Submission profile

Collar choke: how often it lands in real training

Collar chokes are the #8 submission in BJJBuddy logs, finished by 934 people and tapped to by 1,002. How gi collar chokes work, and how each belt uses them.

People who finished it934Logged it as their submission
People caught by it1,002Logged tapping to it
Rank#08Among 36 submissions
Gi share53.8%Of finishes on a logged gi day
Both sides of the exchange

Finished it. Got caught by it.

Finished it934
Caught by it1,002

The same person can be in both groups. Across all logs, 2,008 finishes and 1,938 taps were recorded on separate training days.

Training format

Gi vs no-gi

53.8%gi
Gi 53.8%No-gi 46.2%

1,520 finishes on days with a logged gi or no-gi session. Across all sessions the split is 51.5% gi.

Collar chokes use the gi lapel to compress the sides of the neck. They are a gi staple, from guard, mount and the back, and the grips you set up for them also open sweeps and attacks.

How the collar choke works

  1. Feed one hand deep into the collar, thumb inside, as close to the back of the neck as you can get.
  2. Bring the second hand to the opposite collar, either palm up or palm down depending on the variation.
  3. Keep your partner’s posture broken: pull them close in guard or stay heavy in mount.
  4. Bring your elbows apart and toward the mat, or pull and turn your wrists, so the collar tightens on both sides.

Common mistakes

  • Shallow first grip: the deeper the first hand, the tighter the choke.
  • Squeezing with the arms while their posture is still up.
  • Giving up position for the choke, especially falling off mount.

Learn and drill techniques with a qualified coach and a cooperative partner, and let go the moment your partner taps. This overview is not a substitute for live instruction.

How often each belt finishes it

White belt15.1%
Blue belt21.3%
Purple belt27.4%
Brown belt30.7%
Black belt26.7%

Share of each belt’s users (among those who logged any submission) who have finished with it. Belt is the rank set in the app today.

How to read these figures

“Finished it” means a user logged this move as a submission they got. “Caught by it” means they logged tapping to it. The rank orders all 36 submissions by how many different people logged them either way. From BJJBuddy training logs, November 2015 to November 2026. Duplicate uploads are removed, so a session is one person on one training day. Each person counts once per technique. Groups smaller than 10 people are not shown.