they have in the video.

real time choke..... http://youtu.be/_Bf6G89u0Nk

kids horsing around.... http://youtu.be/aCyYCMS5ZRA

Another concern is with old ****s like me. The US diet of high fats, starch and red meats can lead to plaque on the interior arterial walls. A choking technique can break plaque off the artery and led to a stroke. :(

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Originally Posted by k gledhill

real time choke..... http://youtu.be/_Bf6G89u0Nk

kids horsing around.... http://youtu.be/aCyYCMS5ZRA

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Yea that illustrates some of the danger. The kid horsing around applied the choke for a full 10-15 seconds after the other kid he was choking was unconscious. The longer you hold on to that after unconsciousness, the more problems it's going to cause.

To be perfectly clear though, in neither case of the above videos were either person getting choked out in real medical danger. In the case of healthy people you would have to hang on to that choke for almost 3 minutes before you see long-term damage.

The top video choke out was properly applied and is safe to be exposed to in training scenarios from known evidence. Of course nobody has done a scientific study on someone having that done to them every day for an extended period of time.

In typical BJJ training, things like this happen maybe a half a dozen times total per year (across ALL student base, not to one person).

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The top video choke out was properly applied and is safe to be exposed to in training scenarios from known evidence. Of course nobody has done a scientific study on someone having that done to them every day for an extended period of time.

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Not a scientific study, but people have been choked out at the Kodokan for over a century with zero fatalities. Some Brazilian gyms regularly have no-tap nights where if you get caught in a choke you get choked unconscious. You are dragged off the mat to recover, and then reenter the fray.

The RNC does NOT stop the blood supply to the brain. If it did, your face would go white rather than red. The RNC messes with pressure sensors in the nervous system which involuntarily cause a shutdown. There are other arteries that go between the vertebrae that will continue to supply blood and oxygen to the brain. There are neurosurgical procedures which shut off the blood supply via the carotid but require the patient to remain conscious.

The lesson here is to respect your art and only use it in training or under duress, not for showing off at parties.

Still a hell of a lot less dangerous than getting concussed. One of my instructor's father was jumped outside his hotel, KO'ed and his wallet stolen. He brushed himself, went upstairs to bed and never woke up again.

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Originally Posted by anerlich

Not a scientific study, but people have been choked out at the Kodokan for over a century with zero fatalities. Some Brazilian gyms regularly have no-tap nights where if you get caught in a choke you get choked unconscious. You are dragged off the mat to recover, and then reenter the fray.

The RNC does NOT stop the blood supply to the brain. If it did, your face would go white rather than red. The RNC messes with pressure sensors in the nervous system which involuntarily cause a shutdown. There are other arteries that go between the vertebrae that will continue to supply blood and oxygen to the brain. There are neurosurgical procedures which shut off the blood supply via the carotid but require the patient to remain conscious.

The lesson here is to respect your art and only use it in training or under duress, not for showing off at parties.

Still a hell of a lot less dangerous than getting concussed. One of my instructor's father was jumped outside his hotel, KO'ed and his wallet stolen. He brushed himself, went upstairs to bed and never woke up again.

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IF you wanna get technical about it, the RNC does "cut off" the supply of O2 to the brain, eventually.
The first thing that happens is the pressure on the vagus nerves causes a "faint reflex" and the chokee "faints" but if the choke is held on then the supply of blood is reduced and that can cause death.

Here's a well-written response along the lines of this topic:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4055616AAzDxxK

Wikipedia also has a lot of detail:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choke-out