Neck cranks

[JowGaWolf]

A few of you have seen the beginning of what I teach in that regard.

Tony Dismukes is very "Punch informed" in his approach with BJJ. There are people who know BJJ as a sport, but Tony Dismukes digs deeper than that. People may say "It takes a lot to impress me." But for me the thing that easily impresses me is the depth of function. Anyone with that understanding is impressive. Tony Dismukes would fall into that category. He's definitely not a "surface level" mentality when it comes to martial arts.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

On the original subject of neck cranks ...

Using and defending against neck cranks is part of the martial art of BJJ. They're not allowed in a lot of competitions for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, if the submission goes wrong, a neck injury is more serious than an equally severe arm injury. But also, there is a greater range between "starting to hurt and I'll feel this later" and "something is definitely getting broken" in neck cranks than, for example, arm bars.

With arm bars, you should know that you're in trouble before the pain sets in and you should definitely be tapping by the time it hurts. (Unless maybe you're a pro athlete fighting for world championship prize money that will pay for your medical bills.) It's pretty clear when you are in danger of getting your arm broken.

On the other hand, a lot of neck cranks, unless applied by an expert, are just uncomfortable and leave you sore afterwards, but aren't sufficient to actually break the neck or induce permanent injury. So the person on the receiving end who isn't able to defend/escape is left with a few options:

• Tap based on discomfort/pain rather than the threat of injury. Part of submission grappling is learning to distinguish between the two and usually submit to the later rather than the former. Tapping just based on pain can give a false positive to the sparring partner, since the technique likely would not have finished the fight in the high-adrenaline context of a street fight or high-stakes competition.
• Not tap, endure the discomfort, but then end up sore for the next week and possibly miss training sessions.
• Not tap, then discover that they misjudged and that the crank actually was strong enough to induce real injury.

For this reason, I discourage cranking on necks during sparring unless the practitioners involved have the experience so they know how to apply technical neck cranks that threaten injury rather than discomfort, how to defend neck cranks, and how to recognize and tap to real threats.

That said ...

A lot of legitimate chokes will end up having a neck crank component if they aren't perfectly applied. Ideally we want to have the cleanest possible chokes so that our partners can tap and not end up sore the other day. But if you get caught in a choke that also has a crank component, just tap and move on. Don't pretend that your partner was somehow cheating because they didn't have the perfect application.

Beginners will grab your head and/or neck and squeeze because they don't know what else to do. A squeeze is not a crank. A neck crank is when your opponent bends or twists your neck beyond its safe range of motion. You need to know how to defend this. (The details of how to do this depend on what sort of crank is being applied.)

There is a lot of legitimate head/neck manipulation that falls short of a neck crank. A powerful cross-face is one example of this. The idea is not to bend or twist the spine to the point of injury, just to compromise the alignment so the opponent becomes structurally weak.

There is a tendency to think of neck cranks as just the application of brute strength by big guys, but there is a lot of technique involved in a proper neck crank.

 

[skribs]

Beginners will grab your head and/or neck and squeeze because they don't know what else to do. A squeeze is not a crank. A neck crank is when your opponent bends or twists your neck beyond its safe range of motion. You need to know how to defend this. (The details of how to do this depend on what sort of crank is being applied.)

Then...same question about the squeeze. Because I've had a few that could more accurately be described as a squeeze recently, one of which resulted in head pain for a few days, the other in neck pain for a few days.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

However, both using and defending against with strikes are 100% part of the martial art of BJJ.

If punch is allowed, the counter to head squeeze can be many.

I just try to compare the stand-up game with the ground game. For a student to obtain the 2nd degree BB in ACSCA, he needs to compete Sanda tournament that kick, punch, throw are all allowed. The interest thing is after one has competed in Sanda tournament, he is no longer interested in stand-up wrestling only tournament.

IMO, sport is the path. Combat should be the goal. You just can't stay in sport forever. One day, you have to step out of sport and get into combat.

With body and head protection, Sanda sport can be safe too.

 

[skribs]

However, both using and defending against with strikes are 100% part of the martial art of BJJ.

I don't know that I'd say 100%. I'd say BJJ has some similarity to TKD in this regard. There's a core set of skills you can expect to learn from any school, and an elective set of skills that may be part of the school (but not the BJJ class) or part of the BJJ class.

In TKD, the core is forms, kicks, kick-focused sparring, and board breaking. Anything else (punches outside of the forms, kicks outside of the sparring, self-defense, weapons, grappling, way-of-life, fitness, etc.) is elective content. In BJJ, the core would be grappling skills. My school also has other classes that include striking, but it's not part of the BJJ curriculum (neither is striking defense).

 

[Tony Dismukes]

I don't know that I'd say 100%. I'd say BJJ has some similarity to TKD in this regard. There's a core set of skills you can expect to learn from any school, and an elective set of skills that may be part of the school (but not the BJJ class) or part of the BJJ class.

In TKD, the core is forms, kicks, kick-focused sparring, and board breaking. Anything else (punches outside of the forms, kicks outside of the sparring, self-defense, weapons, grappling, way-of-life, fitness, etc.) is elective content. In BJJ, the core would be grappling skills. My school also has other classes that include striking, but it's not part of the BJJ curriculum (neither is striking defense).

To be clear, I’m not saying that striking defense is taught in all BJJ schools. I’m saying that if a school does not teach that aspect, then it is teaching BJJ just as a sport and not as a martial art.

I have nothing against the sport aspects of the art. I think they’re pretty cool, even the parts which have limited application in non-sport contexts. But BJJ didn’t rise to worldwide popularity because of a highly specialized tournament format for ground-based submission grappling. That rise was the result of the success of BJJ practitioners in much more open-ended fights against other martial artists in challenge matches and early vale tudo/MMA. I think it would be a shame to abandon BJJ the martial art and replace it just with a hyper-specialized sport.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

I think it would be a shame to abandon BJJ the martial art and replace it just with a hyper-specialized sport.

