Buggy Choke
The buggy choke in no-gi: from bottom side control, thread your own arm behind your own knee to trap the opponent's head and arm, then crunch to close both carotids.
Adapted from InGrappling, Buggy Choke. System Games did not invent this curriculum.
Manage injuries →Position map Connects to 3 positions across 2 relationshipsOpen in the map →123←Attacked from
The buggy choke is a strangle applied from the bottom of side control using the attacker’s own leg and their own arm as the two sides of the compression. The bottom player turns onto their side, elevates the top leg over the opponent’s head and neck, threads their own top-side arm behind their own knee, and closes a grip. The opponent’s head and one arm are trapped inside that structure; crunching the torso and driving the legs down compresses both carotids.
Mechanically it is a hybrid of a triangle and an arm triangle. The leg plays the role the thigh plays in a triangle, the opponent’s own trapped shoulder plays the role it plays in a head-and-arm choke, and the attacker’s arm behind their own knee is what closes the loop between them. Nothing grips the opponent — every contact point in the finished structure is the attacker holding themselves.
The reason it matters is where it comes from. Bottom side control is the position most grapplers treat as pure survival, and this turns it into an attack without first requiring an escape. That is also its limitation: it needs the opponent’s head low and their near arm available, which is a specific configuration rather than a default one.
It is a recent addition to the canon, developed in the mid-2010s and carried into elite no-gi competition from there. The consequence for training is practical — many experienced grapplers have never had one applied to them, and meet their first one without the reflexes the older submissions have built.
Elevated RiskBuggy Choke is an elevated risk technique. A blood choke: both carotid arteries are compressed between the attacker's leg and the opponent's own trapped shoulder. Like other bilateral strangles it produces unconsciousness rather than tissue damage when applied correctly, and it gives the ordinary vascular warning — greying vision and lightheadedness — rather than acute pain. The specific risk here is unfamiliarity. The structure closes from a position defenders read as safe, tightens further when they try to move, and many practitioners will not recognise what is happening in time to tap deliberately. Serious injury can occur seconds once the grip closes — standard for a bilateral strangle, with the tap often late because the position is unfamiliar.
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.