So lately I have been trying to work both of these chokes into my GI game. I understand that both of these are easier to apply with no gi because the gi makes tightening the choke more difficult.
My question is which one do you guys have more success in applying in the gi game?
For me getting to the anaconda is easier because it seems to be easier to push their head against their arm then it is in the darce where you have push the arm against the head (or to make it simpler take your free arm to pull their head into their arm).
But I also (probably wrong here) seem to believe that once the Darce is applied, it seems to be a tighter choke then the anaconda.
I don't know, my one particular instructor does not go over many of these chokes that are more suited for the no gi game so I was just wondering all of your thoughts.
Everyone knows I probably have an unhealthy obsession with chokes, especially the Darce. I could go on about this for pages and pages. I'll try to keep it simple though.
In gi or no-gi, the Darce is going to be easier to get than the Anaconda (unless you're Rafael Mendes.) There are a couple big reasons for this:
1. To get the Anaconda, you have to have a front headlock, or even at a higher Mendes-type level, you have to be able to position yourself directly in-line with their head. That's what makes him so good at the Anaconda. He can flip, sweep, scramble, and somersault into angles where he's in-line with the head, even if it's not in a traditional "sprawling front headlock" situation. The Darce does not require that you be lines up with the head. You can attack the Darce from angles, and that automatically gives you way more setup options. Think about how many positions you can get the Darce from. Just to name a handful: turtle, top-half, top-side, bottom butterfly, top butterfly, 50/50, bottom side control, mount, etc.
2. To get the Anaconda choke, you have to pass an arm across their neck and outside their shoulder. You're passing your arm in front of their face and chest. This presents two problems. The first is that they can see the arm going across faster than they can with the Darce, so they have more time to defend. The second reason is that they have two arms that they can use to stop your attacking arm/s while keeping their elbows close to their core (center of power.) The Darce goes from the outside-in, where there are no arms to stop the attack. Since it's harder to see the arm shoot through, you generally have less time to defend, and it's easier as the attacker to get your arms in position, even when they devote their arms to stopping the attack.
If you have an easier time with the Anaconda, that's fine. But from a technical standpoint, the Darce is generally easier.
Now in the gi, I find them both very hard, and the only naked chokes I use with regularity are the Marcelo Guillotine and the N/S choke.
EDIT: It is actually very rare to see Anaconda chokes in high level no-gi competiton, while it is quite common to see the Darce. In terms of the most popular chokes in no-gi, the Darce is right up there with the Triangle, RNC, and Guillotine. More people might get finished with the Arm Triangle, I don't know, but the Darce is attempted more from all the footage I watch post-2006. It's definitely a super-high percentage move in submission grappling, while the Anaconda, like I said, is very rare. Maybe it will make a comeback after Rafael Mendes' use of it at the 2009 ADCC, but that remains to be seen. A lot of his entries and setups are hard to train, and are based on timing and attributes like speed and explosiveness. For example, he will front flip over someone's head while standing or in half-guard and lock up the Anaconda as he's falling, or he'll over-head sweep someone and lock up the choke as they're falling. He did a front somersault into it off a single leg against Cobrinha. These aren't exactly easy things to drill.