Standing RNC Escape
Standing RNC escape — drop level and shuck the backpack before the seatbelt matures, lateral step to the strangle side, or sit to the mat conceding the back.
Adapted from InGrappling, Standing RNC Escape. System Games did not invent this curriculum.
Manage injuries →Position map Connects to 3 positions across 2 relationshipsOpen in the map →123←Escape route from
The standing RNC is the rear naked choke applied from the backpack — the attacker on your back, on your feet, before hooks or a ground seatbelt exist. For the attack, see Standing RNC. The strangle mechanics are the ground RNC’s; everything about defending it is different, because the defender has their feet, their level and the whole floor available and only a few seconds to use them.
There is one way in and it finishes at a high rate. An attacker who reaches the backpack and stays there has a better chance of finishing than from most ground positions, and the attempt costs them nothing — a failed standing strangle leaves them exactly where they started, on your back. Someone taking your back on the feet is a live submission threat from that moment, not a positional problem to sort out later.
The rear naked choke escape is the ground companion to this page and its answers do not transfer. Sliding shoulders to the mat presumes a mat under your shoulders. Here the equivalent moves are level changes and footwork, and one of them is deliberately putting yourself on the ground.
Elevated RiskStanding RNC (Defence) is an elevated risk technique. The strangle itself is a standard bilateral carotid compression, but the standing context adds a mechanism the ground version does not have: a defender who loses consciousness on their feet falls unsupported, with an attacker attached to their back and no ability to break the fall. Head and cervical injuries from the fall can exceed anything the choke itself would have caused. The attacker also cannot always feel the difference between a defender working and a defender going out, because the usual grip-and-posture cues are masked by the standing struggle. Serious injury can occur Seconds to unconsciousness, and the fall that follows is uncontrolled..
If you are new to this technique: read this section before anything else. Understanding the danger is part of understanding the technique.
The person applying the technique is responsible for releasing immediately.
Communicate before drilling. Know your partner's experience level with this position.