Are you trying to do it as an arm triangle with a figure 4 grip? If so, you will naturally be limited by the length of your arms. In those cases I switch to a gable grip and have better success that way.

As long as you can get your upper arm to be flush with the neck. So that means armpit on his chest, no space between your elbow and the neck. He has to wear that arm like a necklace.

https://youtu.be/FnV9CNgH[...]UUsDaekKN7 I think Bmac’s videos on the arm triangle are the gold standard. This is a very different mechanic for finishing than what I see anyone else explaining.

https://youtu.be/FnV9CNgH[...]UUsDaekKN7 I think Bmac’s videos on the arm triangle are the gold standard. This is a very different mechanic for finishing than what I see anyone else explaining.

Finishing more with the shoulder pressure right?

Yes and no. The shoulder will ultimately be what finishes it, but it's really not shoulder pressure as we normally think of it. Once you switch to the gable grip (not S grip like in the video, I'll explain why in a minute) we get to the part that I think causes the most problems: using big muscle groups and movements first instead of working from small to large. Most people get in a hurry and start by engaging their lats and they don't even know they do it. Take your time and work from the small muscle groups to the larger ones. You may start with an S grip if that's all you can get on a larger person, but work towards the gable grip. If you hold your hands in front of you and get an S grip then switch it to a gable grip you can see that you've taken a few inches of space out just by doing that. Make sure you have the choking hand on top so you can use the non choking hand to pull the choke towards you without having to rely on grip strength. You want your grip strength focused solely on pulling that hands together. On a smaller person you can even progress past the gable grip to a wrist grip with each hand. You'll give up some grip strength, but take out more space. Having the non choking hand on bottom is probably the only thing that allows this to work. Once you've taken out all the space you can with your hands, move on to the arms. Pull them as far into you as you can with your arms. If you started in mount this is when I would move out of it. Then start pulling with your lats and then start walking your feet out to the side.

Switch to Ezekiel choke / sode guruma from the head & arm. Not every choke works on every body type.

All right team I ran into a weird situation that I’m trying to workshop. Head and arm choke on someone with small arms, shoulders, and neck. I have longer arms. I can’t seem to cinch the choke in tight enough because their frame is so so small. it ends up being more of a crank than a choke. Anybody got any ideas for me here. I know the easiest answer is to switch to something else, but I’m curious if you can lock it up on a small frame like that.

All right team I ran into a weird situation that I’m trying to workshop. Head and arm choke on someone with small arms, shoulders, and neck. I have longer arms. I can’t seem to cinch the choke in tight enough because their frame is so so small. it ends up being more of a crank than a choke. Anybody got any ideas for me here. I know the easiest answer is to switch to something else, but I’m curious if you can lock it up on a small frame like that.

I'm guessing the problem here isn't that your arms are too long but because your a bigger person and your chest is much bigger than hers you can't get low enough ( your not ear to ear, your head is much higher than hers) and end up applying pressure to her arm too high and have to use more and more strength to squeeze which makes it more cranky. I don't think there's much you can do when there is such a big size difference. At least I haven't got the solution yet to arm triangle children safely 😂 If it was just a problem with too long arms starting the triangle from the crossface and jumping to the other side is the best way I know to take the slack out . You can test easily how effective that is by looking how far your fingers can go in relation to their shoulder if you reach around their neck from the cross face and how far if you are locking the arm triangle from the same side (e.g. from kesa gatame). It kind of works the same way as the gut wrench in wrestling.

Yes, I don’t have a problem switching to something else. I have many many options from that position. The real question I have is is there someone out there that knows how to cinch that up tighter? I’m wondering if somebody has that knowledge because I would love to take it

https://youtu.be/FnV9CNgH[...]UUsDaekKN7 I think Bmac’s videos on the arm triangle are the gold standard. This is a very different mechanic for finishing than what I see anyone else explaining.

So question. Is the problem that you cant narrow the arm triangle down enough to push her own shoulder into her artery?

Totally agree with this. I've only 'recently' started doing head and arm chokes. The 'snake squeeze' is the key, slowly morphing your body around the target. Maybe they won't tap to a choke or even to pressure, but they will tap to boredom eventually. A tap is a tap.

I’m built like a giraffe: my arms and neck are long and skinny. As a result, I have to take out a lot of slack to make the arm triangle work on small/skinny people. The key for me is using head rotation to finish. See around 3:30 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/w[...]fKa2xc-RCU. By rotating the chin towards my opponent, I can usually take out that last bit of slack in the choke. I always S-grip, since my arms are too long for the RNC grip to work. Chewy stays in place in the video, but I’ll sometimes rotate my entire body clockwise as I rotate my head to rely crank on the pressure. Most of the time, that’s not necessary, and I can stay put they way Chewy does in the video.

I’m built like a giraffe: my arms and neck are long and skinny. As a result, I have to take out a lot of slack to make the arm triangle work on small/skinny people. The key for me is using head rotation to finish. See around 3:30 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/w[...]fKa2xc-RCU. By rotating the chin towards my opponent, I can usually take out that last bit of slack in the choke. I always S-grip, since my arms are too long for the RNC grip to work. Chewy stays in place in the video, but I’ll sometimes rotate my entire body clockwise as I rotate my head to rely crank on the pressure. Most of the time, that’s not necessary, and I can stay put they way Chewy does in the video.