The arm triangle and the heart attack choke are two high percentage strangleholds that you can set up from a regular side control.

A sensible defence against the shoulder of justice is to try the Crowbar of Freedom (pushing your forearm against the top guy’s throat prevents him putting all his weight into a SoJ) as Conor tries here.

However, if you push too much, it’s easy to pop the elbow and start setting up an Arm Triangle.

All you’re doing here is a quick push with your hand and then quickly getting your head down so the guy on bottom can’t pull their elbow back down.

Work your near side arm (the shoulder of justice arm – right arm in the pictures) through as deep as you can go. You’re aiming to have your elbow visible from the far side, that’s how deep you should be aiming for. Once through, grab your left bicep in and tighten up your grip as much as possible. The tighter you set this up at the start, the easier it is to finish.

An alternate grip is shown below. With this grip, it’s important to try and squeeze your elbows together through his body to keep it tight. Experiment and see which grip works best for you.

Once you’ve tightened up as much as you can from side control, switch to mount. Don’t jump into mount, as this is a surefire way to get put back in guard/half-guard. Slide the knee across his stomach. Again, try to tighten up the strangle here by bringing your elbows closer together. Pushing in with your hips also makes it difficult for your opp to breather. If you’re patient you can finish the strangle from here.

But I’m not a patient man, so dismounting to the far side is the way to go. You can jump out of mount safely enough.

You need to get your body high up on his chest. See the difference between the two photos below. The top one is too loose, and this will lead to problems trying to finish the arm triangle.

After dismounting, tighten up your arms once more (this cannot be overstated in importance). And begin to walk around his head. You’re now pulling up his head but pushing your chest into his, closing his windpipe. Keep walking until he taps.

Alt view: Your opponent is still somewhat mobile here, as you haven’t blocked out his hips, so he can readjust if you only move a little bit. You should aim to run you legs right the way around. He’ll generally tap around 12/1 o’clock.

To turn that arm triangle into a Heart Attack, you need to dismount into a knee ride position. The hand grip is better suited to a heart attack over the bicep grip.

Pushing with the knee and pulling with the arms produces a nasty feeling – almost like you’re having a Heart Attack! If you push the knee into the ribs it’s less stable but more painful on your opp. Pushing your knee into the belly/sternum will stop him inhaling, and usually guarantee a slower (but less satisfying submission)