The Octopus Choke Is Not What Most People Think It Is
The octopus submission is a guard-based choke that derives its name from the way the controlling grappler wraps both arms around the opponent's head and neck like tentacles. It is technically classified as a variation of the bow and arrow choke played from closed guard, though it is most commonly associated with no-gi grappling because the lack of a uniform allows your forearms to slide into deeper grooves. I have been rolling for over a decade and the octopus shows up more often in competition than any casual practitioner would expect. It also gets misunderstood constantly by beginners who try to muscle it in and fail every single time. What makes this submission effective is not strength. It is leverage and posture destruction. When you pull the opponent's head down toward your hip while driving your forearm across the carotid arteries, blood flow to the brain cuts off in roughly four to six seconds if the angle is correct. Your arms act as the primary constrictors, hence the octopus imagery, and the grip configuration is what separates a working attempt from a waste of energy.
How The Octopus Choke Actually Works
Start from closed guard. Your legs are locked behind the opponent's back with your feet either hooked on the hips or in a figure-four configuration to neutralize their base. The moment they post a hand against your hip or shoulder to create space, that is your opening. You shoot one arm under their near shoulder and across the back of their neck, gripping your own bicep or triceps tightly. Simultaneously, your other arm reaches over the top, grabbing the far side of their neck or their collar in no-gi scenarios. You then pull both forearms downward toward your chest while framing hard against their skull to cradle their head. The mechanics compress the carotids through a pincer motion rather than cutting off the trachea. It is important to note that choking the windpipe will not tap people as fast as compressing the arteries. This distinction matters more than most instructors admit. Here is what nobody tells you during your first few months of training. The octopus is not primarily a finishing hold. It is a transitional attack that creates cascading problems for whoever is defending it. When an opponent feels the choke loading in, they instinctively stack or shrimp to create space. Both of those movements open other submissions. Stacking them exposes your single leg. Shrimping them widens the angle for your sweep. In my experience, treating the octopus as a finisher instead of a setup tool is the fastest way to get reversed into their guard. I learned this the hard way at a regional no-gi event in 2019 when I spent forty-five seconds grinding for the choke, missed the final adjustment, and ended up on my back with my opponent already in half guard passing my legs. The real depth of this technique lies in the micro-adjustments. Your elbows need to be tucked tightly against your ribs, not flaring out. Flared elbows bleed pressure instantly. Your grips should be high on the back of the neck, ideally below the occiput bone, because gripping higher leaves room for the opponent to breathe and recover. If you are wearing a gi, the collar grip replaces the bare-handed grip and changes the pressure vector entirely. You pull down on the lapel with one hand while choking with the other arm, which multiplies the force by a factor of three or four compared to the no-gi version.
There is a specific edge case that catches almost everyone off guard. When your opponent defends by stacking aggressively and driving their weight down through their head, the standard downward pull completely stalls. The solution is not to pull harder. It is to switch to a cross-face frame. You take the arm that was draped over the top of their neck and convert it into a post. Drive your forearm into their collarbone or jaw while simultaneously threading your bottom arm deeper under their chin. This reclaims space and shifts the choke from a downward squeeze into a lateral compression that they cannot offload by stacking. I have used this adjustment at least a dozen times in competition when the stack defense was the only thing keeping my opponent alive. Another counter-intuitive detail involves foot positioning. Most people think your feet should be fixed on the hips to maintain guard integrity. But if you are chasing the octopus, releasing one foot and stepping it across the opponent's body toward their far hip can actually generate more torque on the choke. You are effectively turning your legs into a lever arm that pulls their upper body sideways while your arms constrict forward. This foot placement also sets up a beautiful sweep if they post hard to escape. The octopus and the sweep become two ends of the same sequence. The main limitation of the octopus submission is that it requires closed guard or a near-closed guard position to set up cleanly. If your opponent has underhooks, has postured up with strong frames, or is actively working for knee cuts and shoulder stands, the octopus becomes nearly impossible to achieve without risking a bad position. I would not recommend attempting it from butterfly guard or spider guard unless your opponent is heavily leaning forward with their posture broken. Even then, the risk of being swept or passed is high. In those scenarios, a guillotine from the top or a straight ankle lock from the bottom is usually the more reliable path to a finish.
Get the Full Details
For practitioners looking to drill this properly, I recommend starting with static resistance. Have your partner give you mild, consistent pressure while you work the grip transitions slowly. Once you can hit the double forearm hook and maintain it against light resistance, move to dynamic drilling where the partner attempts to post and stack at varying speeds. Competition readiness comes much later. The typical timeline from first learning the mechanics to reliably finishing a resisting opponent is somewhere between eight and fourteen months of consistent weekly training, depending on your body type and how often you roll. Smaller grapplers often find it slightly easier to lock in because their shorter forearms create a tighter mechanical angle, but taller athletes can compensate by using longer reach to secure the deep grips before the opponent can adjust. The octopus is one of those techniques that looks flashy on video but is brutally mechanical in execution. It rewards patience, precise grip placement, and an understanding of how defenses feed into your next attack. Treat it as a system rather than a single move and it becomes one of the most dangerous tools in your no-gi arsenal.
