Arm in Guillotine

[David Stager]

If you're doing it off a failed hip-bump sweep, make sure you scoot your butt back a bit once you've locked in the head and arm but before you fall back into closed guard. It keeps his/her head lower on you and adds more pressure.

[Mike Nall]

The Marcelo grip helps a lot too. It just changes the leverage. I noticed that Marcelo gets his hips way out to where he's almost on his side (if he's on the bottom) too. My guillotine isn't much but those two changes have made a world of difference.

Yes, Marcelo's guillotine is all about being on the side that has the head trapped (in his case the right side, as Marcelo does all chokes right handed), combined with the elbow lift and/or blocking their right shoulder with your left leg.

I'm a bit confused though. I assume by Marcelo grip you mean the elbow lift, as that's what really makes his guillotine unique. You can't lift the elbow during an arm-in guillotine. You have to take your arm out first, then re-grip and lift the elbow.

[Jason Hyatt]

I just meant that sort of inverted gable grip he does as opposed to the more traditional ball-in-socket type grip. With the arm in, you can't lift the elbow the same but the change in grip changes the leverage and helps aid the squeeze a LOT. It's a really different feel because it's more of an assisted squeeze than an upright-row, but it seriously tightens things up so I use a lot less muscle power. I rarely finished a guillotine without killing my arms before I changed grips. Just changing the grip -- even with the arm in -- does wonders. I imagine it also helps that I have long-ass monkey arms.

[Griffin Lambert]

I worked this in class today and your tips helped so much. I was getting it right when we were drilling, hip out, crunching in, keep their head on the mat. I went for it quite a few times in sparring but couldn't finish it, I had trouble hipping out to the side of choke but I got the sweep Denny shows in mts 8 a few times and then switched to the marcelo guillotine from mount, 3/4 mount. I just need to put in another couple thousand reps and it'll be money. Thanks so much for your help guys!