in your opinions which chokes are most effective and ends up less like a neck crank most often? out of these head n arm chokes:
howdy choke
arm triangle
anaconda
darce
obviosuly the rear naked and triangle are highly effective so i'm less concerned with them.
Ahhhh *cracks knuckles* this thread has my name all over it.
I'm assuming by the Howdy choke you mean the Walsh/Monty Phyton (all stupid names) or the arm-triangle Guillotine?
The Peruvian Necktie is one too.
In terms of the neck crank with these chokes, you have to keep a couple things in mind. None of these chokes are neck cranks, although they may put some pressure on the neck, depending on if your opponent's neck is smaller or if you change the angle/pressure of the choke.
Even then, the pressure isn't enough to make it a crank. At least not a crank the way the canopener is a crank. You're never gonna herniate a disk with a Darce, but you can with a canopener, etc.
In judging the effectiveness, you have (in my mind) three basic criteria:
1. Versatility/ease of setups
2. Versatility/ease of finishes
3. The structural power of the arm triangle.
I'll go through the 3 basic ones:
Arm Triangle
Usually the first head-and-arm choke people learn.
1. The setups tend to be very easy. There are also a lot of them. Sure, you can setup the choke from guard or half-guard, but they aren't as solid as the mount or side control/knee-on-belly.
2. There are a lot of finishes, but most people make the mistake of trying to doa bunch of funky figure-four shit with their arms. The classic gable grip finish is still the best in my opinion, and you don't even have to walk your legs away from their body to get it to work. Simply keep your choking elbow and your forehead flat on the mat, hips touching, and flex while breathing and counting to 12/15. The limitation to the arm triangle is that there's really just one secure finish, and that's with you on top off to the side. The bottom finish isn't nearly as secure, but there you may want to try some figure-four arm configurations.
3. The structure of the position is solid, but there is one good avenue of escape where you take your trapped arm and hook it with your free hand behind your close knee and rock forward. This can get me out of most arm triangles, unless I'm dealing with a specialist. You may create a more stable structure by doing a figure-four, but I find it makes the choke itself less effective and can turn into a crank, or at worst, give them more avenues for escape.
Anaconda
Incredibly powerful. Rafael Mendes has taught us that it's also very versatile, in finishes and setups.
1. If you asked me this a year ago I would've said there was one basic setup for the Anaconda, and that's the gator roll. The gator roll is good and effective, but there's a lot of movement involved, and a lot of time for things to go wrong. You can also set the choke up by baseball sliding into the choke, DDTing them overhead, front flipping into it out of half-gaud, finishing from closed guard, etc. Not as versatile as the Darce, but more than people think.
2. There are not a lot of finishes. The main finish is you on your side, with them o their back/side, with you hipping/walking in and squeezing. Sometimes, if that's not enough, you will see people hook a leg or step over to the mount. If your opponent really scrambles or if you can't get the overhead sweep Anaconda, you can finish from full guard, but it's more effective to switch your hands to a Guillotine.
3. It's very hard to escape the Anaconda. Honestly, all of the head-and-arm chokes are structurally strong, and that's why they're so common. I like a lot of the more unorthodox Anaconda setups because most people are taught to defend the choke during the gator roll, so if you don;t do the gator roll as a setup, many people are stuck.
Darce/Brabo
1. Too many setups to count. The position can be gotten from top-half, top-side control, armdrags, bottom-side control, sprawl control from front headlock, standing, etc. From many of these setups you can force them on their side to lock up the position or baseball slide into the choke. There are literally dozens of Darce/Brabo setups.
2. As for finishes, there are 3 main ones. None of the other head-and-arms have 3 distinct finishing positions. There is the main finish where you are on top-side or top-half, etc, and you stay on your knees or sprawl to finish. I have recently learned that this is the worst of the three. The good thing is that you can put weight onto their shoulder, which aids the choke. But watch Chris Weidman try to Darce Andre Galvao. The guy on bottom has room to reguard or lift you with a butterfly hook if he can hold on for a few seconds. The baseball slide Marce/Cooper/Glover finish off the back/side is the next best, because they can't get underneath you. They can still scramble though. The best finish is to get them on their side and step over, either posting a foot or dropping to the mount. Even a knee-on-belly can work. This gives you the tightest choke, and they cannot scramble, because their hips cannot move. Even if you do the Glover setup, you can kind of do a back-roll over your shoulder and land directly on top of them, mounted. The step-over finish is being done by Cobrinha, Ryan Hall, and Rafael Lovato Jr. to name a few. Ryan hall did it to me a hundred times last weekend. Tightest I've ever been choked.
3. The structure is very solid, like the Anaconda. Anything with a figure-four or Mata Leao grip is going to be almost impossible to break once it's cinched in.
I gotta say man, it's hard to rank these in terms of effectiveness. I'm biased to the Darce/Brabo, because it has the most setups and 3 distinct finishing positions that are all very powerful. Most arm triangles, Anacondas, Peruvians, Howdys, are gonna be finished from 1 or maybe 2 positions, and most of them have way less setups than the Darce.
There's a reason in no-gi why after the Triangle and the RNC, the Darce and the Guillotine are the most common chokes. The Anaconda never really caught on in sub grappling as much as it did in MMA, even now. Hopefully, Mendes will change all that. The arm triangle is classic too, and for me, it's great when passing the guard using methods that pin an opponent's hips and knees to one side or the other. It causes a shoulder to lift on either side, and you can get under for the arm triangle.
You gotta play with what you like man. I would say the Darce/Brabo is the most versatile, and then everything else follows, but you have to find what works for you. Some people (not many) hate the Brabo/Darce. Also, even someone says you're tweaking their neck with these chokes, that doesn't mean you aren't blocking off their arteries.