The Darce Choke also called Barbo choke is one of the most powerful and most notorious submissions in the entire arsenal of BJJ.
Origin of the Darce choke
The Darce Choke The exact origin of this move is unknown, as many of the grappling techniques have been originally discovered in ancient times and they have been “rediscovered” in modern times. But the person that made this choke famous is the person that bears the name of the choke, Joe D’Arce. Joe D’Arce is a BJJ black belt under Renzo Gracie, and he made this choke famous by virtue of the fact that he used it multiple times with great success in his matches. The D’Arce choke is a close cousin of the anaconda choke, and the difference between them is whether you will insert your arm underneath your opponent’s arm and then under the neck – D’Arce – or if you will put your arm underneath your opponent’s neck and then under his arm – anaconda.
The mechanism behind Darce
The D’Arce choke is a blood choke which means that you will be able to sleep your opponent if you can set it upright. You will cover both of the carotid arteries that run in the throat area and this will decrease the blood flow to the brain of your opponent, which will make him sleep. The way to do this is by inserting your arm underneath the arm and neck of your opponent and then close off the choke by catching your upper forearm of your other arm. Do this right and you will get a tap out.
Implementing the Darce choke in your BJJ game
The Darce choke is one of the most basic and most powerful chokes that you can do. This means that you can implement it from various positions. You can make this move from the closed guard, the open guard, the butterfly guard, and half-guard, among others. You can easily implement this move if you master the arm drag, as this will give you a perfect window of opportunity to insert your arm under the arm of your opponent and under his throat. If you wish to make this choke tighter, then you should catch his legs with your legs so that he won’t spiral out. This will make the choke a lot tighter. If you wish to see Keenan Cornelius explain the move, then you can see this video:
Top Half Guard Darce choke
the best time to set up this choke from top half guard is when opponent underhooks you. The important thing now is to use Whizzer to prevent your opponent from attacking or changing position. Underhook creates the opening from which Darce choke is executed. Check out this video for more details.
Defense
Though this is a powerful choke, it’s not exactly easy to do it. Especially if you don’t have the basis for it – if you want to make it easily then you will need to have long, slender arms. Also, if your opponent has a wide frame, then it may be very difficult for you to reach your other arm with your first arm and close off the choke.
So, if you feel like your opponent won’t be able to reach long enough in order to complete the choke – you can feel safe. Also, we’ve mentioned in the previous paragraph that you need to take your opponent’s legs with your own legs and prevent him from spiraling out. Well, this spiraling out is exactly what you need to do in order to ease off the pressure from the choke and “survive” for the moment.
Check also:
- Rear Naked Choke: The most effective Chokehold
- Arm Triangle Choke: Variations and choke defense
- Guillotine Choke: How to do and defend
