Techniques to Try: Defense against a front choke

Please note that we are NOT the original writers of this blog post. All credit goes to the original writers. Find the original post as published at this link: http://invictaselfdefense.blogspot.com/2013/06/techniques-to-try-defense-against-front.html

This is not a good place to end up. Ever. 
You’ve got very little time to react and you will need to get air immediately.  Very few empty-hand attacks will put you in as much danger, and you will need to react to the threat right away. 

Front choke

Fig. 2 – Yellow (carotid arteries), green (trachea), blue (carotid artery and trachea)

There are 3 things that can be happening when you’re being choked: 
a) You’re losing oxygenated blood into the brain if pressure is being applied to the carotid arteries (yellow line in fig.  2). This can make you pass out, but it can lead to brain damage and, of course, death. 
B) Air is not being allowed into the lungs if the trachea in the front of the neck has been blocked (green line)
c) It’s possible that both the trachea and the carotid artery/arteries are being influenced (blue lines).

You have very little time before you pass out from a choke (literally moments ), so it’s good to be familiar with a couple of defenses against a front choke: 

1. GET AIR 

• One way which you can decrease the pressure on your trachea/carotid arteries is to flex your neck muscles. Flexing the muscles engages them and forces them to expand and provide some protection for your trachea and arteries. The same as the picture on the right here, you can flex your neck muscles by turning the corners of your mouth downward, and by concentrating on earning your neck feel tight and powerful. You need to see your neck looks, and if you feel that your neck before and after you flex it, there should be a noticeable difference. It should feel tender when your neck is relaxed; it feels much harder, when you have flexed your muscles. 

• Your palms will naturally come up to your attacker’s hands since you obviously want to pull them away from the neck. Use that inclination to pluck away their hands just enough to get some air, and strike hard. Just like the saying”a rolling stone gathers no moss” suggests, it is tough to hold onto someone who’s moving a lot. Here, this woman is really doing is windmilling her arm (and if it does not work for you the first time, windmill over and over and again and HARD), and she strikes after.