A Clockwork Blue Belt

Meerkat World is more like a waiting-world at the moment. I’m waiting for the Cobrama website to be finished. I’m waiting for news of where exactly my BJJ club will be relocated to. I’m waiting for my press pass to arrive for the UK versus France MMA fight. I’m waiting for October, when crossed fingers, our second baby-Meerkat will be born.

At last Monday’s BJJ class, I managed to work my first ever ‘clock choke’ during sparring. My uke, having turtled up, neglected to defend his collars, so in I went for this most awesome of gi submissions. It is basically a classical samurai collar choke. In trad JJ, we learn this by sitting behing uke and reaching over his shoulders to grab the collar wings. One hand pulls across the carotid, the other hand pulls the lapel downwards. Imagine this but on an uke who is curled into a ball on the floor. The submission works properly by keeping the pressure on his shoulder with your hips. The ‘clock’ part of it is the scissor-like movement of tori’s legs in the final part of this move.