Agree with you 100% there. I always have interest in those "illegal sport techniques". IMO, those techniques can give the best combat result. For example, I like to train "1/2 hip throw". When I throw my opponent 1/2 way with my hip throw, I suddenly stop there. This will prevent my opponent's body from flipping in a perfect circle. Instead, my opponent's body will crash down to the ground like a crashed air plaint with head down first.

 

[hoshin1600]

Adding my own experience on neck cranks.
I was working with a white belt, (my self not even really being a white belt in BJJ) and he decided to try "something he saw off Youtube" . The result being I had no time to respond or tap and that neck injury hurts everyday for the last 20 something years.
Needless to say I do not like neck cranks. If I'm going to roll with someone I will tell them DO NOT touch my neck. I get very angry about it if they ignor my request.

 

[Tony Dismukes]

The result being I had no time to respond or tap

Honestly, this is a problem no matter which part of the body he was attacking. The thing which allows us to use seriously injurious techniques in sparring is the practice of applying them with control, slowly enough so that our partner has the chance to recognize the danger and tap. This is why positional control is so important. If you can't control your partner's body position well enough to apply the technique carefully, then the only other option for making the technique work is to rely on speed and just rip it - which leads to broken training partners.

 

[skribs]

Adding my own experience on neck cranks.
I was working with a white belt, (my self not even really being a white belt in BJJ) and he decided to try "something he saw off Youtube" . The result being I had no time to respond or tap and that neck injury hurts everyday for the last 20 something years.
Needless to say I do not like neck cranks. If I'm going to roll with someone I will tell them DO NOT touch my neck. I get very angry about it if they ignor my request.

There's a rule at my gym for kids and white belts: if you see something online, ask Professor first.

 

[wab25]

I don't know that I'd say 100%. I'd say BJJ has some similarity to TKD in this regard. There's a core set of skills you can expect to learn from any school, and an elective set of skills that may be part of the school (but not the BJJ class) or part of the BJJ class.

In TKD, the core is forms, kicks, kick-focused sparring, and board breaking. Anything else (punches outside of the forms, kicks outside of the sparring, self-defense, weapons, grappling, way-of-life, fitness, etc.) is elective content. In BJJ, the core would be grappling skills. My school also has other classes that include striking, but it's not part of the BJJ curriculum (neither is striking defense).

When I was training BJJ, striking was taught and practiced. The core set of skills that they taught for ground fighting, applied to striking defense / offense. The basic movements would be applied one way in a pure grappling situation and would be applied in a slightly different way when striking was involved. As mentioned before, BJJ is a martial art.... it has been proven to work against many other styles... even those that use punching and kicking.... while on the ground.

As BJJ separates from MMA, they have changed a few things... but the core that makes BJJ is still there.... Someone who knows how those core movements and techniques, can show you how they apply to striking.... but you have to go beyond what a sport school teaches you.

Tony Dismukes is very "Punch informed" in his approach with BJJ. There are people who know BJJ as a sport, but Tony Dismukes digs deeper than that. People may say "It takes a lot to impress me." But for me the thing that easily impresses me is the depth of function. Anyone with that understanding is impressive. Tony Dismukes would fall into that category. He's definitely not a "surface level" mentality when it comes to martial arts.

I believe what JowGa is saying is that Tony is one of those instructors that digs deeper than the surface, and understands how the core movements and techniques can be used for sport grappling as well as for striking situations. Not all instructors are like that. Some are great for the sport some are great for the "street" application. A few are able to really do both well.

Striking is a part of BJJ the martial art, as Tony said. The way that striking is taught in BJJ, will be to build on those core movements and ideas, such that you won't have to physically learn to do new things.... you will just learn new ways to apply what you already know how to do, to solve a slightly different problem.

 

[wab25]

As to your original question here.... the reason he is able to squeeze your head / neck, is that you are not giving him something else to do with that arm. It was already mentioned that you could try bridging / upa style moves.... this makes him have to decide, give up the head to post, or get rolled. But, it does not have to be an upa style roll. Find something that he can do with that arm, other than squeeze your head. Depending on the situation, maybe you can attack another submission.... you don't need to be able to submit him, you just need to make him use his arm to defend it, now your head is free.

One of the things I like to do, is to do something stupid with my arm.... extend it, let it get isolated.... I want him to see the arm bar and decide to go for that. When he goes for the arm bar, he lets go of what he had, in this case, he lets the head go. The thing is, I am pretty good at defending arm bars.... and since I know where he is going, it is even easier to stay one step ahead. When I train with folks good enough to get that arm bar on me anyway, despite my efforts to defend it.... I get to learn, I get to improve my arm bar defense.... which means I can continue to use this tactic. Either, I get out of the bad position, making him do the work, and I defend / counter his arm bar.... or I learn what I need to work on to better defend that arm bar. It doesn't have to be an arm bar that you show.... just something that you want to learn how to defend.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

When your opponent squeezes your head, he can only control your leading arm. He can't control your back arm. Your defense should depend on how to use your free back arm. Your free back arm can do a lot of things.

- eyebrow wiping.
- eyeball attack.
- punch on the nose.
- fish hook the mouth.
- uppercut to the chin.
- palm chop to the throat.
- ...

 

[JowGaWolf]

In TKD, the core is forms, kicks, kick-focused sparring, and board breaking.

I would say that this is common but not the core of TKD

TKD has more strikes than most people realize. What a school decides to train is one that, what is considered the core is something different.

A lot of people see the sport as the core. In reality the sport often removes a lot of the core. So that you can have a safer but competitive experience and there's nothing wrong with that.