Roger Gracie Teaches His Cross Choke From Mount

Roger Gracie is considered by most people to be one of the top competitors in the grappling world, in this new video Roger breaks down one of his most successful techniques.

The video is in Portuguese, so Sherdog Forum member BJJHooligan was kind enough to translate this:

Props to Sherdog user TrumpetDan for the find

"here, it gets harder. so what i want is to push his elbow to the side. it always creates space, for your hand to get in.

again, you don't have to push his elbow theere to the other side. my hand is already trying to get in even without pushing the elbow, so when i push and create space, my hand is in.

you have to use the arm (the hand) and the body at the same time. you start to move the body, and at the same time i move my arm to the position, i don't stand still moving only my arm, so at the same time i move my arm, my body moves along. i push my legs against the side of his body, to give me balance.

once your hand is in the position, if his hand is still blocking it you can start to pull it out, to have your hand placed between his elbow and his face. so now you start to adjust the collar, open up the space... and make the grip.

now, you make pressure by placing your elbow on your opponent's chest. if i keep my arms straight like this, i give him the chance to defend the position. i'm going to lose the grip and i'll have to restart everything. so i can't leave any space between my arm and his chest because with this posture, i can keep a tight grip on his collar. if there's space and he can pass his arm between, i no longer have access to his neck. i need to let go and restart. so everytime you go for the collar, place your forearm real close to his body. and put your other hand on the floor. with my hand placed on his collar, he's gonna want to gor for the "bridges". so the other hand goes out there on the floor, lined up with his head, so when he starts to "bridge" (roger whispers, asking the dude to "bridge"), that hand will normally give me the balance that i want.

if your hands are not on the floor (Roger whispers for the bridge again), he stopped the "bridge" in the middle, if he had continued i would have been thrown out of the mount. so if your hand is way too far from the floor, you'll fall. and with each "bridge" that he does, check out how much my body moves. now, with my hand on the floor (whispers for the bridge), my body almost doesn't move, my weight is on my hand and this is very important.

now, when i start attacking with the other hand, i'll substitute my hand for my head, to give me the attack that i want. so now, to attack using the other hand, normally his two hands are there to defend and i dont have much space left. what i like to do is putting my elbow on the floor and use only my thumb on his collar to start loosing it*. i want that part of the collar loose, so i can make a good grip. normally, it's real hard for him to keep me from making this grip, because im not even getting close to his neck. the only think that i'm doing, i'm going to turn here for you to see, is holding his collar. so now, even with his hands placed real close to his face, what i'm gonna do is my elbow is gonna slide real close to his head, to remove that blocking hand. 

it works like a Gillette, i want my elbow passing between his fingers and his head, he hardly gets to defend this. i will (Roger stops to adjust his sleeve), don't start with your elbow on his fingers! go there to the tip of his fingers, so now when i make this rotation with my arm, it's almost impossible for him to defend. what you are doing here is you are almost shaving him with your elbow, but you don't have to "shave" him so hard, not hard enought to hurt him, but you want it to be tight. 

so now you are with the grips, forehead on the floor. the same thing as before (whispers for the bridge), his body is moving, see? but my hips are steady. if you try to choke with your head high (whispers for the bridge), i'll be reversed. so everytime you go for the choke, head on the floor, so my hips wont even touch him. he's gonna start "bridging", and my body won't even move at all. but with my hips close to him, that's when he can reverse. when you put your forehead on the floor, my hips go up, his "bridge" doesn't have any effect."